AAS – Working Group Arctic and Subarctic | Arctic research organization based in Vienna, Austria.

Aufbrüche im Zirkumpolaren Norden und Sibirien

CALL FOR PAPERS für den Arktis und Sibirien Workshop bei der DGV Tagung 2015 in Marburg

Das Koordinationsteam der RG Zirkumpolargebiete und Sibirien lädt Sie zu dem Workshop “Departures in the Circumpolar North and Siberia“ / „Aufbrüche im Zirkumpolaren Norden und Sibirien“ (Ausschreibungstext siehe unten) bei der kommenden DGV-Tagung in Marburg vom 30.9.-3.10.2015 ein.

Als Gastredner hat Mark Nuttall, University of Alberta CAN, zugesagt.

Inhaltlich orientiert sich der Workshop am übergreifenden Thema der DGV-Tagung 2015 „Krisen. Re-Formationen von Leben, Macht und Welt”. Nähere Informationen zur Tagung und die Call for Papers der anderen Workshops finden Sie unter: www.dgv-net.de.

Bitte beachten Sie, dass auf der Tagung pro Person nur ein Vortrag gehalten werden darf. Der Workshop wird in Englischer Sprache durchgeführt werden, mit der Möglichkeit Vorträge auch auf Deutsch zu halten.

Vorschläge für Präsentationen in Form von 1. einem Abstract (max. 1200 Wörter) sowie 2. einem kurzen Abstract für das Programmheft (max. 300 Wörter) senden Sie bitte bis zum 15. Februar 2015 an: zirkumpolargebiete-sibirien@dgv-net.de

Workshop-Organisation: Verena Traeger, Sophie Elixhauser, Gerti Eilmsteiner-Saxinger, Joachim Otto Habe

Über eine rege Teilnahme würden wir uns sehr freuen!

“Departures in the Circumpolar North and Siberia”

In situations of crisis established structures are breaking apart. Crises, however, also create opportunities for change and new beginnings. In the Circumpolar North, the preparation for crises involving complex decision-making and departures formed part of people’s daily lives for thousands of years. Moreover, survival strategies based on subsistence were part and parcel of a continual adaptation to changing environments and living conditions.

In the recent past, the circumpolar region has undergone far-reaching changes induced by colonialism and missionary activities leading to forced relocation and the introduction of a settled lifestyle, boarding schools and capitalist or socialist economic systems, accompanied by massive resource exploitation. Environmental pollution and climate change are becoming ever more acute, affecting subsistence and mobility practices, people’s environmental perceptions and sense of place, the stability of food security and cultural identities. Past crises have continued to affect the inhabitants over the course of many generations up until the present. A loss of indigenous traditions, languages and oral history as well as a lack of prospects, a rising propensity for violence, high suicide rates and drug abuse are some of the consequences. Across the Arctic region and Siberia various responses may be observed, and different solutions with regard to resource control, political self-determination and the recognition of indigenous rights are being developed. They reflect national sovereignty and democratic processes and show that people are ready to actively shape their future. This workshop invites broader theoretical, applied and comparative contributions as well as thematic papers and ethnographic case studies from the Circumpolar North and Siberia (presentations can be held in English or German).

„Aufbrüche im zirkumpolaren Norden und Sibirien“

In Krisensituationen brechen stabile Strukturen auf. Gleichzeitig bieten Krisen Chancen zu Veränderungen und zum Aufbruch. Im zirkumpolaren Norden waren die Vorbereitung auf Krisen und damit verbundene Entscheidungssituationen und Wendepunkte seit Jahrtausenden Teil des Lebens. Auf Subsistenz aufbauende Überlebensstrategien waren zudem stets mit der Anpassung an sich verändernde Lebensumstände (v.a. Umwelteinflüsse) verknüpft.

In der näheren Vergangenheit kam es zu besonders rapiden Veränderungen durch Kolonialismus und Missionierung und damit einhergehende Zwangsumsiedlungen und Einführung von Sesshaftigkeit, Internatsschulen sowie kapitalistischen oder sozialistischen Wirtschaftssystemen mit teils großflächigem Rohstoffabbau. Umweltverschmutzung und Klimawandel werden immer virulenter, wodurch Subsistenz- und Mobilitätspraktiken sowie Vorstellungen von Landschaft und Natur massiv beeinflusst und Nahrungssicherheit sowie kulturelle Identitäten instabil werden. Vergangene Krisen wirken über viele Generationen bis heute nach. Verlust von indigenen Traditionen, Sprachen und oral überliefertem Wissen, Perspektivenlosigkeit, steigende Gewalt, Drogenmissbrauch und hohe Suizidraten sind einige der Folgeerscheinungen. Rund um den nördlichen Polarkreis und in Sibirien beobachtet man vielseitige Reaktionen. Unterschiedlichste Lösungen in Bezug auf Ressourcenkontrolle, politische Selbstbestimmung und die Anerkennung indigener Rechte und Interessen wurden und werden entwickelt. Diese spiegeln nationalstaatliche Souveränität und Kontrolle sowie demokratische Prozesse wider und zeigen die Bereitschaft zum Aufbruch auf vielfältige Weise. Dieser Workshop lädt Beiträge ein, die sich entweder mit vergleichenden Überblicksthemen aus Theorie und Anwendung oder mit regionalspezifischen, thematischen Detailfragen aus dem zirkumpolaren Norden und Sibirien beschäftigen. Vorträge können in englischer und deutscher Sprache gehalten werden.

