Jul 2025: Presentation by Philipp Budka at EASA Workshop “Past Tense, Future Imperfect”
InfraNorth researcher Philipp Budka presented the paper “Navigating Temporalities, Infrastructure, and Uncertain Futures: Scenario Workshops in Churchill, Canada” at the workshop “Past Tense, Future Imperfect: Temporalities as Mobilising Force.” The two-day event, held in hybrid format from July 23 to 24, 2025, was organized by the EASA networks NAoHH (Anthropology of History and Heritage) and FAN (Futures Anthropologies Network) in collaboration with the Global Heritage Lab at the University of Bonn.
Budka’s presentation drew on the research he has conducted in Churchill, a remote town in northern Manitoba, which hosts North America’s only Arctic port linked to a continental rail system and relies on a former military airport for tourism. Isolated from road networks, it assumed local control of transport infrastructure after rail damage in 2017. In 2023, the InfraNorth team, together with the Town of Churchill, co-organized scenario workshops to explore how infrastructure sustains community life across past legacies and uncertain futures. As part of the workshop’s methodology stream, this presentation reflects on temporal thinking, ethnographic challenges, and the methodological interplay of infrastructure and time.
For more information, visit the Global Heritage Lab’s website.
