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Paper short abstract:

Through ecosemiotics and non-human ontology this presentation discusses the concept of potentialities, changing landscapes, and interactions with different environmental agents in the process of production of space and place names among Siberian Ewenki.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation proposes to discuss the process of production and change of place names based on field data collected in 2017 among the Okhotsk Ewenki, one of the easternmost Indigenous hunting and herding communities in Siberia, Russia. This presentation demonstrates that place names are not simply reproduced, but rather generated and transformed through empathic contact and engagement within a semiotic circle of shared knowledge and praxis among humans and other beings. Through ecosemiotics and non-human ontology it further shows how the concept of changing landscapes and interactions with different environmental agents, especially animals and spirits, contribute to the production of space and place names and their changes. Place names are considered here as complex signs which evolve from landscape, mobility as a spatial practice, and relationships with non-human beings. The concept of potentialities is utilised to describe the ability of landscape to produce new meanings which are yet to be presented in contrast to affordances or what is already available for perception and use. This concept explains the fluid nature of Ewenki place naming strategies, when place names are transformed to reflect the nuanced name-landscape relationships. It also suggests that along with a conventional understanding of Indigenous place names as stable there is a dynamic model of place naming to be found in nomadic societies, which is based on the potentiality of the landscape to produce new semiotic relationships.