SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND RESOURCE FACTORS OF THE EMERGENCE OF NETWORK PROTEST OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE RUSSIAN NORTH (ON THE EXAMPLE OF YANAO)

The article examines social changes among reindeer herdsmen in Yamal that have provided the phenomenon of online opposition community “the Voice of Tundra”. The prevailing approach to social processes among Nenets tun- dra native people should be reconsidered according to the authors of the article. Based on the inputs provided with the help of field studies performed in Yamal- Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YNAO) in 2017–2019 the authors have formulated “the Yamal paradox”. The real reasons for the “Yamal paradox” are due to accumu- lated problems that have not been adequately resolved for a long time. First of all, it is unemployment among indigenous youth with a demographic growth among the Nenets. To this we can add the uncertainty of the life prospects of nomadic reindeer herders in the atmosphere of accelerated industrial development of the region, as well as the crisis of indigenous leadership and official organizations of indigenous peoples. Population growth among Nenets reindeer herdsmen, dou- bling of reindeer in number and intense industrialization of the region as well have led to a clash in interest of expanding fuel and energy complex and growing nomadic populations. The fundamental precondition of the unintended conflict was the land-resource issue. It was associated with the alienation and industrial development of the tundra lands, which the natives used as pastures for centuries. The process of re-valuation of the key issues and challenges that communities of indigenous people have come across as a result of quick transformation of YNAO into the new oil-and-gas province of Russia can be demonstrated due to the outcomes achieved. Re-valuating and attitudinal changing of native people have contributed to indigenous resistance. New media such as social network “VKontakte” have become a means of transmitting indigenous voice and anxiety.