Trapped in Double-Irrelevancy: (Re)-Production of Ethnicity in Interactions between Census-Takers and Their Respondents Based on Results of Observations during 2021 All-Russian Census in Dagestan

Abstract

The article presents the results of an anthropological study of the Russian 2021 census in Dagestan. The study focuses on (re-) constructing ethnicity in interactions between census-takers and their respondents. The primary research method was observation. Besides, a series of interviews with different census participants was held. Altogether the interactions were studied in 73 households in five locations within a 100-km radius from Makhachkala. According to the study results, the sense of census was unclear for most of the census participants.

The exact census procedures were different from location to location. Moreover, they seriously deviated from the official instructions, and a substantial share of information has been filled in based on census-takers background knowledge of the location. It was the context of interactions which regarded “ethnic” questions. The census-takers were bothered with the number of “same questions,” which were the questions about the known language, the native language and the “natsionalnost” (nationality). It was even more strange for them in contrast with the unimportance of “ethnic” matter, as they considered it. As a result, most “ethnic” questions were filled in based on background knowledge or the answer to only one question per household. This information, however, stuck to a very clear rule, according to which “natsionalnost” of a person is the same as his father’s “natsionalnost” and never mother’s. At the same time, the native language is the language of “natsionalnost” notwithstanding a person’s actual knowledge of this language. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for contemporary constructivist theories of ethnicity.

 Acknowledgements. The article is based on research within the framework of the RANEPA state task for 2022.