Building Arctic Futures: Transport Infrastructures and Sustainable Northern Communities

Project Information

INFRANORTH

Grant agreement ID: 885646

DOI

10.3030/885646

Project closed

EC signature date 7 October 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 December 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 499 998,75

EU contribution

€ 2 499 998,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Austria

CORDIS provides links to public deliverables and publications of HORIZON projects.

Links to deliverables and publications from FP7 projects, as well as links to some specific result types such as dataset and software, are dynamically retrieved from OpenAIRE .

Publications

Book chapters (10)

Remote Connections: Human Entanglements with Built and Natural Environments in the Arctic and Elsewhere

Author(s): Peter Schweitzer
Published in: Anthropology in Motion: Encounters with Current Trajectories of Scholarship from Austria, 2021, Page(s) 40-63, ISBN 978-1-912385-32-4
Publisher: Sean Kingston Publishing

Openings and Closures: The Anthropology of Siberia and the Politics of Field Access

Author(s): Peter Schweitzer
Published in: A Fractured North -- Journeys on Hold, 2024, Page(s) 263-281, ISBN 978-3-942883-42-9
Publisher: Kulturstiftung Sibirien

Transformations of cooking technologies, spatial displacement, and food nostalgia in Chukotka

Author(s): Elena Davydova
Published in: The Siberian World, 2023, Page(s) 110-120, ISBN 978-0-367-37457-4
Publisher: Routledge

Railroads and the North: Historic and Ethnographic Examples from Russia and North America

Author(s): Peter Schweitzer
Published in: More than ‘Nature’: Research on Infrastructure and Settlements in the North, Issue 3, 2022, Page(s) 29-44, ISBN 978-3-643-91218-3
Publisher: LIT Verlag

Seasons and Seasonality in the (Alaskan) Arctic: Human and More-than-human Cycles of Engagement

Author(s): Peter Schweitzer
Published in: The Seasonal and the Material, 2024, Page(s) 171-182, ISBN 978-3-98572-189-4
Publisher: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG
DOI: 10.5771/9783985721894-171

Polar Silk Worlding:

Author(s): Ria-Maria Adams, Mia M. Bennett
Published in: Arctic Silk Roads, 2025, Page(s) 95-121
Publisher: Berghahn Books
DOI: 10.2307/jj.31732223.9

Reconceptualizing Siberia: A Personal Account of a Changing Field

Author(s): Olga Povoroznyuk
Published in: A Fractured North -- Maintaining Connections, 2025, Page(s) 89-105, ISBN 978-3-942883-43-6
Publisher: Kulturstiftung Sibirien

The Promises and Fears of Infrastructure:

Author(s): Olga Povoroznyuk, Peter Schweitzer
Published in: Arctic Silk Roads, Issue Arctic Silk Roads: An Anthropology of the Unbuilt, 2025, Page(s) 175-195, ISBN 978-1-83695-308-1
Publisher: Berghahn Books
DOI: 10.2307/jj.31732223.12

Chapter 25 What Difference Does a Railroad Make?: Transportation and Settlement in the BAM Region in Historical Perspective

Author(s): Povoroznyuk, Olga; Schweitzer, Peter
Published in: The Siberian World, 2023, Page(s) 364-377, ISBN 978-0-367-37475-4
Publisher: Routledge

Population Change in the Arctic

Author(s): Timothy Heleniak
Published in: The Palgrave Handbook of Arctic Policy and Politics, 2026, Page(s) 49-69, ISBN 978-3-032-03030-6
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-03031-3_4

Peer reviewed articles (40)

Infrastructural Disruption, Entanglement and Change in Northern Manitoba

Author(s): Philipp Budka
Published in: Anthropologica, Issue 67, 2025, Page(s) 1-25, ISSN 0003-5459
Publisher: Canadian Research Centre For Anthropology
DOI: 10.18357/anthropologica67120252709

