Metamorphoses «At the Ends of the Earth»: Telengit Transitive Society at Solitary Village

Abstract

The article focuses on the interdisciplinary analysis of the transformation processes in social situation of development of local people in the territorially detached community (a case study of the Yazula village of Ulagan region of the Altai Republic) through comparison of expeditionary materials of 2003 and 2019 years. The research is conducted within the framework of cultural-historical psychology and based on the methodological principle of metaposition. The analysis demonstrates that increasing of cultural diversity dictates the need for self-determination of locals and their families on behavioral level and complicates the structure of their social identity, including a problem of ethnocultural and religious self-identification. These processes provide the experiencing of insecurity of locals in front of the “outside world” and strengthen preservation of life-important rituals and sacred elements of ethnic culture.