Jan 2026: InfraNorth Chapters Featured in “Arctic Silk Roads: An Anthropology of the Unbuilt” (Berghahn Books)

InfraNorth researchers have contributed two chapters to the book Arctic Silk Roads: An Anthropology of the Unbuilt, edited by Natalia Magnani and Matthew Magnani, and published by Berghahn Books as part of its Studies in the Circumpolar North series.

As climate change accelerates, the melting of sea ice is fueling the global imagination and geopolitical anticipation of the Arctic region’s accessible transport routes and potential for resource extraction. “Silk roads” are being conjured across the circumpolar North, both as official Arctic and infrastructural policy, and as broader visions of global connectivity with other markets. Following the myriad ways that local economies and agencies are proliferating around the anticipation of large-scale infrastructural corridors and their often-unrealized arteries, Arctic Silk Roads examines the different conditions under which top-down infrastructural dreams facilitate or constrain individual agencies.

InfraNorth team members’ contributions include:

  • Polar Silk Worlding: Imagination, Infrastructure, and Anticipation in Chinese Arctic Tourism, by Ria-Maria Adams and Mia M. Bennett. (Chapter 4)
  • The Promises and Fears of Infrastructure: An Alaskan Port Expansion, Geopolitics, and Local (Dis-)Engagement, by Olga Povoroznyuk and Peter Schweitzer. (Chapter 7)

For more information, please visit the Berghahn Books website.

The book Arctic Silk Roads: An Anthropology of the Unbuilt (edited by N. Magnani and M. Magnani, Berghahn Books, January 2026) features two chapters by InfraNorth researchers.
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

Dec 2025: Article by Alexandra Meyer, Ria-Maria Adams and Sophie Elixhauser in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography has recently published the article “Lifelines and Gateways: The Relational Affordances of Arctic Airports” by InfraNorth researchers Alexandra Meyer, Ria-Maria Adams and Sophie Elixhauser. Airports are indispensable to life in the Arctic. Often shaped by geopolitical agendas and external economic interests, they provide vital links for local communities across remote […]

Dec 2025: Peter Schweitzer Interviewed on Austrian Public Radio Ö1

The Austrian public broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) featured InfraNorth principal investigator Peter Schweitzer in an interview on its Ö1 weekend feuilleton “Diagonal” on December 6, 2025, which focused on the politics of infrastructure. Schweitzer appeared in a segment titled “A Silk Road Across the Arctic” (in German: Seidenstrasse über die Arktis), interviewed by Erich Klein […]

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

Dec 2025: Forthcoming Special Issue of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

The forthcoming special issue “Ethnographies of Infrastructure” of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, guest edited by Philipp Budka, Peter Schweitzer, and Olga Povoroznyuk, is progressively being made available online ahead of the print edition, which will appear in February 2026. The introduction, authored by Schweitzer, Povoroznyuk, and Budka, is now available open-access. It presents the […]

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

Dec 2025: Article by Peter Schweitzer, et al. in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography has recently published the article “Scenarios and Ethnography: Infrastructural Futures as Windows into the Present” by Peter Schweitzer, Olga Povoroznyuk, Philipp Budka, Alexandra Meyer, Katrin Schmid, and Nikita Strelkovskii. This article reflects on two scenario workshops conducted in 2023 in Kirkenes, Norway, and Churchill, Canada, as part of the ERC […]