Polar J. 2017 Jan 02;7(1):58-85. doi: 10.1080/2154896X.2017.1334427. Epub 2017 Jun 09.

Beyond wilderness: towards an anthropology of infrastructure and the built environment in the Russian North.

The polar journal

Peter Schweitzer, Olga Povoroznyuk, Sigrid Schiesser

PMID: 29098112 PMCID: PMC5632953 DOI: 10.1080/2154896X.2017.1334427

Abstract

Public and academic discourses about the Polar regions typically focus on the so-called natural environment. While, these discourses and inquiries continue to be relevant, the current article asks the question how to conceptualize the on-going industrial and infrastructural build-up of the Arctic. Acknowledging that the "built environment" is not an invention of modernity, the article nevertheless focuses on large-scale infrastructural projects of the twentieth century, which marks a watershed of industrial and infrastructural development in the north. Given that the Soviet Union was at the vanguard of these developments, the focus will be on Soviet and Russian large-scale projects. We will be discussing two cases of transportation infrastructure, one of them based on an on-going research project being conducted by the authors along the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) and the other focused on the so-called Northern Sea Route, the marine passage with a long history that has recently been regaining public and academic attention. The concluding section will argue for increased attention to the interactions between humans and the built environment, serving as a kind of programmatic call for more anthropological attention to infrastructure in the Russian north and other polar regions.

Keywords: Arctic; Baikal-Amur Mainline; Northern Sea Route; Russian Federation; Soviet Union; built environment; infrastructure; transportation

Publication Types

• Journal Article