Framing Multipolar Tourism: Imaginaries, Visualities and Futures

Author(s): Jolynna Sinanan, Ria-Maria Adams, Philipp Budka
Published in: Visual Anthropology, Issue 38, 2025, Page(s) 30-48, ISSN 0894-9468
Publisher: Taylor and Francis Inc.
DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2025.2510817

Making and Unmaking Airports in Tunu (East Greenland): The Socio-Material Dynamics of Hope and Connectivity

Author(s): Sophie Elixhauser
Published in: Études Inuit Studies, Issue 47, 2024, Page(s) 275-309, ISSN 0701-1008
Publisher: Association Inuksiutiit Katimajiit
DOI: 10.7202/1113393ar

A transdisciplinary, comparative analysis reveals key risks from Arctic permafrost thaw

Author(s): Susanna Gartler, Johanna Scheer, Alexandra Meyer, Khaled Abass, Annett Bartsch, Natalia Doloisio, Jade Falardeau, Gustaf Hugelius, Anna Irrgang, Jón Haukur Ingimundarson, Leneisja Jungsberg, Hugues Lantuit, Joan Nymand Larsen, Rachele Lodi, Victoria Sophie Martin, Louise Mercer, David Nielsen, Paul Overduin, Olga Povoroznyuk, Arja Rautio, Peter Schweitzer, Niek Jesse Speetjens, Soňa Tomaškovič
Published in: Communications Earth & Environment, Issue 6, 2025, Page(s) 1-20, ISSN 2662-4435
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01883-w

Infrastructural legacies and post-Soviet transformations in Northern Sakha (Yakutiya), Russia

Author(s): Peter Schweitzer; Olga Povoroznyuk
Published in: Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, Issue 24, 3, 2022, Page(s) 297-308, ISSN 1523-908X
Publisher: Carfax Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1080/1523908x.2022.2051455

Multi-scale scenario building for community development: Exploring transport infrastructure futures in the Circumpolar North

Author(s): Nikita Strelkovskii, Philipp Budka, Dmitry Erokhin, Nadejda Komendantova, Alexandra Meyer, Olga Povoroznyuk, Elena Rovenskaya, Alexis Sancho-Reinoso, Katrin Schmid, Peter Schweitzer
Published in: Futures, Issue 180, 2026, Page(s) 103834, ISSN 0016-3287
Publisher: Elsevier BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2026.103834

Redefining Arctic boundaries in a changing climate: interdisciplinary perspectives on governance strategies

Author(s): Ugo Nanni, Patricia DeRepentigny, Aapo Lundén, Virginija Popovaitė, Yiyi Shen, Ilker K. Basaran, Natália Duarte Neubern, Llucia Mascorda-Cabre, Alec Bennett, Tiril Vold Hansen, Felicity A. Holmes, Eleni Kavvatha, Alexandra Meyer, Abhay Prakash, Aleksandra Wołoszyn
Published in: Polar Geography, Issue 47, 2024, Page(s) 127-155, ISSN 1088-937X
Publisher: V.H. Winston and Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1080/1088937x.2024.2359926

No room in the North: housing scarcity as infrastructure’s failed relations in the Arctic

Author(s): Katrin Schmid, Ria-Maria Adams
Published in: Polar Geography, Issue Online first, 2025, Page(s) 1-19, ISSN 1088-937X
Publisher: V.H. Winston and Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1080/1088937x.2025.2592134

(Re)Constructing the Baikal-Amur Mainline: Continuity and Change of Post-Socialist Infrastructure

Author(s): Olga Povoroznyuk
Published in: Transfers, Issue 10, 2-3, 2021, Page(s) 250-269, ISSN 2045-4813
Publisher: Berghahn
DOI: 10.3167/trans.2020.10020317

Iceland’s demographic transition: from turf houses to too many tourists

Author(s): Timothy Heleniak
Published in: Polar Record, Issue 61, 2025, Page(s) 1-14, ISSN 0032-2474
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
DOI: 10.1017/s003224742400038x

