“Nomadic” Ph.D. Summer School “Field Experiences in Northwest Russia” (FENOR): Call for Applications

The European University at St. Petersburg and the University of Vienna are pleased to announce the first call for a "Nomadic" Ph.D. Summer School "Field Experiences in Northwest Russia" (FENOR) Location and Dates The FENOR summer school is designed as a traveling training course for Ph.D. students and young researchers, which will be conducted at …

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Extractive Industries and Society : new journal now indexed

Those of our readers engaging with the anthropology of extractive industries such as oil, gas and mining in the Arctic will be pleased to see that a recently established journal is up, running and already indexed in the scopus citation database. The journal is interdisciplinary in scope, but rooted in social science for sure. This …

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VSP Journal in Arctic Anthropology – by Nikolai Vakhtin

(A Fantasy) No one can read everything others write in one's field. One of the reasons is that we use too many words to express our thoughts. Papers start with theories and explanations that the reader either knows or doesn't need – because we want to write papers, not abstracts. Books are usually much longer …

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In Memory of a Great Teacher

Yuri Vella left this world on the 12th of September 2013 Almost exactly 20 years ago three German students of anthropology get off a helicopter in the middle of the Western Siberian forest tundra, over 100 km from the next settlement. They see a little wooden hut and a couple with two small kids is …

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Fishing fieldwork, ORHELIA Arctic Yakutia

My last summer entry from this Yakutia fieldwork finally brings me to the fieldwork PRACTICE there with the inhabitants of the Lena Delta and coastal area in Yakutia. As some of you may know, one of our crucial methodological approaches in the ORHELIA project is to marry intensive life-history interviewing with anthropological participant observation, which …

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Bykov Mys, fuzzy ethnic identities at the edge of an eroding Peninsula in the Arctic Ocean

From Tiksi you go another 50 km by motor boat to the village of Cape Bykov (Bykov Mys), where 500 people engage at 72 degrees northern latitude and harsh climate engage in coastal fishing all over the Lena River Delta. Today the only still remaining proper kolkhoz (cooperative enterprise) in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) is …

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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 …

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