Florian Stammler and Erik Kielsen Much has been written already about the losses of reindeer due to icing-over, or rain on snow events, among reindeer herders in Siberia and elsewhere. The climate seasonality is changing and this comes with its challenges in the Arctic for humans and animals alike. For example, in our research site ..read more

Half of the People and the Land in the Arctic are in Russia. Quo Vadis Arctic Anthropology? 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 spea ..read more

Congratulations to our research partners from the Sattasniemi Paliskunta in Lapland for their young empowering activism, which is now increasingly noticed also by journalists (see below). Great to have seen a lot of young female herders involved at the Sattasniemi calf marking in early summer 2023 Having started working there this year in two projects funded by Canadian and US research foundations, I am impressed how seamlessly they integrate youngsters to working with reindeer and in the forest. This reminds me of my fieldwork with Yamal-Nenets nomads – another area where still young people c ..read more

As part of our long term partnership with Japanese Arctic anthropologists, we are part of the ARCSII – funded Research Exchange Programme, led by Hiroki Takakura of CNEAS, Tohoku University. In the upcoming Finnish-Japanese seminar in Kobe “Well-being of Migrants in the Arctic and Asia”, our team member Ria Adams is going to talk about what she calls “lifestyle migration” in the Arctic. We thank our recent visitor in this programme, Yuka Oishi, for hosting this seminar in Kobe. For us in Europe this will be very early, but if someone wants to watch online before or during their breakfast, they ..read more

time: 13.30 Finnish, 11.30 UK, 18.30 Beijing time, 12 October 2023. Online at zoom, meeting id: 641 887 4740, password: 2023. For those in Rovaniemi: join us in the BOREALIS meeting room on the top floor of the Arctic Centre We define the Arctic broadly of course, but usually not as broad as reaching all the way down to the Korean Peninsula. But today is an exception, because the speaker is Heonik Kwon – a Cambridge anthropologist born in Korea. Some of us working in the Arctic have got to know through his 1993 Phd from Anthropology in Cambridge “Maps and Actions. Nomadic and Sedentary Space i ..read more

In the current situation we do not get any more new research evidence from our Siberian field sites, unfortunately. Nonetheless Siberia remains THE place in the Arctic where human cultural diversity, a multiplicity of livelihood, languages, subsistence strategies and mobilities remains best preserved. One very interesting case are the Khanty in West Siberia, who have endured the oil and gas industry in their area since the 1960s, and nonetheless have a culturally very specific lifestyle, as we know from the works of our team member Stephan Dudeck, and scholars such as Peter Jordan, Andrew Wige ..read more

Welcome to join us for the opening of the reindeer slaughter season 2023 in Finnish Lapland! A group of scientists, reindeer herders, animal practitioners, managers and economists are going to meet at our premises in Arctic Centre, Arktikum building, Polarium room on the 31 August 2023 at 10:00. We will discuss current issues in reindeer slaughtering, and share insights on how to best ensure the wellbeing of people and animals in reindeer herding as livelihood and economy. Please note that the working language of the day is Finnish. Increasingly also electronic applications help in meeting hi ..read more

03 – 06 October 2023, Oulu, Finland We are pleased to invite you to join us for a Week of Exchange in Oulu (Finland), to collectively engage with questions around ethics and methods in Arctic transformative research. Our gathering will take place from Tuesday, 3 October 2023 to Thursday, 5 October 2023.  To enable broad and inclusive accessibility, parts of our Week of Exchange will be held in hybrid format (more information on this will be added to the programme in the coming weeks). Limited funds are available to su ..read more

A Russian vessel named “Saami” in a Norwegian wharf in Kirkenes in June 2023: the borderland reality on the ground continues as a lived experience even at times of political conflict A recent trip to Kirkenes and the surroundings was really revealing in many ways. Of course for someone who has worked most of the professional life as an anthropologist in the Russian Arctic, I was curious to find out how the border with Russia that is now less permeable influences life on the Norwegian side. Our colleagues at the Barents Institute in Kirkenes, who were very kind hosts, study this process of cour ..read more

Prof John Ziker introduces his research and plans in the European Arctic. The anthropology team is pleased to announce a rather spontaneous talk by our visiting professor at the Arctic Centre in Rovaniemi for the summer. John chair of Anthropology at Boise State University, Idaho, USA. Since the 1990s he has worked among Arctic hunters and herders in Siberia, and has published extensively about food-sharing and exchange networks, among other topics. He is the editor of the recently published landmark volume “Siberian World” (Routledge, 2023). Earlier, he has also edited with Florian Stammler t ..read more