The Nenet are nomadic reindeer herding clans on and near the Siberian Yamal Peninsula. Their culture reveres nature, but the reindeer pastures are disappearing  as land is made unusable by oil and gas exploration, climate change, and reindeer overgrazing what is left.

Shamans, called Tadibya, are the leaders that coordinate action among the clans. Using drums the Tadibya confer with the spirits for guidance that is honored by the Nenet as a whole.  Like the pastures themselves, the shamans are disappearing. This means the clans no longer have traditional leaders able to get the clans to work together. It is believed that the loss of the Tadibya has resulted in the clan’s perceptions on climate change and the pandemic,  and the lack of coordinated action[1].

Like people the world over, the Nenet try to make sense of current events through their lived experiences. Oil and gas companies are making traditional grazing areas unusable. Over the past 15 years climate change has resulted in rain-on-snow events that resulted in mass starvations and an anthrax outbreak[2]. As of December 2020, Yamalo-Nenets have the highest coronavirus cases per capita in all of Russia[3]. The Nenet’s explanatory narratives blame climate change and the pandemic on untouchable powerful hidden people with nefarious agendas. These types of narratives are common around the world, especially among less powerful people with marginalized ethnicities[4].

Medical anthropologists have made a connection between climate change and the pandemic, too. The uneven way that they have affected marginalized groups is rooted firmly in tangible data[5].

The Nenet, just like most marginalized groups, do not have adequate healthcare and are not protected against the effects of environmental destruction. Black neighborhoods in the US are poisoned much the same way as the Yamal plains are: by powerful, nearly untouchable, corporations depending on government permission or inaction. This means that, because of structural violence and neglect, climate change creates health disparities between socioeconomic groups that leave some people more vulnerable to the pandemic since they are more likely to have pre-existing co-morbidities and less healthcare[6].

Just like the Nenet, to combat the inequities exacerbated by climate change and the pandemic, the world needs leaders that can organize and mobilize everyone toward the common good of all.

[1] Stammler, Florian M., & Aytalina, Ivanova. (2020). “From Spirits to Conspiracy? Nomadic Perceptions of Climate Change, Pandemics and Disease.” Anthropology Today 36 (4): 8–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12589.
[2] Stammler, Florian M, & Ivanova Aytalina. (2020)
[3] “Vulnerable Communities: How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Indigenous People in the Russian Arctic?” 2020. The Arctic Institute (blog). December 10, 2020. https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/vulnerable-communities-covid-19-pandemic-indigenous-people-russian-arctic/.
[4] Ali, Inayat. (2020). “Impacts of Rumors and Conspiracy Theories Surrounding COVID-19 on Preparedness Programs.” Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, September, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2020.325.
[5] Singer, Merrill, & Rylko-Bauer, Barbara . (2020). “The Syndemics and Structural Violence of the COVID Pandemic: Anthropological Insights on a Crisis.” Open Anthropological Research 1 (1): 7–32. https://doi.org/10.1515/opan-2020-0100.
[6] Singer, Merrill, & Rylko-Bauer, Barbara . (2020).