Roads in Anthropology: Some Thoughts

Roads are more than channels for traffic; they are filled with social life, stories and the flows of ideas and cultures. The discussion of mobility in anthropology is a relatively recent topic of study: Taking the example of roads, this editorial provides this anthropological perspective. Social scientists are now more aware of how important is ‘the move’ and ‘the mobility’, in understanding ‘the transition of societies’.   Based on work in remotest Siberia, this paper allows the transport specialist to take a step back and withdraw from a habitual way of perceiving the issue. The social significance of roads cannot be detached from the lives of people who live along them.

01. Roads and Roadlessness

The experience of long-distance truck drivers in Russia is very demonstrative of the current state of mobility in Russia. Even The theme of roads has inspired many scholars to carry out research and provided fruitful material to write about. Yet there is still a puzzle for some: “Roads? In anthropology?” How can anthropology approach the study of roads? What light does an anthropological perspective give to the study of roads? And what does such a study of roads give to anthropology as a discipline?

The discussion of mobility in anthropology is a relatively recent topic of study. The lack of sustained research of movements and mobilities could be explained by the fact that cultures and ethnic groups were viewed as self-contained and self-bounded entities. And while anthropology studied nomadic and migrating cultures, their movements and migrations, too, were considered within certain enclosed areas.  

It is really not so distant changes in the political situation in countries all over the world, their economies, environments, social lives of communities that has created multiple ripple effects and made people move in search of employment, migrate from divided countries, escape conflict zones, and also made social scientists more aware of how important is the move, the mobility, and the transition.   

Learning from road users in Siberia, a vast region remote from any European setting, might provide a different perspective from which one can understand more about roads. This is predominantly because roads have a crucial importance in the north of Russia. Transport in this isolated region is a complex issue, both for delivering vital supplies to the region and for exporting rich resources in various directions, predominantly to China and Japan, both hungry for raw materials. Long distances, harsh climatic conditions in winter and permafrost present continuous engineering and logistical problems. Remote settlements in the Arctic depend on deliveries by truck, although air transportation operates throughout the year, it is not always a cost-effective way and deliveries by water are restricted to a short summer season. Some remote communities depend on critical truck deliveries; up to 90 per cent of goods are brought in by the trucks within four months when the roads are stable. The significance of roads, as the only reliable all-year transportation in this region, cannot be overstated.

The anthropological study of roads in the North can contribute to the broad corpus of literature that shapes our knowledge of mobility but which centres on the Western perspective. Such a different geographical perspective will broaden our understanding of roads and add comparisons to help us understand that roads are a complex social phenomenon.

more so is the experience of drivers who travel long distances to remote settlements in the Arctic areas along the so-called winter roads (Rus. zimniki). Zimnik is a road and part of a seasonal infrastructure that exists only in winter months.

There is seemingly a rather blurred distinction between roads and non-roads in Siberia. Truck drivers, as people with great experience of using both all-year roads and winter roads, operate within clear categories; more than anybody they are concerned with road surfacing and road grading. The Building Norms and Rules (SNiP 1997), a corpus of normative acts used by administrative authorities and agencies, distinguishes five basic categories of roads in Russia.1

However, truck drivers, informally and between themselves, distinguish three main categories of roads: 1) hard surface roads; 2) gravel roads; and 3) roads with no artificial surfacing. Winter roads are included in category 3 as they are used only during cold periods and are not traversable in summer. Such roads are carved out of snow and ice with the help of graders and tractors. Ice roads (frozen river surfaces) or winter river crossings also belong to category 3 and are built by spraying water on to the frozen river to make an even surface for passing vehicles.

The often used phrase: “there are no roads in the North, only directions” possibly sums up the volatility of the climatic conditions and environmental challenges. Unlike permanent hard surfaced roads, which offer the opportunity for movement all year round, winter roads exist only for a certain period over the winter season.

Roadlessness (Rus. bezdorozh’e) is a familiar concept for many people in Russia, and in Siberia in particular. People often refer to roads affected by rainwater or the spring melt as a state of roadlessness; the overall paucity of roads is often also described as roadlessness (Siegelbaum 2008).  Weather often plays a role in the durability of tracks and winter roads, since strong winds and blizzards can easily cover tracks so next time the road would have to be laid anew. The climatic and environmental conditions cannot be reliably predicted and fluctuations can lead to accidents. The statement ‘no roads, only directions’ does not deny the existence of the roads altogether, neither does it diminish the roads’ importance or significance. By this statement the truck drivers emphasise that roads lack permanence, and the fact that the roads are always in the making.

Thus it seems that roads and roadlessness are two conditions that always interchange. Roadlessness presents the inability to travel; it is the lack of the physical possibility or opportunity to pass and progress on the route. Roadlessness is a lack of movement or movement that is halted. It can be argued then that roadlessness is a lack of opportunities or reduced opportunities to physically pass, to establish contact, to get in touch, or to reach the desired target. This reading of roadlessness steps out from a circumscribed geographical zone, it stops being a specific Siberian phenomenon and becomes easily applicable anywhere else, whether in the Arctic tundra, African desert or European migration routes.

Roadlessness is a fluid notion, such a notion can interchange and depends on perspectives; for some it might not be presented as roadlessness at all. Roadlessness thus is not a fixed state but a fluctuating one that can shift between the impossibility to progress along the route and a sought-for possibility for movement, between the halting or arresting of movement on one hand and the efforts made towards building a road on the other.  

Such distinction between roads and roadlessness calls for a more nuanced definition between roads and tracks or trails (Wilson 2004: 526). The definition of informal and formal routes proposed by Charles D. Trombold is a good start (1991:3). Informal routes require minimal or zero application of labour and can fluctuate. Roads, however, belong to formal routes as they need to be planned, maintained, require engineering and high levels of investment and organisation (Wilson 2004: 526). Although these definitions are appropriate, they imply a certain degree of prescription and fixity, as do most definitions. This definition of roads is based on their technical characteristics, such as type of surfacing, width, quality, etc. And while technical characteristics are important, because they affect our travel, they are not always accurate.  The northern communities in Siberia adopt a different notion of what roads are.