Jul 2024: Chapter by Peter Schweitzer in “A Fractured North – Journeys on Hold”
The publishing house of Kulturstiftung Sibirien, SEC Publications, has just released the book “A Fractured North – Journeys on Hold,” a collection of texts edited by Erich Kasten, Igor Krupnik, and Gail Fondahl. The book, available in both print and digital versions, features a chapter written by Peter Schweitzer, titled “Openings and Closures: The Anthropology of Siberia and the Politics of Field Access.”
In this chapter, Schweitzer delves into historical illustrations of shifts along a continuum of “openings” and “closures” (understanding these terms as relative and relational) between Russia and the “West” (i.e. western Europe and North America) over the course of the 18th and 20th centuries. In doing so, the author seeks to apply historical lessons to our present situation, and asks whether we can learn from them.
This collection of texts is the second volume in a series initiated by SEC Publications in 2023 under the title “A Fractured North,” envisioned as a response of the international community of Northern scholars to the ongoing war in Ukraine and to the disruption (“fracture”) it causes.
