Jan 25, 2024: The Doctoral School Approves Elena Davydova’s Dissertation Project

Chukotka Warehouse Garage. Photo by Elena Davydova.
Chukotka Warehouse Garage. Photo by Elena Davydova.

Elena Davydova’s doctoral dissertation project has been approved by the advisory board of the Vienna Doctoral School of Social Sciences (ViDSS), University of Vienna, after a successful Fakultätsöffentliche Präsentation. In this public presentation of PhD thesis projects, candidates present their research proposals and their related ethical considerations to the faculty staff. It is an important step at the doctoral studies, and a requisite for the approval of the topic and supervision of the project, which enables its continuation.

Her dissertation project “Infrastructure and/for Sustenance: (Re)Shaping Local Foodways in Remote Russian Arctic Communities” will draw on a year of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Chukotka Autonomous Area (Russia) to explore the transformative potential of infrastructures in relation to food practices. In other words, how existing and ruined infrastructures contribute to the production, distribution, preparation, consumption, and utilization of food items. This research is supported by the ERC Advanced Grant project InfraNorth [Grant Agreement ID: 885646].

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 […]