This auto-ethnographic/biographical account deals with the experiences that a non-flying Northern-Ireland-born anthropologist living in the Baltic States has of mobility, infrastructure and connectedness, in particular with reference to academic and personal life. The article considers the movements which a career as an academic anthropologist requires, as well as the difficulties and intricacies that being located in Eastern Europe has for such land travel. Based on years of experience, it questions travel time and cost with particular reference to the seeming need to travel towards Western Europe in order to remain connected to the discipline’s main ‘movements’. The article also examines solutions such as the Via Baltica, and looks forward to improvements that new infrastructure (such as high-speed railways) can bring.

A mediated tolerance of violence: an analysis of online newspaper articles and “below-the-line” comments in the Latvian media This article analyses the framing of tolerance of violence in Latvian newspaper articles published online and the reader response “below-the-line” comments to these and how these frames may negatively present and impact those who suffer violence. It makes visible the language used and concepts employed in such cases where someone supports, justifies, or positively perceives violence. The text is based on qualitative media content analysis of 3,166 documents in the Latvian, Russian and English languages from Latvian news sources online published between 2010 and 2018, as well as the comments provided by readers on these. Frame analysis is employed in order to show the different ways in which violence can be practiced and tolerated, closely related to human beliefs. We show how aspects of these may be related to the particular post-Soviet cultural context of Latvia but give a broader view of tolerance itself. The study shows a linguistic tolerance of violence expressed in terms of human nature and its resulting inevitability, in terms of love and thus integral to romantic and kin relations, is imbued with victim blaming and also that punishment for violence should itself be violent. Violence can even be a source of humor, particularly when committed against males. Further, reporting of violence can be regarded as improper and interferes with domestic privacy. These, taken as a whole, justify the existing social order and societal and cultural beliefs and practices on/of gender relations, child-rearing practices, religious beliefs, and notions of love and care. Our analysis shows that violence is not only tolerated in itself, but also the expression of tolerance is itself tolerated in these mediated expressions which are published with impunity and remain unmoderated.