Drawing on conversations that the InfraNorth researcher had with residents of Nunavut during her fieldwork, the article highlights the crucial role that the trillion-dollar corporation Amazon.com, Inc. has played for local communities since opening a warehouse in Iqaluit in 2020. The new Amazon hub allowed people living in remote areas of northern Canada to access previously unaffordable goods without shipping costs. This was especially important in a region where transportation logistics, storage capacities, and food insecurity are critical issues. However, the company discontinued access to free deliveries in the spring of 2024. The article follows a recent petition campaign to extend Amazon Prime services to the region.
InfraNorth researchers contribute two chapters to the forthcoming book Arctic Silk Roads: An Anthropology of the Unbuilt, edited by Natalia Magnani and Matthew Magnani. The volume will be published by Berghahn Books in January 2026 as part of the Studies in the Circumpolar North series. As climate change accelerates, the melting of sea ice is […]
The forthcoming special issue “Ethnographies of Infrastructure” of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, guest edited by Philipp Budka, Peter Schweitzer, and Olga Povoroznyuk, is progressively being made available online ahead of the print edition, which will appear in February 2026. The introduction, authored by Schweitzer, Povoroznyuk, and Budka, is now available open-access. It presents the […]
Peter Schweitzer, principal investigator of InfraNorth and board member of the Austrian Polar Research Institute, has been appointed to the Executive Committee (EXCOM) of the European Polar Board (EPB). His election took place during the Board’s autumn plenary meeting on November 18–19, 2025, which was hosted on the campus of the TÜBİTAK Polar Research Institute […]
The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography has published the article “Amazon in the Arctic: E-Commerce, Infrastructure, and Alimentary Assemblages in Nunavut, Canada” by InfraNorth researcher Katrin Schmid. Since establishing a delivery hub in Iqaluit, Nunavut in 2020, Amazon.com, Inc. has become an essential resource for many Nunavut residents, providing affordable access to goods otherwise constrained by […]
The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography recently published the article “Toward a Comparative Ethnography of Arctic Seaports Projects: Local Impacts of Expanding Maritime Infrastructure in Alaska, Norway, and Russia” by InfraNorth researcher Olga Povoroznyuk. In this article, the author’s comparative ethnography focuses on suspended seaport expansion projects in three Arctic coastal communities: Nome (USA), Kirkenes (Norway), […]
The quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal Polar Geography has just released the article “No room in the North: housing scarcity as infrastructure’s failed relations in the Arctic” by InfraNorth researchers Katrin Schmid and Ria-Maria Adams. The article examines the entanglements of housing infrastructure, economic structures, and social relations in Arctic regions, focusing on Nunavut (Canada) and […]
