March 22, 2022: Webinar with Peter Schweitzer “Crossroads, Ice Curtain & Chokepoint: Bering Strait Over Time”

Webinar with Peter Schweitzer

The Bering Strait, the body of water that both separates and binds together the USA and the Russian Federation, has been an area of heightened world historical significance ever since it formed a land bridge between Northeast Asia and Northwest North America at the end of the last Ice Age that enabled the peopling of the Americas. Despite these deep historical connections, the talk will focus on the region’s more recent history since the late 19th century. This history has been characterized by indigenous cultural contacts, imperial ambitions, resource extraction, as well as infrastructural projects and plans. The story of these entanglements will be told along the lines of several research projects led by the speaker and spanning the last 30 years, ranging from “Traveling Between Continents” to “Moved by the State” to “Building Arctic Futures (InfraNorth)”. The latter, a recently commenced ERC project, focuses on the nexus between transport infrastructures and the well-being of Arctic communities. The Bering Strait is a chokepoint for Arctic maritime traffic between the Atlantic and the Pacific, no matter whether transportation is routed via the Northern Sea Route or the Northwest Passage. While the geopolitical and strategic significance of the Bering Strait has been great throughout the 20th century, the invasion of the Ukraine will undoubtedly lead to making the 80 kilometres separating Russia from its eastern neighbour into even more volatile waters. Notwithstanding these global dimensions, the talk will be anthropological in nature and focus on the local scale.

March 22, 14:00 (13:00 CEST)

University of Helsinki Website

Zoom Link

Jan 2026: InfraNorth Contributions to Forthcoming Book “Arctic Silk Roads”

InfraNorth researchers contribute two chapters to the forthcoming book Arctic Silk Roads: An Anthropology of the Unbuilt, edited by Natalia Magnani and Matthew Magnani. The volume will be published by Berghahn Books in January 2026 as part of the Studies in the Circumpolar North series. As climate change accelerates, the melting of sea ice is […]

Presentation by Philipp Budka at the IKSA Wednesday Seminars

Nov 5, 2025: Presentation by Philipp Budka at the University of Vienna

On November 5, 2025, at 5:00 pm CET, InfraNorth researcher Philipp Budka will deliver a lecture titled “Sovereignty by Design: Community Infrastructures and Relational Futures in Remote Canada,” as part of the Wednesday Seminars, the lecture series of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Budka’s talk examines infrastructural sovereignty—the […]

The skyline of Anchorage, Alaska, as seen from the airport. Photo by Peter Schweitzer.

Oct 2025: Presentation by Olga Povoroznyuk and Peter Schweitzer in Anchorage, Alaska

Olga Povoroznyuk and Peter Schweitzer presented findings from the InfraNorth project at the ARCA co-creative community workshop “Biocultural Heritage and Climate Adaptation in Arctic Cities,” held on October 7–8, 2025, at The Nave in Anchorage, Alaska. Their presentation drew connections between their recent research conducted in Anchorage and other field sites in Alaska: on the […]

Oct 1, 2025: InfraNorth Presentations at the 2025 GASCA Conference “Un/Commoning Anthropology”

On October 1, 2025, InfraNorth researchers Philipp Budka, Elena Davydova, Katrin Schmid and Susanna Gartler will present at the 2025 conference of the German Association for Social and Cultural Anthropology (GASCA/DGKSA). This year’s edition will be held from September 29 to October 2, 2025, at the University of Köln, under the theme “Un/Commoning Anthropology.” Temporalities […]

10th EUGEO Congress Vienna 2025

Sep 10, 2025: Presentation by Alexis Sancho Reinoso at the EUGEO Congress 2025

At the EUGEO Congress 2025 in Vienna, held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences from September 8 to 11, Alexis Sancho Reinoso will present a paper co-authored with Timothy Heleniak: “Turning the Faroes Into One City. Demographic and Spatial Impacts of 60 Years of Transport Infrastructure Expansion.” The paper presents findings from their research in […]