Tears in the taiga: alcohol, agency, and more‐than‐human relations in northeast China

This article explores the complex entanglements of alcohol, human agency, and more‐than‐human relations among Ewenki reindeer herders of northeast China. Drawing on twenty years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Da Xing'anling Mountains, I examine how alcohol is both a potent cultural substance and a site of existential tension. I show how alcohol mediates social relations, reinforcing friendship, status, and gendered identities, while simultaneously underpinning ritualized engagements with reindeer, spirits, and ancestral presences. At the same time, alcohol has been implicated in cycles of violence, self‐harm, and premature death, linking personal and communal suffering to broader historical and political processes, including forced relocation and a hunting ban. By juxtaposing these dimensions, I highlight the paradoxical roles of alcohol as both a medium of connection and a vector of harm. Central to this analysis is a phenomenological approach that foregrounds embodied experience and sensory engagement, attending to how Ewenki navigate, give meaning to, and inhabit these entangled worlds through drinking. In doing so, the article contributes to anthropological understandings of substance use, more‐than‐human relations, and coping practices, offering insight into how alcohol functions as a relational and existential technology within a marginalized Indigenous world.