“Fraternal Relations: Idioms of Kinship and Modes of Cooperation in Mongolian-Soviet trans-border Resource Governance”

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Dr Joseph Bristley
• Friday 26 April 2024, 14:00-15:00
• Keynes Lecture Theatre, King’s College (and online) .

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Said Reza Huseini.

Zoom Link if you wish to join online: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrceCrqjkoE9N12Rmmfpgrr4crq3TvTyVp

From environmental activism to international law, ‘cooperation’ between states is widely seen as key to protecting the environment from anthropogenic harm. Emphasising working together over the pursuit of self-interested goals, cooperation is imagined both as a method for managing water resources, and a description of the collaboration involved. But how cooperation is actually imagined and practiced in everyday life is not anthropologically well explored. This paper draws on historical and ethnographic material from Mongolia to examine how practices of joint water management were enacted between this country and the Soviet Union. Focussing on ideas of ‘fraternal relations’ between these two socialist countries during the second half of the twentieth century, it examines how kin relations were appropriated to frame the enaction of inter-state cooperation in environmental management. The material on which this paper is based relates to the Selenge river (Mon. Selenge mörön; Russ. reka Selenga), a major Asian transboundary river which rises in Mongolia’s western highlands before crossing the Russian border and flowing into lake Baikal.

This talk is part of the King's Silk Roads series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Keynes Lecture Theatre, King’s College (and online)
• King's Silk Roads

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.