“Drinking and driving is so much fun” is an unusual title for an anthropological workshop. It was just the right provocation to induce serious reflections on something that anthropologists usually reserve for the famous “corridor talk” during conferences, when they discuss ambivalent fieldwork experiences difficult to integrate into the success stories of anthropological research. The …
Month: June 2013
Anthropology of polar bears
"Polar bear, polar bear what do you see? I see an anthropologist fearing of me." The city map of Longyearbyen is colored according to the secure areas without polar bear protection – the darker the color, the safer is to walk around. The house where I am located is one of the last houses, between …
Svalbard Spitzbergen Arctic logistic: From the Arctic Circle to the very North – through the very South
Greetings from Svalbard! It is a bit chilly here in Longyearbyen, especially if you come from the South, I mean from the Arctic Circle, where it was +24 when I left Rovaniemi. Some snowflakes were falling down during the day and there are still some snow islands in the town. It is my solo expedition …
Teaching abroad (in the Republic of Sakha Yakutia, Russia)
Writing blog entries is definitely not my life element. However, sometimes you realize that it is a good place to highlight some activities going on at the Arctic Centre and thank our supporting funding agencies, which make these activities possible. Anthropology of climate change, sea water, snow as well as indigeneity and space issues were …
Continue reading Teaching abroad (in the Republic of Sakha Yakutia, Russia)
Mining or golfing? Or both? Or nothing? – A perspective to mining in the north of Sweden
In a small newspaper named LKAB Framtid Luleå [LKAB Future Luleå] with a special February issue this year published by the Swedish mining company Loussavaara Kirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB), can an article with the headline "Critics are wrong: 'We need more mines'" be found. That issue was a special one for the town of Luleå that is …
New book about the history of the Sámi from Russia during Soviet times – online open access
My book “The Sámi of the Kola Peninsula: About the life of an ethnic minority in the Soviet Union” has been recently translated into English and published on the internet within the publication series of the Centre for Sámi Studies at the University of Tromsø. Using extensive biographical interviews as a primary source, this oral …
Hi there!
My name is Lukas Allemann, I am new at the ORHELIA Project, and I’ll begin to write my PhD thesis here. I did my Master’s in Eastern European History and Russian Language and Literature at the University of Basel (Switzerland), and I could join the ORHELIA team of social anthropologists thanks to my knowledge of …
Encountering ethnographical and archaeological research in Siberia by Francis Joy
My first visit to Siberia to Irkutsk as a participant in the 20th International Symposium which was organized by Irkutsk State Technical University, 27-31st of May 2013. This years theme was 'Integrating Archaeological and Ethnographical Research'. A picture below of the organizing Committee at the Pribaikalskaja Hotel where the conference was held.
Arctic Anthropology 