Institutional Transformation In Reindeer Herding Industry Based On Economic Behavior

Abstract

Paper analyzes systemic studies of the traditional economic activity and way of life of the indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North. Research into the Reindeer Herding Industry has been conducted in order to gain information on their management and to develop a socially-oriented strategy conducive to overcoming the accumulated problems. Institutional transformation is a mechanism through which the accumulated problems of herding can be addressed, and the industry can be shifted from a pattern of regression towards evolutionary development. Institutional transformation is based in the ethnic and economic features of the reindeer herding family and ancestral households and directed towards correcting the defects of the legal system and the system of herding management. The conflict between the needs of family and ancestral farms, the resources of the traditional economy, and the established institutions pose challenges – ideological (political), social, economic, and ecological – to the system of management. The organizational model for institutional transformation in the reindeer herding industry is founded on the confirmation of the private farm as the primary legal form of organization for reindeer herding, supplemented by competence centers, reindeer herding parks, the legal, organizational entity of the agricultural consumer cooperative, and novel measures of state support for family and traditional households. These findings indicate a connection between the problems of reindeer herding, indigenous peoples, and national settlements. Accordingly, projects aimed at solving the problems in the spheres of the traditional way of life must function jointly on the social, ecological, and economic levels.