Dumont, A., Lavrillier, A., & Gabyshev, S. (2024). When Chinese and Russian Evenki Meet: Transborder Reindeer Herders’ Cross-Views: First Part: In China. Inner Asia, 26(1), 29-57. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-02601003 (hal-04596524)

Based on a collaboration between two anthropologists specialising in China and Siberia, an Evenki reindeer herder and co-researcher from Russia and Evenki reindeer herders from China, as well as on fieldwork data gathered separately from the 1990s and collectively in 2014, this paper examines the cross-views of the Evenki from both sides of the Sino-Russian border. Using what we call a ‘cross-view methodology’, we explore what emerged when this transborder people gather for the first in China after decades of separation. After our methodology, we present the Chinese and Russian Evenki’s recent ethnohistory, their specificities, and common features. We then analyse the intellectuals’ meetings of the 2000s and the reindeer herders’ mutual interests. We explore some cross-views allowed by the pan-Evenki encounters we organised in 2014: the role of Evenki language, human-nature relationships, hunting and reindeer herding, identities, and a real or symbolic ‘porosity’ of a border.