Dec 3, 2024: InfraNorth Participation at the 6th Nordic Conference for Rural Research

Two members of the InfraNorth team, Timothy Heleniak (a senior research fellow at Nordregio) and Ria-Maria Adams, will participate in the 6th Nordic Rural Research Conference, held in Kiruna, Finland, from December 3-5. This year’s conference theme is “New Pathways to Sustainable Transitions?”

Timothy Heleniak is coordinating working group 1.1, “The benefits of migration in Nordic rural areas,” which will gather on Tuesday, December 3, at 15:30 EET. The group will bring together researchers investigating mobility in rural areas, including internal and international migration, to explore its potential for rural development policies in the Nordic region.

On Wednesday, December 4, at 13:00 EET, Ria-Maria Adams will present the paper “Capitalizing stigma: Counter-narrating regional decline through local initiatives within Finland’s fastest shrinking town,” as part of working group 3.2.1, “Local communities as main actors in rural change.” Her presentation is based on a forthcoming article she is part of led by Grete Gansauer and co-authored by Johanna Lilius for the journal Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space. They examine how local initiatives in ‘left behind’ places can transform broader political discourses of decline. The study explores how local initiatives challenge stigmatizing discourses and discusses the groundwork for a re-imagined ‘politics of possibility’ for seemingly hopeless places with sparse (transport) infrastructure connections.

The full conference program is available online through this link.

Apr 16, 2025: Presentation by Philipp Budka at the Manitoba Museum

InfraNorth team member Philipp Budka will deliver a public presentation of his research titled “Infrastructural Sovereignty and the Social Life of Transport: Ethnographic Insights from Northern Manitoba, Canada” on Wednesday, April 16, from 12:00 to 1:00 PM (GMT-5) at the Manitoba Museum Auditorium in Winnipeg, Canada. Churchill, Manitoba—a remote Subarctic town of approximately 870 residents—offers […]

Apr 8, 2025: Nunatsiaq News Features Research by Katrin Schmid

InfraNorth team member Katrin Schmid’s recent presentation on transport infrastructure and food sovereignty in Nunavut was featured in Nunatsiaq News, a local newspaper in the region. Schmid shared her findings at the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum in Iqaluit on April 8, 2025, in a public presentation titled “Country Food Cargo: How Transport Infrastructure Shapes Food Sovereignty […]

Apr 9, 2025: Community Talk by Philipp Budka in Churchill, Manitoba

On April 9, 2025, from 7:00 to 8:00 PM CDT (GMT-5), Philipp Budka will present a talk titled “Navigating Change: How Transport Infrastructure Shapes Life in Churchill” at the Theatre of the Town Centre Complex in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. As part of this community event, the InfraNorth researcher will explore how transport infrastructures both shape […]

Arctic Science Summit Week 2024

Mar 20–28, 2025: InfraNorth at the Arctic Science Summit Week 2025

InfraNorth researchers Peter Schweitzer, Olga Povoroznyuk, Alexandra Meyer, Ria-Maria Adams, and Susanna Gartler will participate in the Arctic Science Summit Week 2025 (ASSW) from 20 to 28 March 2025 at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA. This year’s summit, themed “Arctic Research Planning for the Next Decade,” will include the 4th International Conference on Arctic […]