Identity, Culture, Land, and Language: Stories of Insurgent Planning in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia

Abstract

Indigenous peoples have been struggling to maintain or regain rights to land, identity, and culture in the face of colonialism. In Russia, government policies have pushed European Russian/Soviet nationalism in an attempt to diminish or erase non-European identity. But there has been insurgency. We present the case of Buryat historical and contemporary insurgent planning. We contextualize indigenous insurgent planning using colonialism and identity as backdrops. Drawing on sixteen months of ethnographic study and review of historical sources, we tell the stories of how many Buryats use dynamic indigenous identities combined with appropriated Russian nomenclature to resist and negotiate postmodern imperialism.

Full text

http://jpe.sagepub.com/
Journal of Planning Education and Research
http://jpe.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/09/22/0739456X10381997
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X10381997
published online 22 September 2010Journal of Planning Education and Research
Elizabeth L. Sweet and Melissa Chakars
Identity, Culture, Land, and Language: Stories of Insurgent Planning in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
can be found at:Journal of Planning Education and ResearchAdditional services and information for
http://jpe.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:
http://jpe.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Journal of Planning Education and Research
XX(X) 1 –12
© The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X10381997
http://jper.sagepub.com
Identity, Culture, Land, and
Language: Stories of Insurgent Planning
in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia
Elizabeth L. Sweet1 and Melissa Chakars2
Abstract
Indigenous peoples have been struggling to maintain or regain rights to land, identity, and culture in the face of colonialism.
In Russia, government policies have pushed European Russian/Soviet nationalism in an attempt to diminish or erase
non-European identity. But there has been insurgency. We present the case of Buryat historical and contemporary
insurgent planning. We contextualize indigenous insurgent planning using colonialism and identity as backdrops. Drawing
on sixteen months of ethnographic study and review of historical sources, we tell the stories of how many Buryats use
dynamic indigenous identities combined with appropriated Russian nomenclature to resist and negotiate postmodern
imperialism.
Keywords
insurgent planning, indigenous, Russia, culture, Buryatia, colonialism
Indigenous peoples around the world have been struggling
to maintain, gain, or regain rights to land, resources, and cul-
ture in the face of colonialism and what some now call con-
temporary colonialism or postmodern imperialism (Alfred
and Corntassel 2005, 597; Coombs 1994, 39). The negative
social, economic, and political conditions suffered by indige-
nous peoples in the context of colonialism globally have been
intractable even in the postcolonial period. In many cases,
indigenous people have suffered at the hands of state directed
planning and policy making, and this has led to the degrada-
tion of indigenous rights (Porter 2006). However, indigenous
peoples do undertake a wide variety of planning efforts in
order to negotiate and respond to these top-down policies.
Throughout Russian and Soviet history, indigenous groups
resisted attempts to assimilate them into mainstream Russian
and Soviet culture and society, while at the same time recon-
structing their identities in contemporary society. Currently,
in the Russian Federation, indigenous groups are contesting a
strong policy of centralization that threatens to dissolve eth-
nically based territorial units, which have been central elements
of indigenous identity and organization. Under Vladimir Putin,
and now Dmitry Medvedev, indigenous regions are being
merged into larger neighboring territories. In the lands of the
indigenous Buryats, insurgent planning continues to chal-
lenge these processes. The term insurgent planning refers to
grassroots planning that often challenges state directed plan-
ning and policy making. In the case of the Buryats, Buryat
insurgent planners have used identity, language, land, and
traditional culture to drive this kind of planning.
We present here a history of insurgent planning in the
Republic of Buryatia. We explore Buryat resistance to gov-
ernment centralization and assimilation policies that existed
in the Russian Imperial and Soviet states and currently exists
in the Russian Federation. We document Buryat insurgent
planning movements that have been defying the “culture-
blind” attempts to unify Russia under a Eurocentric model of
economic development and social mainstreaming. This case
study contributes to the theoretical and methodological lit-
erature on the decolonization of planning theory (Miraftab
2009; Yiftachel 2006; J. Peters 2003; Sandercock 1998; Jojola
1998). In the following pages, we first review the literature
on insurgent planning and colonialism as it relates to indige-
nous identity. Then we present a historical review of Buryatia
as a case of insurgent planning and demonstrate how insur-
gent planning is being practiced in Buryatia.
Initial submission, March 2010; revised submissions, June and July 2010; final
acceptance, July 2010
1Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
2Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Elizabeth L. Sweet, Temple University, Department of Geography and
Urban Studies, 309 Gladfelter Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA
Email: bsweet@temple.edu
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

2 Journal of Planning Education and Research XX(X)
We argue that in the context of pre-Soviet (pre-1917) and
Soviet (1917-1991) imperialism and colonialism and post-
Soviet (1991-present) postmodern imperialism, indigenous
insurgent planners are decolonizing planning; by doing so,
they are not wholesale rejecting the West or the colonizer but
are offering a more nuanced appropriation of some aspects
of Russian substance to advance their cause. That is, this
case of insurgent planning is not completely oppositional.
Similarly, North American indigenous people have “selec-
tively interact[ed] with others and adapted to change” (Jojola
1998, 100). Also, we contend that cultural identity was/is
an important motivation and tool of insurgency. Finally, we
examine the implications of this case for planning research.
We encourage planning scholars and practitioners to recog-
nize and respect the dynamic nature of cultural identities
and their transformation in colonial or postmodern imperi-
alist contexts as they study and plan. Limiting our under-
standing of groups to narrow interpretations based on
assumptions of cultural purity and static, singular stories of
cultural identity prevent us from engaging more fully with
different groups.
We draw on our combined sixteen months of research in
the Republic of Buryatia. We used participant observation
that included formal and informal interviews with Buryats
involved in the resistance movements. In addition, we applied
a historical approach by using archival materials as well
as Russian- and English-language secondary sources. One
author received a Fulbright scholar award for a period of
seven months, and the other received a nine-month disserta-
tion research grant from the American Councils for Interna-
tional Education. Our nonoverlapping fieldwork started in
August 2004 and ended in March 2006. We were based in
Ulan-Ude, which is the capital city of the Republic of Burya-
tia located about ninety kilometers east of the lower tip of
Lake Baikal (see Figure 1). During the participant observation,
both authors developed relationships with people involved in
the resistance movement as well as others not directly involved
in the movement. We observed or participated in planning
meetings, academic conferences, informal gatherings, shaman
and Buddhist temple ceremonies, and demonstrations; and
one of us taught classes at Buyrat State University. One of us
also conducted historical research in the National Archives
of the Republic of Buryatia in Ulan-Ude.
Insurgent Planning
Since the 1970s, insurgent planning has been an emerging part
of planning theory (Grabow and Heskin 1973; Friedmann 1987,
1992; Lane 2001; Lane and Hibbard 2005; Beard 2002), and
there are new historical interpretations that suggest insurgent
Russia
Ulan Ude
Lake Baikal
The Republic of Buryatia
Figure 1. Map of Russia and the Republic of Buryatia
Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Outline_Map_of_Buryatia_(with_position_on_the_Map_of_Russia).svg/800px-
Outline_Map_of_Buryatia_(with_position_on_the_Map_of_Russia).svg.png.
