Varfolomeeva, Anna

This paper focuses on the concept of creativity in miners’ encounters with ornamental stones. It aims to extend the analysis of creative practices to the sphere of heavy industrial labor. The paper views creativity as a combination of discursive and material elements formed under the influence of dominant discourses but simultaneously emerging through interactions between gendered bodies, stone, and industrial machines. To analyze the formation of creative practices in industrial settings, the paper discusses the case study of indigenous Veps miners in Northwestern Russia. Since the 1920s, Veps men and women have been employed at Soviet state-managed stone quarries producing rare ornamental stones, gabbro-diabase and raspberry quartzite. The experience in stone extraction, cutting, polishing, and loading had strong effects on miners’ bodies resulting in gender-specific illnesses. At the same time, many Veps miners see their work in the quarries as a creative activity that allows them to get recognition as skilled professionals.  Both stones have been used for the construction and decoration of well-known Russian buildings, and the miners view the demand for diabase and quartzite as a symbol of their own value as stone producers. The paper demonstrates that heavy industrial labor produces a distinct type of creative entanglement that combines endurance and affection in everyday engagements between workers and materials. The research is based on participant observation and interviews conducted in Veps villages of Karelia, Northwestern Russia, as well as the analysis of Soviet-time and post-Soviet local newspapers.

Anna Varfolomeeva is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Arts and Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), University of Helsinki. Her postdoctoral project focuses on indigenous conceptualizations of sustainability in industrial settings. Anna defended her PhD in 2019 at the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University in Budapest. In 2019 – 2020, she was an Assistant Professor at the School of Advanced Studies, University of Tyumen in Siberia. Anna is the co-editor of the volume Multispecies Households in the Saian Mountains: Ecology at the Russia-Mongolia Border (with Alex Oehler, 2019). She has published on indigenous relations with extractive industries and the symbolism of mining and infrastructure in Northwestern Russia and Siberia. Since 2021, Anna works as the Secretary of Social and Human Working Group at the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC).

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