The crowded and empty Arctic

Author(s): Julie Klinger, Mia Bennett, Ria-Maria Adams, Eleanor Armstrong
Published in: Lychnos: Årsbok för idé- och lärdomshistoria, 2024, Page(s) 57-72, ISSN 2004-4852
Publisher: Lychnos, Lund University
DOI: 10.48202/25085

Transporting Arctic foodways: the infrastructure of food sovereignty in Nunavut, Canada

Author(s): Katrin Schmid
Published in: Food, Culture & Society, Issue Online first, 2026, Page(s) 1-19, ISSN 1552-8014
Publisher: Association for the Study of Food and Society
DOI: 10.1080/15528014.2026.2651494

Navigating local relevance in transdisciplinary research: Exploring climate and environmental change in the Tasiilaq region, East Greenland

Author(s): Sophie Elixhauser, Jorrit van der Schot
Published in: Ambio, Issue 55, 2025, Page(s) 189-202, ISSN 0044-7447
Publisher: Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien/Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
DOI: 10.1007/s13280-025-02198-6

Hunting a ‘good life’: young lifestyle migrants in Finnish Lapland

Author(s): Adams Ria-Maria
Published in: Polar Geography, Issue 46, 2026, Page(s) 139-156, ISSN 1088-937X
Publisher: V.H. Winston and Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1080/1088937x.2023.2182383

Lifelines and Gateways: The Relational Affordances of Arctic Airports

Author(s): Alexandra Meyer, Ria-Maria Adams, Sophie Elixhauser
Published in: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Issue 55, 2026, Page(s) 37-62, ISSN 0891-2416
Publisher: SAGE Publications
DOI: 10.1177/08912416251398478

Hyperconnected remoteness: the Svalbard airport and community transitions in Longyearbyen

Author(s): Alexandra Meyer
Published in: Polar Geography, Issue Online first, 2026, Page(s) 1-23, ISSN 1088-937X
Publisher: V.H. Winston and Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1080/1088937x.2026.2620755

Flying into Frictioned Futures: Development of Canada’s Northernmost Runways

Author(s): Katrin Schmid
Published in: Anthropologica, Issue 67, 2025, Page(s) 1-25, ISSN 0003-5459
Publisher: Canadian Research Centre For Anthropology
DOI: 10.18357/anthropologica67120252702

Interdisciplinary, but how? Anthropological Perspectives from Collaborative Research on Climate and Environmental Change

Author(s): Sophie Elixhauser, Zofia Boni, Nataša Gregorič Bon, Urša Kanjir, Alexandra Meyer, Frank Muttenzer, Mareike Pampus, Zdenka Sokolíčková
Published in: Environmental Science & Policy, Issue 151, 2025, Page(s) 103586, ISSN 1462-9011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2023.103586

‘Melting Worlds’ and ‘Climate Myths’: Diverging Stories of Climate Change in Longyearbyen, an Arctic ‘Frontline Community’

Author(s): Alexandra Meyer, Zdenka Sokolíčková
Published in: Ethnos, Issue 90, 2025, Page(s) 714-731, ISSN 0014-1844
Publisher: Routledge
DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2024.2329690

Introduction: Narratives and Temporalities of Infrastructure in Canada

Author(s): Philipp Budka, Giuseppe Amatulli
Published in: Anthropologica, Issue 67, 2025, Page(s) 1-20, ISSN 0003-5459
Publisher: Canadian Research Centre For Anthropology
DOI: 10.18357/anthropologica67120252794

Temporality of Arctic transport infrastructure: bridging seasonal supply in Egvekinot, Chukotka

Author(s): Elena Davydova, Olga Povoroznyuk
Published in: Polar Geography, Issue Online first, 2025, Page(s) 1-20, ISSN 1088-937X
Publisher: V.H. Winston and Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1080/1088937x.2025.2592137

Ambiguous entanglements: infrastructure, memory and identity in indigenous Evenki communities along the Baikal–Amur Mainline

