From the Field to the Archive: А Methodology of the Creation and Bureaucratic Accountability of Ethnographic Materials in Late Soviet Ethnography

Abstract

This article examines the ideas of Soviet ethnographers from Moscow academic institutions regarding the creation, processing, and storage of field materials through the lens of two characteristics of the discipline: 1) the institutional affiliation of Soviet ethnography with the historical sciences, and 2) the bureaucratic system of the Institute of Ethnography of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, which required accountability of the results of fieldwork. The author argues that the two established characteristics of field materials — as documents for bureaucratic accountability and as historical sources — were shaped under the influence of the concept of the archive: on the one hand, as an outcome of the discipline’s understanding of ethnographic knowledge as historical, and on the other, as a tool for the management and systematisation of that knowledge. The discussion draws on two case studies from the history of central ethnographic institutions: the methodological recommendations for creating and processing of field ethnographic materials formalised in Gennady Gromov’s guide Methodology of Ethnographic Expeditions (Moscow State University, 1966), and the establishment of the Field Committee at the Moscow Institute of Ethnography in 1970 to control the expedition process and the organisation of archival storage of its results. In both cases, the author highlights how the concept of the archive was articulated in these contexts. The conclusion addresses the limitations of implementing this system of accountability, notwithstanding the symbolic role of the centralised storage of ethnographic materials.