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Sweet and Chakars 3
planning has existed but has been unrecognized as such
(Sandercock 1998; Dubrow and Corbin Sies 2002). Insur-
gent planning is a critical response to centralized, sometimes
change-resistant, and elitist forms of planning that usually
reflect a top-down style of governance. Insurgent planning
promotes system changes, decentralized government, com-
munal society, and human development, all in the context of
sustainability. Sandercock explains,
Insurgent planning is insurgent by virtue of challeng-
ing existing relations of power in some form. Thus it
goes beyond “participation” in a project defined by the
state. It operates in some configuration of political
power, and must formulate strategies of action. Insur-
gent planning practices may be stories of resistances,
and not always successful . . . of resilience . . . or of
reconstruction. (1999, 41)
Friedmann wrote that planning was in a state of crisis as it
confronted new and volatile trends of globalization and political
configurations. He suggested that we needed new models
of production, reclamation of territorial life, collective self-
production, and decentralized political power (1987). Insurgent
planning is a theory that tries to explain a response to the
challenges of globalization and inequality.
Theorists offer examples of insurgent planning at both the
macro and micro levels. They present an approach that includes
synthesis of consciousness and action—a process for evolu-
tion to become conscious of itself, implying a linear process.
Risk taking is also an important factor and is always encom-
passed with learning as the aim along with a constant process
of understanding, evaluation, and reformulation. Miraftab
(2009, 33) describes insurgent planning in South Africa as
“counter-hegemonic, transgressive, and imaginative . . .
counter hegemonic in that [it] destabilizes the normalized
order of things; . . . transgress[ing] time and place by locat-
ing historical memory and transnational consciousness.”
Authors also offer concrete, empirical examples of insurgent
planning. Beard (2002) researches insurgent planning in
Indonesia, where a community constructed a library that
became a vehicle for raising the consciousness of the com-
munity, which in turn inspired insurgent planning activities
by residents. Mier (2005) argues that in the state of Israel, the
Bedouin practice insurgent planning by setting up settle-
ments, naming them with signs, and supporting local gover-
nance within them. What most depictions of insurgent
planning have in common is a linear trajectory and an oppo-
sitional context, which may not be a complete picture of
how insurgent planning is practiced. The Buryats have been
engaging in insurgent planning in an attempt to claim, retain,
and regain indigenous land and cultural rights. We argue that
in the context of imperialist, Soviet, and postmodern imperi-
alist regimes, identity, language, land, and traditional culture
are the central tenets of the local indigenous insurgent planning
in the Republic of Buryatia, but there is also selective accep-
tance of nonindigenous identity, language, and cultural tradi-
tions in the process. That is, not all insurgent planning is
com pletely oppositional. Insurgent planning here has also
had starts and stops, periods of intense multilayered activity,
and periods of relative inactivity.
Colonialism, Indigenous Identity,
and Insurgent Planning
To understand Buryat insurgent planning, we must examine
contemporary relationships and the power hierarchies of rel-
evant groups and governance structures, which can be appre-
ciated by considering colonialism and identity. Several theorists
characterize colonialism as informal imperialism (Stromberg
2006, 82) and argue convincingly that what indigenous peo-
ple are now experiencing is contemporary colonialism or
postmodern imperialism (Alfred and Corntassel 2005, 597).
Contemporary forms of postmodern imperialism attempt
to confine the expression of indigenous peoples’ right to
self-determination to a set of domestic authorities operating
within the constitutional framework of the state (as opposed
to the right of having an autonomous and global standing)
and actively seek to sever indigenous links to their ancestral
homelands (Alfred and Corntassel 2005, 603).
Porter (2006, 393), in her work with indigenous people
in Australia, has persuasively argued that the historical
underpinnings of planning “makes manifest epistemologi-
cal and ontological philosophies about place, identity and
governances that are colonial in their roots and their ongo-
ing specificity.”
Methods of forced indigenous assimilation, often precipi-
tated by overarching nationalism, have taken place through-
out the world under the implementation of colonialism and
imperialism. For example, starting in the nineteenth century
and lasting for more than one hundred years in some cases,
boarding schools for indigenous children in Canada, the
United States, and Australia carried out policies designed to
destroy the indigenous cultural identities of the children. In
the Soviet Union, the creation of a forced, class-based social
system worked to hide or destroy indigenous identity. Efforts
have been and are afoot to erase differences or prod assimi-
lation into European structures of race, gender, and class
(Bonilla-Silva 2006).
One view of the indigenous resistance to colonialism
and imperialism distinguishes between tactical and strategic
resistance. Eudaily (2004) uses de Certeau’s work in the con-
text of Foucault to describe the difference:
Tactical resistance is exercised from the “space of the
other . . . it must play off and within a terrain imposed on
it and organized by the law of a foreign power,” while
strategic resistance begins in “a place that can be delim-
ited as its own and serve as a base from which the
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

4 Journal of Planning Education and Research XX(X)
relations of the exteriority composed of targets or threats
. . . can be managed.” (de Certeau, The Practice of
Everyday Life, 35, 37, as cited in Eudaily 2004, 11-13)
Eudaily (2004, 12) warns, however, that the distinction between
tactic and strategic is not an “a priori definitions” but instead
a tool of inquiry. For our purposes, these terms highlight the
complicated and nuanced ways that insurgent planning may
be examined: as a series of internal activities that challenges
or responds to dominant outsiders and outside activities that
are carried out from a point of exile.
Rima Wilkes uses social movement criteria to analyze
indigenous resistance or political mobilization. Wilkes (2006,
514) specifies the achievements of the Red Power/American
Indian Movement as an example of tactical resistance. Buryat
resistance, however, is not adequately explained by the tactical/
strategic binary terms. This bifurcation may prevent us
from describing the multiple positions of power and multiple
resistance strategies over time. In the case of the Republic of
Buryatia, the place and conditions of insurgent planning allow
us to examine strategic and tactical resistance that occurs
simultaneously, rather than sequentially. The metaphor of
a painter’s layered palette can suggest the configuration:
Buryat insurgent planners are not following a linear process
as Beard (2002) suggests, of first covert and then insurgent
planning (first the library was constructed, covert planning,
and then it provided a place for insurgent planning to occur),
but a mix and match of insurgent planning approaches as a
painter uses colors from his or her palette.
Some authors have focused on identity as a key compo-
nent of resistance and have explored the notions of “people-
hood” and the “fourth world” as challenges to colonial definitions
of native peoples (Alfred and Corntassel 2005). Perkinson
and Mendoza (2004) suggest that resistance can be seen as
seeking
instead a re-rooting of the nationalist vision not in the
promise of bankable credit cards nor in the liberality of
the market but in the return to the indigenous culture’s
resources, i.e., to its ancient wisdom, strength, vitality
and originality as encoded in its many languages and
local communities. (p. 132)
Perkinson and Mendoza’s account of resistance is important
in the tapestry of Buryat insurgent planning. Perreault (2003),
Radcliffe and Laurie (2006), and Valdivia (2005) have
also evoked indigenous identity as an important focal point
of contestation over development and governance in Latin
America. Perreault observes that the dominant ideologies of
democracy and citizenship have failed to include indigenous
people. He argues that
it is through the very idiom of development that
indigenous organizations . . . contest dominant and
exclusionary understandings of national belonging. . . .
