Feb 26–Mar 1, 2025: Presentations by Philipp Budka and Katrin Schmid at the 46th Annual GKS Conference

InfraNorth researchers Philipp Budka and Katrin Schmid will present their work at the 46th Annual Conference of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-speaking Countries (GKS). Under the theme “The North: Changes, Challenges, Opportunities,” the conference will be held in Berlin from February 26 to March 1, 2025.

Philipp Budka will participate in Panel 11, “Northern Infrastructures,” on Saturday, March 1, from 09:30 to 11:00 CET. He will present his paper “Digital and Transport Infrastructures in Northern Canada: On Ownership, Control and Relationality,” which explores the role of digital and transport infrastructures in remote communities in northern Canada. His discussion will focus on issues of ownership, control, and relationality in these infrastructures. Drawing on previous ethnographic fieldwork on the Indigenization of digital infrastructure in Northwestern Ontario, Budka extends his analysis with recent research conducted in Churchill, Manitoba. This case study examines the promises, failures, and transformations of transport infrastructures. From an ethnographic and anthropological perspective, he argues that infrastructure is not merely an operational system of technological objects but a complex, relational phenomenon.

Katrin Schmid will present the poster “Country Food Cargo: Transport Infrastructure and Imagined Futures in Nunavut,” which will be displayed at the exhibition room of the Canadian Embassy in Berlin during the conference. Her research explores how transport infrastructure affects food sovereignty in Nunavut, a territory with no agriculture and no connection to the national highway network. It highlights the need to align infrastructure planning with community needs to strengthen food sovereignty as well as northern communities.

For more details and the full program, visit the conference website.

Jan 2026: InfraNorth Contributions to Forthcoming Book “Arctic Silk Roads”

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 […]

Presentation by Philipp Budka at the IKSA Wednesday Seminars

Nov 5, 2025: Presentation by Philipp Budka at the University of Vienna

On November 5, 2025, at 5:00 pm CET, InfraNorth researcher Philipp Budka will deliver a lecture titled “Sovereignty by Design: Community Infrastructures and Relational Futures in Remote Canada,” as part of the Wednesday Seminars, the lecture series of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Budka’s talk examines infrastructural sovereignty—the […]

The skyline of Anchorage, Alaska, as seen from the airport. Photo by Peter Schweitzer.

Oct 2025: Presentation by Olga Povoroznyuk and Peter Schweitzer in Anchorage, Alaska

Olga Povoroznyuk and Peter Schweitzer presented findings from the InfraNorth project at the ARCA co-creative community workshop “Biocultural Heritage and Climate Adaptation in Arctic Cities,” held on October 7–8, 2025, at The Nave in Anchorage, Alaska. Their presentation drew connections between their recent research conducted in Anchorage and other field sites in Alaska: on the […]

Oct 1, 2025: InfraNorth Presentations at the 2025 GASCA Conference “Un/Commoning Anthropology”

On October 1, 2025, InfraNorth researchers Philipp Budka, Elena Davydova, Katrin Schmid and Susanna Gartler will present at the 2025 conference of the German Association for Social and Cultural Anthropology (GASCA/DGKSA). This year’s edition will be held from September 29 to October 2, 2025, at the University of Köln, under the theme “Un/Commoning Anthropology.” Temporalities […]

10th EUGEO Congress Vienna 2025

Sep 10, 2025: Presentation by Alexis Sancho Reinoso at the EUGEO Congress 2025

At the EUGEO Congress 2025 in Vienna, held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences from September 8 to 11, Alexis Sancho Reinoso will present a paper co-authored with Timothy Heleniak: “Turning the Faroes Into One City. Demographic and Spatial Impacts of 60 Years of Transport Infrastructure Expansion.” The paper presents findings from their research in […]