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].

Sep 2026: Chapter by Peter Schweitzer in “Anthropology in Motion” (Andre Gingrich, Ed.) Now Open Access

The book chapter “Remote connections: Human entanglements with built and natural environments in the Arctic and elsewhere,” written by InfraNorth principal investigator Peter Schweitzer and published as part of Anthropology in Motion, edited by Andre Gingrich and published by Sean Kingston Publishing in 2021, is now available open access. In the chapter, Schweitzer revisits the […]

Vienna Anthropology Days - VANDA 2027 Call for Papers

Call for Papers on “High Altitudes, High Latitudes: Engaging with Cryospheric Livelihoods” for VANDA Conference 2027

We invite paper proposals for our panel “High Altitudes, High Latitudes: Engaging with Cryospheric Livelihoods” at the Vienna Anthropology Days (VANDA) 2027, hosted by the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna, 16-19 February 2027. The cryosphere, defined by frozen water in all its forms, has attracted considerable attention of late […]

Vienna Anthropology Days - VANDA 2027 Call for Papers

Call for Papers on “Infrastructuring Green Transitions” for VANDA Conference 2027

We invite paper proposals for our panel “Infrastructuring Green Transitions” at the Vienna Anthropology Days (VANDA) 2027, hosted by the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna, 16-19 February 2027. The green transition marks a shift away from fossil fuel-based, high-carbon economic activity toward more sustainable systems of production, consumption, and […]

Vienna Anthropology Days - VANDA 2027 Call for Papers

Call for Papers on “Whose Arctic Futures? Unsettling Northern Transport Infrastructures” for VANDA Conference 2027

We invite paper proposals for our panel “Whose Arctic Futures? Unsettling Northern Transport Infrastructures” at the Vienna Anthropology Days (VANDA) 2027, hosted by the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna, 16-19 February 2027. The Arctic, which during the post-Cold War period at the turn of the last century seemed to […]

Vienna Anthropology Days - VANDA 2027 Call for Papers

Call for Papers on “Infrastructures: Questions, Debates, and Directions” for VANDA 2027

We invite paper proposals for our panel “Infrastructures: Questions, Debates, and Directions” at the Vienna Anthropology Days (VANDA) 2027, hosted by the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna, 16-19 February 2027. The panel explores infrastructure as both an object of anthropological inquiry and an analytical lens. It welcomes empirical, conceptual, […]

Cover of the Polar Geography journal.

Aug 2026: Introduction to InfraNorth Special Issue in Polar Geography

The quarterly peer-reviewed journal Polar Geography has published the introduction to the forthcoming special issue “Transport infrastructure and population in the Arctic.” The introduction has been written by InfraNorth senior researcher Timothy Heleniak and principal investigator Peter Schweitzer. Published online in August 2026, the introduction presents the special issue emerging from the InfraNorth project. At […]