Lifestyle of People Living in Harsh Climatic and Geographical Conditions

Abstract

The goal of the present empirical study was to describe the lifestyle of people who have to live in harsh climatic and geographical conditions. The research featured the people of Kamchatka and involved several stages. During the first stage, the author obtained descriptive characteristics of the environment in question based on self-reports of respondents. The interviewed included those satisfied with their living conditions and those willing to leave Kamchatka. The lifestyle features were grouped into the differential assessment of environmental characteristics and the factors that directly affect the construction of one's individual lifestyle, e.g. climate, or the so-called geophysical factor, society, household, economy, etc. During the second stage, the author identified the nuclear and peripheral lifestyle structures typical of individuals that have to live in harsh conditions. The nuclear lifestyle structure consisted of characteristics that reflected activity, emotional assessment, safety, meanings, and truth. These features were associated with the direct implementation of specific goals, motives, and needs. The content and structural components of one's lifestyle appeared to be affected by one's chronotopes, or space-time structures. A time construct proved to build itself into one’s individual lifestyle, which led to a special type of constructing relationships heading from the past to the present and the future. This specific feature also determined the assessment of one’s life activities.