March 16, 2022: Article by Peter Schweitzer & Olga Povoroznyuk in “Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning”

The town of Tiksi came into being in the 1930s, when the Soviet Union intensified its efforts to industrialize the Arctic. A critical element of that policy was to make the Northern Sea Route a viable Arctic shipping lane and Tiksi, located where the Lena River meets the Arctic Ocean, became an important transportation hub on that route. Post-Soviet transformations led to a rapid decline in population numbers and economic significance of the town, while climate change opened up new opportunities for shipping and mammoth tusk collecting. Today, the situation seems to have stabilized but the promises of a bright future pronounced in strategic papers by the government are yet to be realized. The article explores the socio-economic, infrastructural and environmental changes of recent decades in order to explore future development prospects for Tiksi. The infrastructural legacies of the Soviet past, combined with the environmental conditions of the region, result in the intertwined material dependencies of built and natural environments. Still, these material dependencies are neither straitjackets nor unchangeable. It is the interplay between global climate change, national policies, and local initiative that will challenge the material dependencies of the past and present.

Published in Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, March 16, 2022

Article as PDF

Nov 28: Presentation by Philipp Budka at STS Austria Conference 2023

Philipp Budka will present on ownership and control in transport infrastructure projects in Northern Manitoba, Canada, in the session “The Politics of Open Infrastructures” at the STS Austria Conference 2023. The conference will take place at the Austrian Academy of Sciences from Nov 27-29, 2023. Program

Nov 27, 2023: Lecture by Olga Povoroznyuk & Peter Schweitzer at TU Vienna

Olga Povoroznyuk and Peter Schweitzer will give a guest lecture on “The Social Lives of Transport Infrastructures in the Arctic” at the Technical University of Vienna. The lecture includes insights from their InfraNorth research and will be part of the module “Emerging Fields in Architecture”, which seeks to put design into a broader social context. […]

Nov 17, 2023: Session by Philipp Budka & Giuseppe Amatulli at AAA/CASCA 2023

Giuseppe Amatulli (Carlton University) & Philipp Budka (InfraNorth, University of Vienna) organize the session “Narratives and Temporalities of Infrastructure: The Canadian Experience” at the meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) & the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA). The conference will take place from November 15-19, 2023 in Toronto.

Nov 8-9, 2023: InfraNorth at APRI’s 10th Anniversary Meeting

Peter Schweitzer and several other InfraNorth members will co-present their research at APRI’s Polar Talk N9 on November 8. Polar Talk Flyer Olga Povoroznyuk will give a presentation entitled “InfraNorth Future Scenarios for Arctic Communities” at the APRI Assembly Meeting on November 9. APRI Meeting Program Flyer

Nov, 2023: InfraNorth Presentations at AAA/CASCA 2023

InfraNorth will have three paper presentations at the Meeting of the American Anthropological Association / Canadian Anthropology Society/Société canadienne d’anthropologie in Toronto, Canada, November 15-19, 2023: Olga Povoroznyuk & Peter Schweitzer with a paper entitled “Whose sovereignty? Promises and threats of a port expansion project in Nome, Alaska” Katrin Schmid with a paper titled “Gravel, […]