[Indigenous organizing constructs] a regional identity
rooted in spatial parameters of ethnic territory and anchored
by shared indigenous tradition. (p. 602)
We will see that “spatial parameters of ethnic territory” are
central to Buryat insurgent planning.
Valdivia focuses on the implications of indigenous identi-
ties as lying outside a neoliberal context. She challenges
the widespread notion that indigenous people are resisting
“modern” ways completely. She argues that there are nuances
that complicate resistance and that there is some acceptance
of “modern ways of life as a means to empowerment” even
if not complete acceptance (2005, 298). Coombs (1994, 95)
suggests that “far from being hidebound by tradition and
hostile to change, aborigines are innovative, flexible and
pragmatic.” The dichotomy of accept/resist should be reex-
amined with an understanding of the intricate web of genera-
tional experiences that constitute indigenous identity as well
as perspectives on insurgent planning. Radcliffe and Laurie
(2006) continue this line of thought by suggesting that both
indigenous identity and development have culturally embed-
ded practices in which meanings are changing as well as
being place- and time-specific. Chimamanda Adichie (2009)
also warns us of the “dangers of a single story” that lead to
default understandings of situations based on static and lone
discourses of identity. To tell the stories of insurgent plan-
ning in Buryatia, we are embracing multiple identities and
perspectives over time and place.
Buryat Autonomy in Imperial Russia
The Buryats are a Mongolian people and live in the vicinity of
Lake Baikal in southern Siberia. Since the nineteenth century,
the Buryat intelligentsia have debated the role of the Buryats
in an increasingly modernizing and homogenizing world. The
Buryats’ position along the trade routes between east and west
exposed them early on to both European and Asian religions
and cultures. While the Buryats to the west of Lake Baikal
experienced greater contact with Russian Orthodoxy and set-
tled Russian European peasants, the eastern Buryats, situated
more closely to other Mongols and Inner Asians, practiced
nomadism and had greater exposure to Buddhism. Although
both eastern and western Buryats traditionally practiced—and
many still practice—shamanism, in the second half of the sev-
enteenth century Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist missionar-
ies were successful at gaining many converts. By 1917, there
were as many as sixteen thousand Buddhist lamas and thirty-
six Buddhist monasteries in Buryat areas. Although the expan-
sion of Buddhism occurred largely east of Lake Baikal, it also
began to spread to the west of the lake in the nineteenth cen-
tury (Forsyth 1992, 170; Montgomery 2005, 67-72). How-
ever, many Buryats then—and now—simultaneously practiced
both shamanism and Buddhism.
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Sweet and Chakars 5
The Buryats gained significant autonomy in the early
nineteenth century under a plan by Mikhail Speranskii, the
governor-general of Siberia. Speranskii developed the Stat-
ute of Alien Administration in 1822 that gave the Buryats
legal rights to govern themselves through Steppe Dumas.
Speranskii’s legislation allowed for the freedom of religion
and the right to establish and attend schools in one’s own
language. It also guaranteed land possessions and introduced
unregulated trade. These laws provided the Buryats and
some of the other indigenous Siberians with a significant
amount of cultural and administrative autonomy (Hundley
1984; Raeff 1969).
The Speranskii system worked well for the Buryats for
most of the nineteenth century. However, the Buryats increas-
ingly came into conflict over land with Russian European
peasants who moved to Siberia in greater numbers after the
emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and the construction of the
Trans-Siberian Railway from 1891 to 1905. By the early
1920s, the Buryats made up only 43 percent of the popula-
tion in their lands. The tsarist government wanted to settle its
western peasants in Siberia to increase agricultural output
and maintain greater control. Starting around 1900, it enacted
laws that completely changed land ownership and land dis-
tribution in Siberia. The Russian government confiscated all
Buryat commonly owned lands used for pasture and then
redistributed the land in plots of fifteen desiatin (40.5 acres)
to each individual male—indigenous Siberian or European—
for cultivation (Asalkhanov 1968, 82-98). In addition to land
redistribution, the new legislation dissolved Speranskii’s
Steppe Dumas. It placed Siberia’s nomads, who had previ-
ously been governed by the Steppe Dumas, into the same
district administrative system as settled Russian peasants.
Under the new system, the imperial government sought to
replace Buryat leaders of clan and tribal administrations with
tsarist officials. This legislation essentially meant the end of
Buryat self-rule.
Evidence of Buryat Insurgent
Planning: From Imperial Russia
to the Russian Federation
The subsequent Buryat actions mirror what we now charac-
terize as insurgent planning. For example, Buryats staged
large protests at Siberian tsarist administrative offices. Mem-
bers of the Buryat intelligentsia organized Buryat congresses
in the 1905 and 1917 revolutions that called for a reversal of
the land legislation, return of greater autonomy for the Buryats,
and more Buryat-language education (Okladnikov 1951).
These actions are consistent with Sandercock’s (1999, 41)
definition of insurgent planning as “challenging existing
relations of power in some form.” In addition, the Buryat
intelligentsia wrote about their concerns in books and jour-
nals. However, these Buryat intellectuals proposed a wide
spectrum of visions for the Buryat people, ranging from
demands for more autonomy or complete independence to
calls for modernizing the Buryats through greater assimila-
tion within a Russian or later Soviet state (Bogdanov 1907;
Okladnikov 1951; Rupen 1964; Zhamtsarano 1906, 1907).
These multiple responses exemplify the necessity to resist
the “single story” of Buryat resistance as Adichie (2009) warns.
These dialogues and activities, while embodying insurgent
planning, also suggest that multiple and not always completely
oppositional understandings could broaden our knowledge
of insurgent planning. The Buryats openly debated their ideas
about the Buryat nation until Joseph Stalin’s harsh policies
of the 1930s silenced them.
An additional component of insurgent planning exhibited
by Buryat intellectuals of the early twentieth century was
their work to preserve traditional Buryat culture. They par-
ticipated in activities such as recording Buryat oral folklore
and history. For example, the early-twentieth-century Buryat
scholar and folklorist Tsyben Zhamtsarano wrote about the
need to modernize but at the same time protect Buryat cul-
ture and traditions. He wanted to strengthen Buddhist tradi-
tions among the Buryats but also to have the Buddhist
monasteries expand their educational curriculum to include a
combination of both Buddhist and European subjects
(Zhamtsarano 1906). Zhamtsarano also worked to preserve
Buryat culture by recording oral folklore. For example, he
recorded the first entire professional version of the Buryat
epic poem, Geser, as sung to him by the Buryat Manshud
Emegeev (Zhamtsarano 1930). Recording and publishing
Geser was not only a way to preserve, protect, and honor
Buryat culture, but it also worked to promote an image of a
strong, independent, Buryat warrior—Geser—who fought
enemy invaders to protect his land and people. This act fits
into the “ancient wisdom, strength, vitality and originality”
referred to by Perkinson and Mendoza (2004, 132). In the
post-Soviet period, many Buryat intellectuals have looked
back to the activities of Zhamtsarano and others at this
time as a sort of golden age of Buryat intellectual and politi-
cal activity.