Author(s): Olga Povoroznyuk
Published in: Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale, Issue 29, 4, 2021, Page(s) 1064-1080, ISSN 0964-0282
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
DOI: 10.1111/1469-8676.13032

<scp>LOCAL INITIATIVES IN SHRINKING CITIES</scp>: On Normative Framings and Hidden Aspirations in Scholarly Work

Author(s): Leona Sandmann, Maria Gunko, Irina Shirobokova, Ria‐Maria Adams, Johanna Lilius, Katrin Grossmann
Published in: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Issue 49, 2025, Page(s) 214-223, ISSN 0309-1317
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Inc.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.13252

Affective politics and neoliberal subjectivities in ‘left behind’ places: Counter-narrating regional decline within/from Finland’s ‘Capital of Pessimism’

Author(s): Grete Gansauer, Johanna Lilius, Ria-Maria Adams
Published in: Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, Issue 43, 2026, Page(s) 1140-1157, ISSN 2399-6544
Publisher: SAGE Publications
DOI: 10.1177/23996544251317099

Introduction: Precarious Connections: On the Promise and Menace of Railroad Projects

Author(s): Peter Schweitzer; Olga Povoroznyuk
Published in: Transfers, Issue 10, 2-3, 2021, Page(s) 137-151, ISSN 2045-4813
Publisher: Berghahn
DOI: 10.3167/trans.2020.10020311

Amazon in the Arctic: E-Commerce, Infrastructure, and Alimentary Assemblages in Nunavut, Canada

Author(s): Katrin Schmid
Published in: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Issue 55, 2026, Page(s) 110-131, ISSN 0891-2416
Publisher: SAGE Publications
DOI: 10.1177/08912416251398435

Building transdisciplinary bridges and learning from the Svalbard context

Author(s): Julia Olsen, Alexandra Meyer, Lisbeth Iversen, Ulrich Schildberg, Ragnhild Holmen Bjørnsen, Grete K. Hovelsrud, James Badu, Dina Brode-Roger, Adriana Craciun, Hanne H. Christiansen, Lena Cappelen Endresen, Tiril V. Hansen, Simon Jungblut, Eystein Markusson, Aga Nowak, Ulla Timlin, Stein Sandven, Zdenka Sokolíčková, Janne Søreide
Published in: The Polar Journal, Issue 15, 2025, Page(s) 299-323, ISSN 2154-896X
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
DOI: 10.1080/2154896x.2025.2569950

Beyond Genetics: Exploring Aspects of Non-Biological Kinship in Prehistoric Times

Author(s): Cveček Sabina, Herrero-Corral Ana, Rebay-Salisbury Katharina, Banffy Eszter, Brami Maxime, Chaix Raphaëlle, Hrnčíř Václav, Johnson Kent, F. Lancy David, Le Roy Mélie, Mace Ruth, Schweitzer Peter, Sear Rebecca, Seguin-Orlando Andaine, Shankland David, Somel Mehmet, Souvatzi Stella, Whiteley Peter, Žegarac Aleksandra
Published in: Nature Anthropology, Issue 3, 2025, Page(s) 10016-10016, ISSN 2959-7641
Publisher: SCIE Publishing Limited
DOI: 10.70322/natanthropol.2025.10016

Self-responsibilization, the municipality, and the state: Peripheralization shaping local initiatives in shrinking small towns

Author(s): Katrin Großmann, Ria-Maria Adams, Alla Bolotova, Maria Gunko, Johanna Lilius, Sven Messerschmidt, Leona Sandmann
Published in: Cities, Issue 150, 2024, Page(s) 105067, ISSN 0264-2751
Publisher: Pergamon Press Ltd.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2024.105067

2200 meters: infrastructure, the future, and the politics of belonging in Greenland and the Arctic

Author(s): S. B. Vanek
Published in: Polar Geography, Issue Online first, 2026, Page(s) 1-19, ISSN 1088-937X
Publisher: V.H. Winston and Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1080/1088937x.2025.2603990

