By Elena Davydova, Ria-Maria Adams and Katrin Schmid In the Arctic, a journey is as unpredictable as the weather. From Chukotka’s tundra to Scandinavian roads and Canadian backcountry trails, mobility is often interrupted by breakdowns, delays, and uncertainty. As three InfraNorth researchers working in different corners of the Arctic, we confronted remarkably similar challenges. This […]
By Alexis Sancho-Reinoso What questions can travel across communities that share little beyond snow and latitude, and still make sense in each place? That was the challenge we faced in the InfraNorth project as we set out to understand transport infrastructure across the Arctic. Alongside rich qualitative methods such as ethnography, interviews, and community workshops, […]
By Ria-Maria Adams and Katrin Schmid At first glance, northern Sweden’s Malmfälten region and Nunavut in Arctic Canada might seem worlds apart. While the Malmfälten region is defined by a few centralized company towns, Nunavut has 25 small, scattered communities. The Swedish towns of Kiruna and Gällivare are connected to the national power grid and […]
By Sophie Elixhauser and Susan Vanek For those unfamiliar with travel in Greenland, the heliport in Tasiilaq could easily be mistaken for a large house and garage – a pair of red wooden buildings, one with a plain white entrance and small windows and a second equipped with a large, metal overhead door, used for […]
By Philipp Budka When preparing for fieldwork on transport infrastructures in Manitoba, Canada, I planned to supplement my ethnographic research with archival data. I initially expected to conduct most of this research online from my office in Vienna but soon realized access was limited – while some archival records were digitized and available online, many […]
By Susan Vanek All eyes were on the sky as the first large international aircraft neared the newly extended 2,200-meter runway in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, on November 28, 2024. The landing of the flight, preceded by an inaugural ribbon-cutting ceremony, marked the official opening of the airport and the beginning of the city’s […]
By Cristóbal Adam & Ria-Maria Adams Comparison – a method so essential in anthropology, shapes our understandings of humans, societies, environments, and the diversity of cultures, yet it goes so often unnoticed because it’s so deeply ingrained in our research practices. Comparative methods have been a matter of debate in sociocultural anthropology, and the discipline has […]
By Peter Schweitzer In April 2024, the Biden administration moved to block the proposed Ambler Road, a 211-mile transport infrastructure that would allow access to valuable mineral deposits in Northwest Alaska. This decision was based on the results of a “supplemental environmental impact statement” conducted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In June 2024, […]
By Katrin Schmid “Do you mind if we swing by the hub on our way home?” We drive along the paved road through the industrial area of town, toward Iqaluit International Airport, then turn right, away from the passenger parking lot and towards a warehouse with yellow pillars out front. A large sign reads, “Canadian […]
By Olga Povoroznyuk, Alexandra Meyer, and Peter Schweitzer Why Kirkenes? Our plans to work in Kirkenes started taking shape during a time when the Arctic was still considered to be a region with (relatively) open borders, allowing for a free flow of goods and people, as well as several joint socio-economic, infrastructural, and cultural ventures. […]
By Alexandra Meyer “If you arrived in autumn, you would stay up here until the spring or summer. We did not have any possibility to get down [to the mainland]. It was quite fantastic in many ways. It was a completely different society. It used to be calm here. You knew more or less everyone. […]
By Philipp Budka* What does the future hold for a remote community of about 900 people on Hudson Bay in Northern Manitoba, Canada? This question was constantly on my mind when doing ethnographic research for the ERC project InfraNorth in the town of Churchill. When I met with local residents to talk about their experiences […]