Many of us who have worked for years, decades or their entire professional life in the Russian Arctic started wondering in early 2022 what will happen of the circumpolarity in Arctic Anthropology if we exclude the Russian Arctic from our studies. Some of us re-align their research efforts to cover more prominently other areas of the Arctic. Others continue privately to maintain their contacts with people there, yet others try to find niches to continue working there as anthropologists. Can we still speak of Arctic Anthropology if we exclude more than half of the Arctic lands, populations and cultures from our analysis? And is there a need at all for circumpolar Arctic Studies in this situation? Quite some prominent science colleagues argue there is very much so. Even more so because some topics cannot be studied elsewhere on the planet in the first place. Discussions how, whether or not we should continue working with our Russian Arctic friends and partners often happen behind closed doors, as the atmosphere is emotionally and politically loaded, and no one wants to risk becoming vulnerable.

Now Virginie Vaté, Dmitry Oparin and others found the courage to turn that to the topic of a regular seminar series happening physically in Paris, and online accessible for those who are interested. They call it the “Siberian Studies Seminar”, and the first to talk there is Igor Krupnik, Chair of Anthropology and Curator of Circumpolar Ethnology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Many thanks to Virginie and Dmitry for making this happen in Paris, and also for sharing the link here .

The seminar will be on Wednesday, 22 November 2023, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. (CET) , and Igor promises to go back to the history of Arctic Anthropology for this inaugurial talk to the seminar series, including to his own professional history. His title is “JESUP GENEALOGY”: 1940s-1970s – An Autobiographical Upstreaming”. This will surely offer valuable glimpses on the gradients of circumpolar breath in Arctic Anthropology even in times of a divided Arctic.

Igor Krupnik has also joined forces with Gail Fondahl and Erich Kasten for editing a series of volumes that address the legacy of the last 30 years of Russian Arctic Anthropology (or Siberian Studies). They promise three volumes so far, but their call for chapter contributions to their volumes is open and can be seen here, if you are interested in contributing. Probably some of the topics raised in this seminar series can be read later as chapters in one of these volumes as well.