In 1923, Soviet authorities created the Buryat-Mongolian
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) that nomi-
nally gave back autonomy to the Buryats. A wide range of
policies in the 1930s, however, destroyed the hopes of many
Buryats that real autonomy was possible under Soviet lead-
ership. Stalin’s push for industrialization led to a huge influx
of Soviet European workers into the region. By the late
1950s, the Buryat representation in the republic had dropped
from 43 percent at the foundation of the republic to 20 per-
cent—an all-time low, as the Buryats today make up closer
to 30 percent of their republic (Lamakhanov 2006). Stalin’s
policy of forced and violent collectivization ultimately set-
tled the Buryat nomads. Still, throughout its implementa-
tion, many Buryats practiced insurgent planning. They
slaughtered their herds rather than have them become col-
lective farm property. They hid from authorities, sometimes
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

6 Journal of Planning Education and Research XX(X)
forming oppositional groups who resisted—even by force—
living on collective farms. They also moved in the thousands
with their herds across the border to Mongolia or China
(Bazarov et al. 1993; Dorzhiev 1993; Namsaraev 1993).
However, by 1939, Soviet authorities had succeeded in set-
tling more than 90 percent of the Buryats onto collective
farms.
In addition to forced collectivization, the Buryats were
also victims of Stalin’s purges. In the late 1930s, Buryat poli-
ticians, scholars, writers, artists, shamans, and Buddhist lamas
were killed or sent into exile in large numbers. These purges
did not just eliminate many of the best and the brightest of
Buryatia, but they also eliminated many of the Buryats who
had participated in the flourishing Buryat intellectual and
political movements of the first two decades of the twentieth
century. In recent years, many Buryat scholars and journal-
ists have chosen to research, publish, and hold conferences
to highlight the works and lives of these individuals. These
acts of revising and reviving Buryat history are part of the
insurgent planning process.
The most violent year of Stalin’s purges, 1937, also marks
another very significant event in the republic’s history. That
year, an order came from Moscow to decrease the republic’s
territory by 40 percent. Some Buryat regions were merged
into the neighboring Irkutsk and Chita regions, and some
were subdivided into two smaller Buryat autonomous regions.
The decision was part of a larger policy by the Soviet Union
to crack down on regional governments and identities that
could threaten a unified Soviet nationalism at a time of imp-
ending war. While some ethnic border populations were moved
to the interior—for instance, the Soviet Koreans of the
Russian Far East who were moved to Central Asia—in
Buryatia the strategy was to exert greater control through the
division of territory. This was intended to divide the Buryats
and thus weaken any pan-Mongolist and anti-Soviet inten-
tions (Elaev 2000, 217-23).
Despite these drastic demographic, political, economic,
and territorial changes that led to many deaths as well as the
division of the Buryat people, a strong Buryat educated class
grew rapidly in the post–World War II years (Khalbaeva-
Boronova 2005). In addition, the Republic of Buryatia, and
especially its capital, Ulan-Ude, continued to remain in
many ways the cultural, educational, and political center
for the Buryat people. Buryats from all over came to live in
Ulan-Ude. Many were attracted to the growing number of
institutions of higher education. Upon graduating, most
Buryat graduates stayed in the republic to follow careers in
politics, education, media, and cultural institutions. At the
same time, many of the ethnic Russians in the republic, who
had been encouraged to move to Buryatia to work in the
growing number of factories, continued to work in industry.
Ethnic Buryats, thus, increasingly dominated important
political positions and occupations in education, cultural
institutions, and media. In 1979, for example, Buryats held
60 percent of the Republic of Buryatia’s jobs as writers,
editors, and journalists.1
These developments allowed the Buryats to attain greater
social mobility and influence in their republic in the late
Soviet period. However, social mobility in the Soviet Union
brought cultural challenges and opportunities. To succeed in
Soviet society—to attend higher educational institutions
and gain professional occupations—one had to have total
fluency in the Russian language, which often meant a loss of
the Buryat language. In the 1970s, Buryat politicians and
educators cancelled Buryat-language education, citing the
advantages that a better knowledge of Russian could bring.
By the fall of the Soviet Union, many Buryats had lost the
ability to use their language. Few schools offered Buryat-
language courses, Buryat-language media had decreased
substantially from earlier levels, and many Buryats simply
preferred using Russian because of the social and economic
benefits. Studies from the early 2000s have concluded that
Buryat is not widely spoken by the younger generation, the
highly educated, government employees, and urbanized
Buryats (Bukhaeva 2003; Dorzhieva 2004; Khubrikov 2001;
Zham’ianova 2003). Literary Buryat fares even worse.
Fewer than 3 percent of Buryats regularly consume any
media—literature, newspapers, television, or radio—in Buryat
(Dorzhieva 2004).
The precipitous decline of the Buryat language contrib-
uted to the creation of a small number of Buryat intellectu-
als in the last few years of the Soviet era who sought not
only to revive the Buryat language but also Buryat holidays,
religions, and traditions. This movement came to be known
as the Buryat national movement, imbibing insurgent plan-
ning practices. Many within the movement also called for
returning Buryatia to its pre-1937 borders and returning the
word “Mongolian” to the name of the republic. The Buryat
national movement consisted of organizations and individu-
als who petitioned the government and presented their ideas
in the local media. The most prominent and active members
were scholars from the Academy of Sciences and the uni-
versities. The Buryat national movement of the late Soviet
period did contribute to a revival in Buryat culture. Both the
general population and the republic’s government came to
support reinstating Buryat traditional holidays and freedom
of religion and reviving the Buryat language after the fall of
the Soviet Union. In February 1991, the government of the
Republic of Buryatia and the leaders of the Buryat national
movement collaborated to hold the first All-Buryat Con-
gress for the Spiritual Rebirth and Consolidation of the
Nation (Chimitdorzhiev 2004; Elaev 2000; Khamutaev
2005; Stroganova 2001). Participants at the congress
founded new organizations to promote Buryat culture and
work on various issues such as the Buryat language, material
and spiritual culture, religion, and education. Although the
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Sweet and Chakars 7
congress echoed previous calls to reunite the Buryats to
their pre-1937 borders, the government continued to ignore
the issue.2
Resurgence of the Buryats
In the post-Soviet period, however, the reality of implement-
ing a Buryat cultural revival has been complicated and must
be understood through more than one story. While private
Buddhist and shaman organizations have grown in great
numbers and are quite visible in the republic today, govern-
ment programs have been limited by both financial con-
straints and political concerns. Most controversial has been
the territorial and name changes. While Buryat insurgent
planners have continued to seek to reunite the Buryats under
one territory and promote their Mongolness by adding the
name “Mongolian” to their republic, the local government
has feared that any attempt at such changes would put them
in dangerous opposition with central authorities in Moscow.
Although leaders of the Buryat national movement were able
to get the local government in 1993 to officially declare that
the 1937 territorial changes were unlawful, the government
never took steps to change the situation, nor did it rename the
republic Buryat-Mongolia (Stroganova 2001).
