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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
By Alexis Sancho Reinoso and Timothy Heleniak In this blog post, we explain how InfraNorth plans to contribute to the long tradition of mapping the Arctic regions by providing local-scale portraits on how local communities engage with existing and planned transport infrastructures in times of environmental, economic and geopolitical concerns in the whole region. A […]
Ria-Maria Adams & Mia Bennett Each November as the snow starts to fall in northern Finland, the city of Rovaniemi begins to prepare for the annual Christmas tourism season. From Europe, the Middle East, and more recently Asia, visitors travel to the capital of Lapland to experience the magic of Christmas in real life. When […]
Philipp Budka and Olga Povoroznyuk On September 23 and 24, 2021, the InfraNorth project organized the workshop “The Global Economics and Geopolitics of Arctic Transport Infrastructures” at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Vienna. The first day started with an introduction by Peter Schweitzer, Olga Povoroznyuk, and Timothy Heleniak to […]
Olga Povoroznyuk On October 11, 2021, the Russian government announced its ambitious goal – to provide year-round transportation on the Northern Sea Route within the coming two years. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is Russia’s largest Arctic maritime transport infrastructure. In the past, it brought to life a number of coastal communities and triggered the […]
Peter Schweitzer Contemporary economies and societies cannot function without the transport of goods and people. If we ever needed a reminder of that, the March 2021 blockage of the Suez Canal by the container ship Ever Given certainly was an impactful one. The Arctic, due to its remoteness, harsh climatic conditions, and low population density, […]