F15 Mapping for Cultural Resurgence: Repatriating Geographical Knowledge of Kamchatka’s Indigenous Peoples through Restorative Re-Mapping of Materials from Early Scientific Expeditions

The Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East was one of the last territories to become part of Russia during its colonization of Siberia. Here Russians came into contact with its Indigenous peoples - nomadic Koryaks and settled Itelmens. Just like other Indigenous peoples of Russia and the rest of the world, they faced the terrible consequences of colonization. They were forcibly baptized, Russified and expelled from their ancestral territories. Nowadays, Indigenous knowledge here is largely forgotten. This study will attempt to help the Indigenous peoples of Kamchatka repatriate this knowledge by focusing on geographic knowledge, mainly among the Itelmens. In cooperation with them, the original geographic knowledge of the Indigenous peoples will be mapped based on the records of the first Russian colonizers, with special attention to Stepan Krasheninnikov. The mapped knowledge can then potentially be used by the Indigenous peoples of Kamchatka in their ongoing cultural resurgence