Buryatia’s former and first president, Leonid Potapov (a
popular former communist who was ushered into power in
May 1990 to replace the very unpopular Anatolii Beliakov),
dominated politics in Buryatia in the late Soviet and post-
Soviet periods. Potapov oversaw Buryatia’s transition from
part of the Soviet Union as an autonomous region of the
Russian Republic (ASSR) to part of the Russian Federation
as one of the twenty-one ethnically defined republics of that
federation. In 1994, Potapov was elected as the first presi-
dent of the new Republic of Buryatia. He and his supporters
received a much greater share of the vote than the Buryat-
Mongolian People’s Party, made up of leaders from the
Buryat national movement. Potapov went on to win the local
presidential elections again in 1998 and 2002, successfully
marginalizing other parities aimed more at supporting Buryat
national interests rather than Russian national interests.
Although Potapov is an ethnic Russian, he had grown up in a
Buryat village; spoke some Buryat; and had worked closely
with the powerful and popular former ethnic Buryat leader of
the republic, Andrei Modogoev, who governed from 1962 to
1983. These qualities gave Potapov much support among
both Buryats and Russians. In addition, Potapov spent his
tenure working closely with authorities in Moscow. Although
this brought few gains for reviving Buryat culture, many of
Potapov’s constituents found this desirable, especially as
Buryatia fell into a deep economic crisis in the 1990s. In
1995, Buryatia’s economy was so poor that its leaders agreed
to sign a treaty with the central government in Moscow
that gave Buryatia special status for federal assistance as a
depressed economic region (Balzer 1999; Elaev 2000; Gill 2007;
Khamutaev 2005).
Contemporary Buryat
Insurgent Planning
Under Vladimir Putin in the 2000s, Buryatia, along with
many of the other ethnically defined federal units of the
Russian Federation, has faced increasing centralization poli-
cies. First, in May 2000, Putin created seven federal districts
that overlaid the already existing federal units. A presidential
appointee responsible directly to Putin headed each federal
district. The leaders of the new federal districts were instructed
to monitor the various regions of their districts to ensure that
they were following federal laws and presidential decrees.
Second, in December 2004, Putin abolished the right of
regions to appoint their own leaders. In Buryatia, this meant
that when Potapov finished his third term in 2006, instead of
holding local elections to replace him as had been done pre-
viously, Putin simply appointed Potapov’s successor. He
chose to appoint a nonlocal Putin loyalist and ethnic Russian
named Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn. Last, Putin instituted a new
policy to begin merging Russia’s eighty-nine federal units
into larger territorial districts to reduce the number of federal
units and implement greater control from the center (Gill
2007). In 2006 and 2008, the two Buryat autonomous regions
that had been separated from the Republic of Buryatia in
1937 were dissolved and merged into larger neighboring ter-
ritories. On April 16, 2006, the Ust-Ordinsk Buryat Autono-
mous Okrug was merged with the much larger Irkutsk Oblast.
On March 1, 2008, the Aginsk Buryat Autonomous Okrug
was merged with the Chita Oblast to form a new federal dis-
trict called the Zabaikal’skii Krai. Thus, two of the three
ethnically defined Buryat territories ceased to exist. In both
cases, referenda were held on the mergers; but the results of
those elections have been questioned, particularly in Ust-
Ordinsk, where authorities claimed that 99 percent of the
population voted in favor of the merger. Organizers in Ulan-
Ude thought the “vote was laughable,” a desperate effort by
officials to legitimize their actions (Yassermann 2006).
Many now fear the Republic of Buryatia is slated next for
a merger—most likely to be merged into the new Zabaikal’skii
Krai. These events have led to the formation of new Buryat
insurgent planning organizations with the goal of maintain-
ing a Buryat territory and protecting Buryat culture. These
organizations assert that the goals of the consolidations are
to dissolve a federalized structure and to dilute democracy
by shifting power from the regions to Moscow. Some also see
an attempt to assimilate ethnic minorities and weaken their
cultural expressions. They point to the rise in race-based vio-
lence, particularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg (Schwirtz
2008); as racism escalates in post-Soviet Russia, so does the
push to erase cultural identity.
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

8 Journal of Planning Education and Research XX(X)
One example of these new organizations is the “Young
Scholars.” In 2004, in reaction to Putin’s centralization and
antifederalism plans, several young Buryat scholars started
to organize and use insurgent planning tactics against unifi-
cation. The group is made up of researchers, professors, teach-
ers, and students under the age of forty. The group began
with a core of five members, all of whom were scholars, but
has now expanded to include journalists and business lead-
ers. Young Scholars work with a minimum of financial res-
ources, mostly donated by expatriates. Their main funders so
far have been a Buryat woman in the United States who sent
$1,000 and a Buryat man in Vladivostok, on the east coast of
Russia, who sent $200. Group members use their own money
and enlist friends and family to support their insurgent activ-
ities. For sixteen months (2004-2006), our fieldwork involved
participant observation in their organized activities as well as
substantial informal contact with individuals in the group.
One of their first activities was to send an open letter to
President Putin in May 2005, signed by two thousand young
Buryats. Organizers explained that they wanted the letter to
come from the younger generation (those under forty) to show
central authorities that these issues were not going to just go
away as the older generation passed on (Cakars 2005). The
letter argued against merging the two Buryat okrugs. It also
called for greater protection of Buryat language, culture, and
traditions. In addition, the letter emphasized the issue of the
1937 breakup of the Buryat-Mongolian Republic. Instead of
merging the okrugs, the letter again called for reuniting them
with the Republic of Buryatia, thus returning the republic to
its pre-1937 borders. In addition to this letter, the Young
Scholars have also organized demonstrations against the merg-
ers. They met in the spring of 2006 in the central square in
front of the Federal Security Service (FSB, formerly the
KGB) offices, where they stood holding a large sign that
read “Save the Buryat Republic.” Also, in 2006, they held
silent marches with banners proclaiming “Save the Buryat
Territory” in both the Russian and Buryat languages. The con-
tinued focus on regional identity and place exhibit “contest[ations
of] dominant understandings of national belonging” (Perreault
2003, 602).
The Young Scholars also worked to publicize their oppo-
sition to the mergers, the government’s centralization policies
in general, and other acts that they believe are marginalizing
and hindering indigenous cultural identity. They have writ-
ten articles in newspapers and scholarly journals. In addition,
they created a website to document their activities and pres-
ent articles on subjects ranging from the mergers to reviving
Buryat language to racist crimes in Moscow against non-
white Russians and visitors.3 Members also traveled from
Ulan-Ude to Ust’-Ordinsk Buryat Autonomous Okrug in
2005 before the merger referenda to show the film Chinggis
Khan. The movie offers a positive portrayal of the Mongol
warrior, who many believe was born in what are today
Buryat lands in Russia. The movie showing was an attempt
to again present the “ancient wisdom, strength vitality and
originality” noted by Perkinson and Mendoza (2004, 132),
but local officials in Ust’-Ordinsk prevented the film from
being shown.
Members of the Young Scholars are also active in reviv-
ing and preserving Buryat cultural traditions including lan-
guage. Members have translated children’s books into the
Buryat language as well as offered free Buryat-language
classes open to anyone. They have held open café-style polit-
ical conversations in the public library and have invited aca-
demics and activists from other territories with significant
native populations to participate in a conference on the his-
torical and contemporary experiences of indigenous people
under centralization and its consequences for their rights.