Ignoring environmental change? On fishing quotas and collapsing coastlines in Bykovskiy, Northern Sakha (Yakutiya)

Author(s): Olga Povoroznyuk, Peter Schweitzer
Published in: Ambio, Issue 52, 2023, Page(s) 1211-1220, ISSN 0044-7447
Publisher: Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien/Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
DOI: 10.1007/s13280-023-01874-9

Liveability under shrinkage: initiatives in the ‘capital of pessimism’ in Finland

Author(s): Ria-Maria Adams, Alla Bolotova, Ville Alasalmi
Published in: European Planning Studies, Issue 31, 2023, Page(s) 212-229, ISSN 0965-4313
Publisher: Carfax Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2022.2126721

Expanding infrastructure and growing anthropogenic impacts along Arctic coasts

Author(s): Annett Bartsch; Georg Pointner; Ingmar Nitze; Aleksandra Efimova; Dan Jakober; Sarah Ley; Elin Högström; Guido Grosse; Peter Schweitzer
Published in: Environmental Research Letters, 2021, ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac3176

Turning the Faroes Into One City. Demographic and Spatial Impacts of 60 Years of Transport Infrastructure Expansion.

Author(s): Alexis Sancho Reinoso, Timothy Heleniak
Published in: Island Studies Journal, Issue 19, 2025, Page(s) 6-28, ISSN 1715-2593
Publisher: University of Prince Edward Island
DOI: 10.24043/001c.123786

Toward a Comparative Ethnography of Arctic Seaports Projects: Local Impacts of Expanding Maritime Infrastructure in Alaska, Norway, and Russia

Author(s): Olga Povoroznyuk
Published in: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Issue 55, 2026, Page(s) 86-109, ISSN 0891-2416
Publisher: SAGE Publications
DOI: 10.1177/08912416251398479

Arctic roads and railways: social and environmental consequences of transport infrastructure in the circumpolar North

Author(s): Olga Povoroznyuk, Warwick F. Vincent, Peter Schweitzer, Roza Laptander, Mia Bennett, Fabrice Calmels, Dmitrii Sergeev, Christopher Arp, Bruce C. Forbes, Pascale Roy-Léveillée, Donald A. Walker
Published in: Arctic Science, Issue 9, 2025, Page(s) 297-330, ISSN 2368-7460
Publisher: Canadian Science Publishing
DOI: 10.1139/as-2021-0033

How to board an aircraft in Chukotka

Author(s): Elena, Davydova
Published in: Mobility Humanities, Issue 3, 2, 2024, Page(s) 111-133, ISSN 2799-8509
Publisher: Academy of Mobility Humanities

The Mining Road That Sustains People

Author(s): Elena Davydova
Published in: Arctic Anthropology, Issue 60, 2026, Page(s) 184-202, ISSN 0066-6939
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
DOI: 10.3368/aa.60.2.184

Scenarios and Ethnography: Infrastructural Futures as Windows into the Present

Author(s): Peter Schweitzer, Olga Povoroznyuk, Philipp Budka, Alexandra Meyer, Katrin Schmid, Nikita Strelkovskii
Published in: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Issue 55, 2026, Page(s) 14-36, ISSN 0891-2416
Publisher: SAGE Publications
DOI: 10.1177/08912416251398488

Introduction to the Special Issue “Ethnographies of Infrastructure”

Author(s): Peter Schweitzer, Olga Povoroznyuk, Philipp Budka
Published in: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Issue 55, 2026, Page(s) 3-13, ISSN 0891-2416
Publisher: SAGE Publications
DOI: 10.1177/08912416251398433

Thesis and dissertations (2)

Arctic change: an ethnography of entangled climatic and societal transformations in Longyearbyen, Svalbard

Author(s): Meyer, Alexandra
Published in: 2023
Publisher: University of Vienna

Soviet infrastructure in the post-Soviet era?

Author(s): Povoroznyuk, Olga
Published in: 2022
Publisher: University of Vienna