In the article, four foreign researchers with research commitments in Kiruna, Sweden, reflexively examine the imaginaries of Kiruna as either empty or crowded while problematizing the Arctic as a homogenous region. While their scholarly interests (mining, space, education, transport infrastructure) and disciplines are distinct, they reflect on how their convergence in the city indicates broader historical shifts in Arctic imaginaries and the political economies of research, which follow and shape climate geopolitics, development, and cultural practices. In the interstices of these currents, the Arctic – imagined as empty and remote from global metropoles – becomes crowded and connected through mobility to and from as well as within the Arctic, which shapes processes of knowledge production.
The full yearbook is open access and can be read online here.
A new book examining the rapid climate and geopolitical shifts in the Arctic, Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic, by Mia Bennett and Klaus Dodds, has been recently published by Yale University Press and launched in London. Mia Bennett is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Washington, founder and editor […]
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 […]
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 […]
InfraNorth researcher Philipp Budka presented the paper “Navigating Temporalities, Infrastructure, and Uncertain Futures: Scenario Workshops in Churchill, Canada” at the workshop “Past Tense, Future Imperfect: Temporalities as Mobilising Force.” The two-day event, held in hybrid format from July 23 to 24, 2025, was organized by the EASA networks NAoHH (Anthropology of History and Heritage) and […]
The peer-reviewed academic journal Visual Anthropology has just published the article “Framing Multipolar Tourism: Imaginaries, Visualities and Futures,” written jointly by Jolynna Sinanan (University of Manchester) and InfraNorth researchers Ria-Maria Adams and Philipp Budka. The article examines multipolar iconography and how imaginaries of remote, climate-vulnerable places have materialized through improved transport, enhanced accommodation facilities, […]
InfraNorth researcher Ria-Maria Adams will be convening a panel and presenting a paper at the 2025 Biennial Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society in Helsinki. This year’s conference, which marks the Society’s 50th anniversary, will be held under the theme Comparisons in Helsinki from June 16 to 18, 2025. The panel session “Rethinking Infrastructure through […]