These activities are insurgent planning, a critical response to
centralized top-down governance “challenging existing rela-
tions of power” (Sandercock 1999, 41).
The group’s actions have not been without consequences
for its members. Many have been “invited” for chats with the
FSB. They have been offered money to cease and desist.
Their jobs have also been threatened. They have been told
that assimilation and centralization are inevitable “like a tank
and will run them over without mercy” (conversation with
young scholar, March 8, 2006). People who have shown
public support for the group also have suffered. After the
university denied access to a space for the above-mentioned
academic conference, a businessman lent his office for it.
Since then, the authorities have harassed him, and his busi-
ness is suffering. Supporters who carried the banners to the
silent demonstration in their cars have had their cars con-
fiscated. The authorities also confiscated all of the group’s
pamphlets explaining why the group is opposed to the unifi-
cation. Most seriously, two of the group’s leaders were arrested
but were later released.
The authorities have also harassed Buryat shamans who
hold ceremonies to protect the Buryat territory. For example,
in the spring of 2006, local shamans were threatened, bought
out, or co-opted into not participating in a widely advertised
ceremony of spiritual protection for the Buryat sacred native
lands. Those shamans then denied the organizers of the cer-
emony access to the sacred ceremonial site on the outskirts
of Ulan-Ude. The organizers sought out shamans from a
neighboring region and moved the ceremony to a place near
the sacred site. Meanwhile, in the hours before the ceremony,
a running announcement along the bottom of the television
screen claimed that the event was cancelled. One of the
authors trying to find its location was warned not to go by a
nonparticipating shaman. He said that it was a political
action, not a real ceremony; that many FSB agents were
there; and that those who went would get into trouble. Even
in the face of many roadblocks, the ceremony took place.
One participant predicted that the FSB agents in charge of
stopping the ceremony would be in big trouble for having
failed.
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Sweet and Chakars 9
That this tailgan, as the ceremony is named in Buryat,
happened at all was a significant victory for the opponents of
unification. The tailgan demonstrated unity among the Bury-
ats with representatives from different regions. It prevailed
in the face of very strong opposition by the authorities, many
of whom are Buryat and understand the powerful symbolism
of the ceremony. Moreover, it was reported in the newspa-
per, despite efforts by government authorities to prevent any
mention in the media. The ceremony remained peaceful,
despite aggressive provocation by the authorities. All of these
activities—translating books into native languages, public
political debates, demonstrations, and spiritual ceremonies—
fall into the parameters of how insurgent planners practice
by “destabiliz[ing] the normalized order of things” (Miraftab
2009, 33). But in the Buryat case, while there is resistance,
there is also an appropriation and manipulation of Russian/
Soviet systems to reshape Buryat identity and culture. For
example, the Young Scholars’ writing a letter in Russian
rather than Buryat to the president of Russia protesting ter-
ritorial integration was an act of resistance using “modern”
tools to preserve the Buryat culture, as was Zhamtsarano’s
publishing the Geser warrior epic in Russian.
While little research has been conducted on gender in
Buryat studies or in the context of insurgent planning, women
may provide the best examples of the balance between resis-
tance and acquiescence. Often invisible to more traditional
planners, who typically disregard the domestic sphere (Sweet
and Ortiz Escalante 2010), we noted that Buryat women are
and have been active as insurgent planners, particularly in
their roles as transmitters of culture. For example, women
organize and carry out many of the rituals of the most impor-
tant Buryat holiday of Sagaalgan (new year’s), by preparing
“white food” and cleaning the home to usher in a positive
new year. In our fieldwork, we noted that women make up
the majority of participants and attendees at shaman ceremo-
nies. However, by the fall of the Soviet Union, Buryat
women were proportionally more urbanized and educated
than Buryat men.4 As urban professionals and mothers, they
helped to integrate their children into the Soviet and Russian
systems by ensuring they spoke Russian fluently, gained an
education, and became professionals themselves. Social mobil-
ity within the system of the majority requires adjusting cer-
tain aspects of traditional culture. Many women adopted the
language and used the education system while at the same
time attending shaman ceremonies and participating in other
Buryat traditions. While women are clearly active in tradi-
tional culture, they have also taken advantage of opportuni-
ties provided by cultural change. E. Peters (1998) helps us to
understand the complexity of women’s positions in the con-
text of planning. Drawing on her research of First Nation
women in Canada, she introduces the term “subversive
geographies” to explain how women resist governmental
definitions of “nation,” grounded in law. Instead, First Nation
women create their own “nation” both on reservations and in
urban centers, based on women’s traditional place as the
“heart” of the community, thus privileging kin ties, blood,
and culture over law. Peters argues that “geographies of self-
governance based on relationships have different spaces then
geographies of self-governance based on jurisdiction over
space” (1998, 676). Both gender and indigenous cultural
identity offer challenges to postmodern imperialism in
Canada similar to the ways that Buryat women utilize their
position as transmitters of culture and primary caregivers of
children to challenge postmodern imperialism in Russia.
While Peters (1998) does not address new opportunities for
women in Canada, we did find that women adapted Buryat
culture to take advantage of new possibilities for themselves
and their children. For the purpose of this article, we can only
point to the theoretical insights and trends we have observed
in our data that illustrate women’s complex relationship to
insurgent planning and navigation around contemporary
colonialism. At a future date, we hope to develop these obser-
vations further. Table 1 organizes the diversity of insurgent
planning over time while at the same time demonstrating the
complexity of it.
Discussion and Research Implications
For nearly two centuries, insurgent planning in the Buryat
republic has focused on indigenous identity, language, land,
and traditional culture. Insurgent planners have struggled
against multiple incarnations of colonialism to protect mul-
tiple and dynamic Buryat cultures. We have traced the history
of insurgent planning and found that it was not completely
oppositional or linear. There were expansions and contrac-
tions of individual and community rights and freedoms
simultaneously. While the Steppe Dumas provided auton-
omy and self-rule, conflicts with newly arriving European
peasants challenged the ability of the Buryats to fully exer-
cise their rights. Since 1989, Buryat Buddhists have constructed
thirty-three temples, and Buryat holidays are celebrated
widely. Concurrently, however, a shaman ceremony to pro-
tect sacred indigenous lands from Moscow’s plans for terri-
torial mergers was attacked by all available means: television
misinformation, blocking physical access to the sacred cere-
monial site, and blatant intimidation by government officials.
