Leaving and staying among the Reindeer Ewenki

This article examines how Reindeer Ewenki connected to forest camps explain leaving, staying and returning after ecological resettlement. It draws on interview summaries and processed excerpts concerning fourteen adults collected in August 2024, August 2025 and August 2026. Participants described sustained camp work, temporary returns and continued residence elsewhere. The analysis compares their decisions, the alternatives they considered feasible and who undertook camp work while they were present or away. Participants distinguished help with feeding from responsibility for calving, negotiated the duration of returns and described financial support that sustained camp life alongside reduced familiarity with herd work. Tourism provided income and required reception work; participants outside tourism also struggled to find replacement carers. Read through the aspirations-capabilities framework, these accounts show that opportunities to leave or stay depended on the tasks others could undertake and the time a person could commit. Care arrangements shaped residential choices and the forms of involvement people maintained across camp, settlement and city.