Dossiers

Recent publications

  • 2025. (Hg.). Sprechende Objekte – Ethnographica und ihre Erzählungen. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien.

  • 2024. (co-author with Nadezhda Mamontova, Dmitriy Oparin, Vera Solovyeva, Liliya Zdor and Mark Zdor). Co-producing Knowledge about Western Museum Collections: An Avenue for Siberian Communities’ Engagement. In A Fractured North – Maintaining Connections. Erich Kasten, Igor Krupnik, and Gail Fondahl (eds.), 179–202. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien.

  • 2024. From Implemented Co-production to Enforced Stagnation: Revising Methodologies in a Changing Political Environment (1993-2023). In A Fractured North – Journeys on Hold. Erich Kasten, Igor Krupnik, and Gail Fondahl (eds.), 211–234. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien.

  • 2024. Under the Shadow of a Colonial Empire: Indigenous People’s Oppression Through the Lenses of Early Scientific Explorers in the Siberian Northeast. In A Fractured North – Facing Dilemmas. Erich Kasten, Igor Krupnik, and Gail Fondahl (eds.), 91–117. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien.

  • 2024. Schnitzfiguren der Korjaken. In Weltenfragmente. Michael Kraus (Hg.), 420–424. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag.

  • 2024. Digital Humanities of the North – Open Access to Research Data for Multiple User Groups. In Library and Information Sciences in Arctic and Northern Studies. S. Acadia (ed.), 227–240. Cham: Springer Polar Sciences.

  • 2022. Franz Boas in Berlin: Neue methodologische Orientierungen und sein Weg zu einem gesellschaftlich und politisch engagierten Wissenschaftler. In Franz Boas – die Haltung eines Wissenschaftlers in Zeiten politischer Umbrüche. E. Kasten (Hg.), 27–58. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien.

  • 2022. Waldemar Jochelson. His Life and Work in Light of Newly Accessible Sources. Anthropos 117: 191–194.

  • 2022. Sustaining Oral Traditions and Languages in Siberia by Means of Hybrid Publishing and dissemination Strategies. In Multiethnic Societies of Central Asia and Siberia Represented in Indigenous Oral and Written Literature. M. Schatz (ed.), 39–49. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag.

  • 2022. Этнографические методы Владимира Иохельсона в период Сибиряковской экспедиции и во время его поздних исследований. In Полевые исследования В.И. Иохельсона. E. Kasten und A. Sirina (Hg.), 67–85. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien.

  • 2021. Erschließen von Museumsbeständen in Koproduktion mit indigenen Gemeinschaften. Mit einer Einführung von Heriette Lavaulx-Vrécourt. Baessler Archiv 67: 141–157.

  • 2021. Indigenes Wissen der Korjaken zu nachhaltigem Fischfang und Rentierhaltung. In Mensch und Natur in Sibirien – Umweltwissen und nachhaltige Naturbeziehungen in Zeiten des Klimawandels. E. Kasten (Hg.), 237–276. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien.

  • 2021. Schamanisches Vermächtnis in heutiger ritueller Praxis in Nordostsibirien. In Schamanen Sibiriens und ihr Vermächtnis. E. Kasten (Hg.), 165–187. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien.

  • 2020. Georg Wilhelm Steller: Scientist Humanist and Most Significant Ethnographer for the Itelmens of Kamchatka. In Writing the Arctic. German Representations of the Far North in the 18th and 19th Century. J. Borm and J. Kodzik (eds.), 202-221. Cambridge Scholar Publishing.

  • 2020. Fieldwork on Kamchatka Peninsula and Creation of the Foundation for Siberian Cultures: Towards an Open Access Database of Indigenous Languages and Knowledge from the Russian Far East. In Library and Information Studies for Arctic Social Sciences and Humanities. S. Acadia and M.T. Fjeelestad (eds.), 329-352. London: Routledge.

More publications

Curriculum vitae      

Erich Kasten, born in 1949 in Münster/Westphalia, first studied economics at the Free University of Berlin, where he received his doctorate in ethnology, ancient American studies, and Scandinavian studies with "summa cum laude" in 1984. His dissertation dealt with cultural dynamics among Sami reindeer herders in northern Scandinavia. A subsequent DFG fellowship took him to the First Nations on the northwest coast of Canada, where he primarily studied their ceremonial system. From his collaboration with artists there, he developed his exhibition "Mask Dances of the Kwakiutl", which was shown at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin in 1989/90.

The political changes and new research opportunities of those years prompted E. Kasten to continue his work on peoples and cultures of the North in Siberia. After Russian language studies in St. Petersburg, he investigated ethnicity processes in Kamchatka in a first DFG-funded research project starting in 1993. In 1995-1996, E. Kasten and E. Dul’chenko conducted together with the Kamchatka Institute of Ecology and Nature Management in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii the EU-INTAS project "Natural Resources of the West Coast of Kamchatka". Since then, he has compiled a comprehensive documentation covering nearly all areas of culture of the indigenous peoples living on Kamchatka (Itelmens, Evens and Koryaks).

From 1989 to 1998, E. Kasten was also a lecturer at the FU Berlin. From 2000 to 2002 he was coordinator of the newly established Siberia Group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, from where he conducted field research on socio-economic post-socialist transformations in Siberia as well as several international conferences. In 2003-2004, E. Kasten led a UNESCO project on the documentation of indigenous knowledge about sustainable nature use on Kamchatka. During a DFG-funded activity at the Ethnological Museum Berlin, he deepened his knowledge in the field of preservation of art and craft traditions of Siberian peoples. At the same time, E. Kasten studied song and dance traditions of the peoples of Kamchatka, for whose ensembles he organized tours in Europe. The results of his wide-ranging ethnological research eventually led to the German-Russian exhibition "Shamans of Siberia", which he curated from 2007 to 2009 at the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. In 2019, E. Kasten gave the keynote speech at the 25th anniversary of the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Novosibirisk together with an exhibition. Since then, the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany has supported various projects under the program “Eastern Partnership and Russia” aimed at preserving and strengthening relations with Russian civil society.

From the beginning, E. Kasten has linked scientific research with practical applications of the indigenous knowledge he has documented. In 2010, he established the Foundation for Siberian Cultures, with which he can implement his experiences and objectives for the preservation of endangered cultural heritage and cultural diversity even more effectively. Based on his film recordings, he creates, among other things, multimedia-supported learning materials in the respective indigenous languages in cooperation with native experts. The annually changing topics of the Foundaton for Siberian Cultures, which are deepened by workshops, result in publications that reflect the intended interdisciplinary and intercultural discourse.

Besides his own publications, the further development of the Foundation’s publishing house has gained importance. In accordance with the non-profit statement of the Foundation for Siberian Cultures, all books are made available for free download on the Internet to ensure easy access to them in Russia as well. Furthermore, E. Kasten is developing Internet portals for the Foundation for Siberian Cultures to stimulate a vibrant and user-friendly discourse on Siberian topics, especially among young people.

In addition to his continuing participation in international research projects, E. Kasten considers his special task in the implementation of his research results for important concerns of indigenous communities. In response to current political challenges, E. Kasten has, in recent years, increasingly turned his attention also to present-day matters in the wake of the Perestroika era. 

Tabular CV