This winter and spring we hear again disastrous news from sudden temperature rises and falls, leading to thick ice-crusts on reindeer pastures that block reindeer’s access to their pastures. While the most famous of these events happened in 2014 in the Centre of the Yamal Peninsula, West Siberia, the phenomenon is known probably to reindeer …
Continue reading Rain on snow – how do people and reindeer learn to survive?
Piers Vitebsky and Roza Laptander are going to give an interesting example on how to de-provincialise Arctic social sciences. This time on a topic that could hardly be more timely: they refer to their elaborate ethnographies of indigenous Siberians’ communications with the fire spirit to explain why apps to track the corona virus may fail. …
Continue reading Trust Versus Paranoia: Can the Siberian fire spirit explain the spectacular failure of the UK Covid track and trace app?
University of Lapland has recently selected new junior researchers to conduct their PhD studies in the doctoral programme The Arctic in a Changing World. Northern Political Economy research team is thrilled to share the news of three new group members that have received funding for their research.