By Alexandra Meyer and Sarah Helena Schäfer Studying infrastructure means to think beyond infrastructure: It is not just about a bridge, a railroad, a ship, but about the people and the hopes and dreams connected to such material aspects of life. This year, we dedicated our second InfraNorth workshop to the topic of “Ethnographies of […]
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Light at the End of the Tunnel: Transport Infrastructures in the Faroe Islands
By Timothy Heleniak I travelled to the Faroe Islands not to go hiking, view puffins, or take in a concert of Faroese music at the wonderful Nordic House. Rather, I ventured to the north Atlantic archipelago to study the decades-long transport infrastructure project of linking the islands together. Many of the infrastructure projects studied within […]
InfraNorth at the Arctic Science Summit Week in Vienna: Summarizing Project Activities
By Olga Povoroznyuk and Ilya Krylov On February 17-24 this year, the University of Vienna hosted by far the largest international interdisciplinary Arctic research forum and a meeting point for scholars, artists, Indigenous peoples and more – the Arctic Science Summit Week. Members of InfraNorth research team enthusiastically took this opportunity to present the project […]
Why Do Infrastructures Matter? Some Remarks from the Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society in Rovaniemi, Finland
By Alexis Sancho Reinoso These lines summarize a series of personal thoughts from a geographer who had the opportunity to participate in the Biannual Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society. The event took place on March 21-23 in Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland, and it was incredibly well organized by the Anthropology Research Team […]
“Have You Seen a Polar Bear?” – Transportation During “Bear Season” in Churchill, Manitoba
By Philipp Budka Tourism is big in Churchill, a town of 870 people situated at the junction of the boreal forest, the Subarctic tundra, and the Hudson Bay in Northern Manitoba, Canada. And tourism is closely entangled with transport infrastructures, such as roads, trails, railway, and airport. Through these infrastructures, tourists are able to reach […]
(Re)shaping Local Foodways Through Transport Infrastructures in Chukotka
By Elena Davydova and Vladimir Davydov This blog post is based on field studies conducted in winter 2017, summer 2018, and spring 2019. While fieldwork in all our Russian fieldsites is placed on hold, we wanted to show with this post where our fieldwork would have taken us to expand on our existing knowledge. In […]
On the Future of Anthropological Research and Collaboration with Russia
By Peter Schweitzer and Olga Povoroznyuk As most of the world, our project team – the one leading InfraNorth – was shocked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This unprovoked aggression seems to have ended more than 30 years of productive collaboration between Soviet/Russian and western anthropologists, at least on the institutional […]
Moving Mountains to Ship Iron: Transportation Hierarchies in the Scandinavian Arctic
By Ria-Maria Adams and Mia Bennett Iron ore is fundamental to modernity from scales microscopic to monumental. Embedded within the glittery makeup we wear, the cell phones we carry, the bridges we cross, and the railways we ride, the ferrous mineral is a vital component to an infinite number of products. With the world population […]
From Cargo to the Court: Transport Paths Across Nunavut
By Katrin Schmid There is a double basketball court across the street from Northmart grocery store in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut Territory in Canada. During the summer of 2022, the court was missing a hoop and backboard, but the missing infrastructure is not what is of note here. From the outside these games look […]
Indigenous Peoples and Infrastructure in the Arctic
By Timothy Heleniak The Arctic countries have taken different approaches to categorizing people by race, ethnicity, nationality, or other identity characteristics, including a concept of indigeneity. Because of past migrations, the percent of Indigenous residents in Arctic regions differs considerably. These groups have been significantly impacted by non-indigenous populations, including through large-scale infrastructure projects. This […]
Reflections on the InfraNorth Workshop “Arctic Infrastructures: Histories of Exploration, Colonization and Industrial Development”
By Alexis Sancho Reinoso, Ria-Maria Adams and Katrin Schmid The InfaNorth workshop “Arctic Infrastructures: Histories of Exploration, Colonization and Industrial Development” took place on June 14-15, 2022 and was hosted at the Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. The two-day workshop was followed by an excursion along historically significant infrastructural sites in Swedish Lapland. Browsing through […]
A Train Ride to Hudson Bay
By Philipp Budka I wake up because a bright light is shining directly in my face. For a second, I am not sure where I am. Then I remember: I am in Canada, in the province of Manitoba, on the train from the capital Winnipeg to the small northern town of Churchill at the Hudson […]