According to the EU paper "Analysis of the competitiveness of the non-energy extractive industry in the EU" from 2007, Fennoscandia is planned to be a centre of mining in Europe, alongside other world centres in Australia and Eastern Canada. We just listened to a presentation here in Rovaniemi where Mika Flöjt tried to summarise …
Continue reading Controversies in northern mining: Mika Flöjt’s book: ‘just’ Nickel, or Uranium?
Yesterday we had a visit to the Arctic Centre by the chief of Foreign Affairs in the European Union Lady Ashton, together with Finnish Foreign Minister Tuomioja. They are on a journey through northern Europe to get inspired for further work on the EU's Arctic policy. Lady Ashton very clearly wanted to get the message …
Continue reading EU politicians talk to people in the Arctic
In the study of many pastoralist societies, the military dimensions of animal husbandry have played an important role. Indeed, if we think for example about the horse among Central Asian nomads, and it's historical importance, e.g. for the expansion of Chingis Khan's Empire, it is hard to overestimate the military significance of pastoral animals. When …
Stephan Dudeck greets us from his fieldsite in the European Nenets Autonomous Okrug, North West Russia. He is there for starting the ORHELIA project life history work. He has put some great impressions and a very nice first round of oral history work on his own blog. Congratulations! Just quickly two things: I remember that …
I just watched a two part programme by the english language Tv channel of Russia, Russia Today. It has some very good footage and visual impression of the situation at the place where most of our European Gas comes from (which is also my number one field site since the mid 1990s). Lots has changed …
Continue reading Gas and reindeer herders at the source of the heat for Europe
I just had an inspiring phone talk with PhD student Evelyn Landerer, who returned from a year of fieldwork in some of the Russian North's remotest places, in the North of Irkutskaya Oblast and Krasnoyarski Krai. You need a month to even get there, if you get there, e.g. to the small village of Teteya …