The various forms of Buryat insurgent planning compiled
and observed during our fieldwork and historical research
included the following activities carried out by Buryat
shamans, scholars, students, and other participants: spiritual
activities, language promotion, demonstrations and peti-
tions, revival of previously taboo historical figures and top-
ics, and conferences bringing indigenous peoples together to
consider common experiences and seek strategies to strengthen
their indigenous identity. Such activities in the face of assim-
ilation pressures are examples of insurgent planning, but
within their processes they appropriated parts of the wider
culture of today’s Russian Federation and the former Soviet
and Imperial Russian states. The use of Russian language
and educational attainment within the Russian system reveal
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

10 Journal of Planning Education and Research XX(X)
Table 1. Insurgent Planning Events and Corresponding Actors and Elements
Period
Culture/
Language/
Identity-Action Who Element Land-Action Who Element
Late 1800s
(pre-Soviet)
Schools taught in
Buryat
Practice of
Shamanism
Common people,
intellectuals
Tactical/resist Demonstration
at tsar’s offices
Common
people/
politicians
Tactical/resist
1900 to 1930s
(Pre-Soviet and
Soviet)
Buryat congresses
(1905 and
1917)
Intellectuals Tactical/resist Buryat Con-
gresses (1905
and 1917)
Intellectuals Tactical/resist
Debates about
future of
Buryats
Intellectuals Strategic/accept
and resist
Resist
collectivization
Common people Strategic/resist
Geser Epic
recording
Intellectuals Strategic/resist
1950s to 1980s
(Soviet)
Education within
the Soviet
system
Common people Strategic/accept
and resist
Revival of
traditions/
holidays
Common people,
intellectuals
Strategic/resist
1990s (Post-Soviet) Buryat official
language
All Buryat
Congress
Intellectuals/
Common
people
Strategic/resist
and accept
Recognition/
statement that
the break up
of republic
in 1937 was
illegal.
Intellectuals/
Politicians
Strategic/resist
2000 to 2006
(Post-Soviet)
Research about
Buryat
intelligentsia
Young Scholars/
Intellectuals
Strategic/resist Conferences on
indigenous
culture and
history
(discussions
on land
preservation)
Intellectuals/
Politicians
Strategic/resist
and accept
Conferences on
indigenous
culture and
history
Intellectuals/
Shamans
Strategic/resist
and accept
Letter in Russian
to President
Putin
Young Scholars Tactical/resist
and accept
Translation of
books to
Buryat
Young Scholars Strategic/resist Silent Protest
and Photog-
raphy of signs
that say
“Protect
Buryat Land”
Common
people/ Young
Scholars
Strategic/resist
Showing
films about
Buryat history
(outside of
Buryatia)
Young Scholars/
Common
people
Tactic/resist Shaman Ceremo-
ny to Protect
Buryat Land
Shaman/Young
Scholars/
Common
people
Strategic/resist
Expatriates
sending money
to support
the Young
Scholars.
Common
people/
Intellectuals
Tactic/resist
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Sweet and Chakars 11
a selective adaptation to contemporary contexts. The Buryats
have learned Russian and are able to advocate for themselves
in Russian using traditional and “modern” means to express
their grievances. Russia’s attempts to squash Buryat cultural
resistance have been multifaceted. We witnessed govern-
ment intervention in the form of censorship, harassment of
insurgent planners and their activities, vote tampering as in
the case of Ust’-Ordinsk, and elimination of elections for the
president of the Republic of Buryatia. Despite this, insurgent
planning continues.
Planning research and practice should take note of the les-
sons drawn from this case study. By recognizing and respect-
ing the dynamic nature of cultural identities, which may not
always produce an entirely oppositional environment, we
build a more balanced and dignified planning processes. This
case has demonstrated that the linear conceptions and oppo-
sitional confinement present in current insurgent planning
theory restrict our ability to fully comprehend insurgent plan-
ning. Limiting our understanding of groups to narrow inter-
pretations, based on assumption of cultural purity or a static
“single story” of cultural identity, prevents us from engaging
more fully with different groups as researchers and practitio-
ners. Research agendas might include more attention to race,
gender, multiple or intersecting, and dynamic identities.
Planning research would also benefit from an examination
of the existence and nature of insurgent planning in com-
munities with both colonialized groups such as immigrants,
Latinos, or African Americans as well as in more affluent
or resource-rich communities in the United States. Can we
expand our notion of insurgent planning? Are we overlook-
ing insurgent planning in our own communities? As we
study and plan, we must bring in the voices and stories tra-
ditionally excluded from planning because the “conseque-
nce of a single story is that it robs humanity of its dignity”
(Adichie 2009).
Declaration of Conflicting Interest
The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the
authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research and/or
authorship of this article.
Notes
1. These conclusions are based on a review of statistical records
from the National Archives of the Republic of Buryatia (NARB),
f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 118, pp. 62-66; NARB f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10897,
pp. 3-23.
2. For transcriptions on the activities of the congress, see NARB, f. 1,
op. P-1, d. 10743, pp. 1-78.
3. See http://www.buryat-mongolia.info/?language=en.
4. NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 52, p. 3; Buriaty v zerkale statistiki
(Ulan-Ude, 1996), 24.
References
Adichie, C. N. 2009. The danger of a single story. TED Talk. http://
www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a
_single_story.html.
Alfred T., and J. Corntassel. 2005. Being indigenous: Resurgences
against contemporary colonialism. Government and Opposition
40 (4): 597-614.
Asalkhanov, I. A. 1968. Ob agrarnoi politike tsarizma v Sibiri v
kontse XIX veka. In Issledovaniia i materialy po istorii Buriatii,
ed. I. A. Asalkhanov. Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation: Buriatskoe
knizhnoe izdatel’svo.
Balzer, M. M. 1999. Dilemmas of federalism in Siberia. In Center-
periphery conflict in post-Soviet Russia: A federation imperiled,
ed. Mikhail A. Alexseev. New York, NY: St. Martin’s.
Bazarov, B. V., Iu.P. Shagdurov, and L. V. Kuras. 1993. Politika
represii v Buriatii (20-30-e gody). In Tezusy i doklady nauchno-
prakticheskoi donperentsii “Problemy istorii Buriatii.” Ulan-
Ude, Russian Federation: BNTs.
Beard, V. 2002. Covert planning for social transformation in Indone-
sia. Journal of Planning Education and Research 22 (1): 15-25.
Bogdanov, M. 1907. Buriatskoe “vozrozhdenie.” Sibirskie voprosy
3:38-49.
Bonilla-Silva, E. 2006. Racism without racist color-blind racism
and the persistence of racial inequality in the Unites States.
New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bukhaeva, R. V. 2003. Etnokul’turnaia marginal’nost’ v usloviiakh
modernizatsii. PhD diss., Irkutskii gosudarstvennyi universitet,
Irkutsk, Russian Federation.
Cakars, J. 2005. Putting Buryatia on the map. Transitions Online,
September 7. http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLrus/article.tpl?IdLang
uage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=132&NrSection=3&NrArti
cle=14433 (accessed May 2009).
Chimitdorzhiev, Sh.B., ed. 2004. Kak ischezla edinaia Buriat-
Mongoliia (1937 i 1958). Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation: Buri-
atskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo.
Coombs, H. C. 1994. Aboriginal autonomy: Issues and strategies.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Dorzhiev, D. L. 1993. Krest’ianskie vosstaniia i miatezhi v Buriatii
v 20-30 gody (khronika iazykom dokumenta). Ulan-Ude, Russian
Federation: ONTs “Sibir’.”
Dorzhieva, I.Ts. 2004. Izmeneniia traditsionnykh sotsiokul’turnykh
tsennostei Buriat v usloviiakh urbanizatsii rossiiskogo obshchestva
na materialakh Respubliki Buriatiia. PhD diss., Buriatskii gosu-
darstvennyi universitet, Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation.
Dubrow, G., and M. Corbin Sies. 2002. Letting our guard down:
Race, class, gender and sexualty in planning history. Journal of
Planning History 1 (1): 203-14.
