Mobility and Infrastructure in the Russian Arctic

Abstract

This special issue approaches the interrelated themes of mobility and infrastructure in the Russian Arctic. I will discuss the general topics covered in this set of articles and how these contributions help us understand the lives of people in northern Siberia today, and I will give some context on how these articles came about in the first place. Does being determine consciousness? Or does consciousness determine being? This special issue looks at the complex interplay between people's perception of well-being and behavior, and their understanding and discourse around infrastructure. Several case studies examine the tension between perception, mobility, and infrastructure in communities across the Russian Arctic.

Ambiguous entanglements: infrastructure, memory and identity in indigenous Evenki communities along the Baikal–Amur Mainline

“…A recently published article on rivers and roads shows how transport infrastructure becomes an integral part of nomadic landscapes and perception of space (Istomin 2020). A special issue of the journal Sibirica illustrates the complementarity and social agency of a variety of ‘traditional’ and modern infrastructures in the Russian North (Vakhtin 2017). Finally, a special issue of the journal Siberian Historical Research on transport infrastructure in the Circumpolar North brings together ethnographic case studies of sea routes, roads and railways (Povoroznyuk et al 2020).…”

Lines in the Sacred Landscape

“…As Nikolai Vakhtin (2017) notes in his introduction to a special issue of Sibirica on infrastructure and mobility, the multilayered concept of infrastructure becomes one of the fundamental concepts of the contemporary anthropology of the North. The Russian North and Siberia are often associated with remoteness and lack of connectivity, even though the situation may be more complex than that, and various aspects of infrastructure may be perceived differently by members of the same community (Vakhtin 2017). Similar to this article, many academic works on Siberia include a description of infrastructural challenges.…”