Elaev, A. A. 2000. Buriatskii narod: stanovlenie, razvitie, samo-
opredelenie. Moscow: Rossiiskaia akademiia gosudarstvennoi
sluzhby.
Eudaily, S. P. 2004. The present politics of the past: Indigenous
legal activism and resistance to (neo)liberal governmentality
(indigenous peoples and politics). New York, NY: Routledge.
Friedmann, J. 1987. Planning in the public domain: From knowl-
edge to action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Friedmann, J. 1992. Empowerment: The politics of alternative
development. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell.
Forsyth, J. 1992. A history of the peoples of Siberia: Russia’s north Asian
colony, 1581-1990. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from

12 Journal of Planning Education and Research XX(X)
Gill, G., ed. 2007. Politics in the Russian regions. New York, NY:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Grabow, S., and A. Heskin. 1973. Foundations for a radical concept
of planning. Journal of the American Planning Association 39
(2): 106-14.
Hundley, H. S. 1984. Speransky and the Buriats: Administrative
reform in nineteenth century Russia. PhD diss., University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Jojola, T. 1998. Indigenous planning: Clans, intertribal confed-
erations and the history of the All Pueblo Council. In Making
invisible: Insurgent planning histories, ed. Leonie Sandercock.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Khalbaeva-Boronova, M. M. 2005. Buriatiia: Problemy komplek-
snogo razvitiia regiona. Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation: Buri-
atskii gosudarstvennyi universitet.
Khamutaev, V. A. 2005. Buriatskoe natsional’noe dvizhenie 1980-
2000-e gg. Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation: Izdatel’stvo Buri-
atskogo nauchno gotsentra SO RAN.
Khubrikov, O. M. 2001. Sotsial’nye aspekty institutsionalizatsii
buriatskogo iazyka kak gosudarstvennogo. PhD diss., Buriatskii
gosudarstvennyi universitet, Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation.
Lamakhanov, T. V. 2006. Naselenie Buriatii: Etnodemogra-
ficheskie protessy v 1960-1990 godakh. PhD diss., Buryatskii
gosudarstvennyi universitet, Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation.
Lane, M. B. 2001. Affirming recent directions in planning theory:
Comanagement of protected areas. Society and Natural Resources
14 (8): 657-71.
Lane, M. B., and M. Hibbard. 2005. Doing it for themselves: Trans-
formative planning by indigenous people. Journal of Planning
Education and Research 25 (2): 172-84.
Meir, A. 2005. Bedouin, the Israeli state and insurgent planning: Glo-
balization, localization or glocalization? Cities 22 (3): 201-15.
Miraftab, F. 2009. Insurgent planning: Situating radical planning in
the global South. Planning Theory 8 (1): 32-51.
Montgomery, R. W. 2005. Late Tsarist and early Soviet nationality
and cultural policy: The Buryats and their language. Lewiston,
NY: Edwin Mellon Press.
Namsaraev, S. D., ed. 1993. Istoriia Buriatii, konets XIX v.-1941 g.
Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation: ONTs “Sibir’.”
Okladnikov, A. P., ed. 1951. Istoriia Buriat-Mongol’skoi ASSR.
Vol. 1. Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation: Buriat-Mongol’skoe gos-
udarstvennoe izdatel’stvo.
Perkinson, J., and S. Lily L. Mendoza. 2004. Indigenous Filipino
Pasyon defying colonial Euro-reason. Journal of Third World
Studies 21 (1): 117-37.
Perreault, T. 2003. “A people with our own identity”: Toward a
cultural politics of development in Ecuadorian Amazonia. Envi-
ronment and Planning D: Society and Space 21 (5): 583-606.
Peters, E. 1998. Subversive spaces: First Nation women and the
city. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 16 (6):
665-85.
Peters, J. 2003. Aboriginal perspectives on planning in Canada—
Decolonizing the process: A discussion with four Aboriginal
practitioners. Plan Canada 43 (2): 39-41.
Porter, L. 2006. Planning in (post) colonial settings: Challenges
for theory and practice. Planning Theory & Practice 7 (4):
383-96.
Radcliffe, S. A., and N. Laurie. 2006. Culture and development:
Taking culture seriously in development for Andean indigenous
people. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24 (2):
231-48.
Raeff, M. 1969. Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772-1839.
Leiden, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.
Rupen, R. A. 1964. Mongols of the twentieth century. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Sandercock, L., ed. 1998. Making the invisible visible: A multi-
cultural planning history. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Sandercock, L. 1999. Introduction translations: From insurgent
planning practice to radical planning discourses. Plurimondi 1
(2): 37-46.
Schwirtz, M. 2008. Voices: Solving racial violence in Russia. The
Lede New York Times News Blog: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.
com/2008/07/01/voices-solving-racial-violence-in-russia/.
Stromberg, J. R. 2006. Imperialism, non-interventionism, and revo-
lution: Opponents of the modern American empire. Independent
Review 11 (1): 79-114.
Stroganova, E. A. 2001. Buriatskoe natsional’no-kul’turnoe vozro-
zhdenie. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Natalis.”
Sweet, E. L., and S. Ortiz Escalante. 2010. Planning responds to
gender violence: Evidence from Spain, Mexico, and the Unites
States. Urban Studies On Line First: http://usj.sagepub.com/
content/early/2010/03/19/0042098009357353.abstract.
Valdivia, G. 2005. On indigeneity, change and representation in the
northeastern Ecuadorian Amazon. Environment and Planning A
37 (2): 285-303.
Wilkes, R. 2006. The protest actions of indigenous peoples: A
Canadian-US comparison of social movement emergence.
American Behavioral Scientist 50 (4): 510-25.
Yassermann, V. 2006. Analysis: The future of Russia’s ethnic
republics. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, April 21. http://
www.rferl.org/content/article/1067861.html.
Yiftachel, O. 2006. Re-engaging planning theory? Towards “south-
eastern” perspectives. Planning Theory 5 (3): 211-22.
Zham’ianovna, B.Ts. 2003. Osobennosti iazykovoi situatsiinats-
ional’nogo regiona Rossiiskoi Federatstii (Na primere Respubliki
Buriatiia). PhD diss., Eastern Siberian State Academy of Culture
and Art, Russian Federation.
Zhamtsarano, Ts. 1906. O pravosoznanii buriat. Sibirskie voprosy
2 (1906): 167-84.
Zhamtsarano, Ts. 1907. Buriatskoe narodnicheskoe dvizhenie i ego
kritik. Sibirskie voprosy 25 (1907): 15-21.
Zhamtsarano, Ts. 1930. Proizvedeniia narodnoi slovesnosti buriat.
Vol. 2. Leningrad: USSR Academy of Sciences.
Bios
Elizabeth L. Sweet is a visiting assistant professor in the Depart-
ment of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University. Her
research interests include the role of planning and policy in the
production and reproduction of social, economic, and spatial
inequalities, particularly examining issues of race, gender, and
citizenship.
Melissa Chakars is an assistant professor in the Department of
History at Saint Joseph’s University. Her research interests include
indigenous Siberians, Buddhism in Russia, and education and empire
in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
at TEMPLE UNIV on September 25, 2010jpe.sagepub.comDownloaded from