APECS Austria Kick-off evening

Invitation to APECS Austria Kick-off evening & APECS Austria Photo and Poster exhibition “Fieldwork in the Arctic and Subarctic”

Monday April, 28th 7 p.m.

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
NIG – Neues Institutsgebäude, 4th floor
Universitätsstr. 7
1010 Vienna

Opening talks:
Univ. Prof. Dr. Peter Schweitzer
(Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Univ. of Vienna, Austrian Polar Research Institute)

Univ. Prof. Dr. Andreas Richter
(Department of Department of Terrestrial Ecosystem Research, Univ. of Vienna, Austrian Polar Research Institute)

Mag. Sigrid Schiesser
(Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Univ. of Vienna, APECS Austria)

On April 28th, we celebrate the foundation of APECS Austria, which is part of the international and interdisciplinary Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS). APECS provides a platform for interdisciplinary networking and exchange of researchers working in Arctic and Subarctic regions.

The photo and poster exhibition “Fieldwork in the Arctic and Subarctic” shows the diversity of Arctic and Subarctic environments, and gives insights into daily lives of residents and researchers. The photographs of the exhibition illustrate the context of research in Polar regions beyond conventional formats of texts, tables and numbers.

The exhibition will be open on workdays from April 28th until May 16th.
We are looking forward to meeting you, APECS Austria

APECS Invitation [pdf]
http://apecs.is/

Join APECS Austria!

APECS Austria is founded

A.A.S. members Sigrid Schiesser, Elisabeth Öfner, Elena Nuykina and Gerti Eilmsteiner-Saxinger are already members of APECS international.

Dear Polar Early Career Scientists!

In the framework of the last Austrian Polar Research Institute (APRI) annual meeting, an APECS Austria initiative was born. If you don’t know, APECS stands for Association of Polar Early Career scientists. It was started during the last International Polar Year and is since the beginning a very active, internationally well regarded union. On the homepage (www.apecs.is) you can find more about APECS activities.
Through the years, a bunch of APECS national committees (NCs) formed, to bring together all the young polar scientists of different fields of one country. Every NC has to define its individual foci (e.g., outreach or the organization of workshops), depending on the needs and wishes of its members. APECS Austria will be closely related to APRI.

The first step for APECS Austria is to recruit a large enough group of motivated people who are interested. Currently, we are a small group of active members that are starting up all this. However, we want to emphasize that there are various ways of being engaged as a member: There is the opportunity to be actively involved at an organizational level. But a general interest, such as participation in workshops and other activities, is also more than welcome!

The APECS membership, hence the APECS Austria membership is for free!
We invite all undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, early faculty members, educators and others with interests in Polar Regions and the wider cryosphere to become members of our National Committee! We also encourage already established scientists to join APECS as mentors.
At the end, to help us form an APECS Austria that is adapted to the interests of you as members we ask you to have a look at our online survey – just takes a few seconds. Go to survey link
APECS Austria will be a nice way to get to know all the polar related scientists of all the different fields, from natural to social sciences, of Austria, but also from all over the planet. Would be nice if we get the thing going!

Best regards,
The APECS Austria founding team

Daniel Binder daniel.binder@zamg.ac.at
Elin Högström Elin.Hoegstroem@geo.tuwien.ac.at
Sigrid Schiesser sigrid.schiesser@univie.ac.at
Birgit Wild birgit.wild@univie.ac.at
Mounir Takriti mounir.takriti@gmx.net
Barbara Widhalm barbarawidhalm@tuwien.ac.at

CfP: Labour Mobility and Community Sustainability

Call for Papers: Labour Mobility and Community Sustainability – The Impact of Extractive Industries in the Arctic

ICASS VIII, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
May 22 – 26, 2014

Mining operations and oil and gas projects in the Arctic and Sub-arctic usually take place in remote areas or offshore and primarily in distance from larger urban agglomerations. This remoteness leads to the need for a highly flexible workforce in terms of spatial as well as temporal mobility. This session brings together issues of labour mobility and community sustainability and welcomes papers touching on the following topics: 1, sketch of life-plans as well as coping with challenges and positive effects related to mobility on part of individuals; 2, changes in the community fabrics and in the ways such communities cope with the impact of labour mobility; 3, effects of industry-related in-migration to regional centers; 4, interactions of inter-regional FIFO workers with the local communities and with the environment; 5, the politics surrounding labour mobility, as well as the policies of various levels of government and of companies in relation to labour mobility; 6, the politics and economics of transportation infrastructure. The panel is fully open to the broad range of related topics raised by scholars and practitioners. In epistemological terms we aim to explore the notions of community development, hierarchies and inequality, ethical challenges and, mobility in general etc.

Session Convenors:
Gerti Eilmsteiner-Saxinger
Contact:Gertrude.Eilmsteiner-Saxinger@univie.ac.at
Remy Rouillard
Contact: rr455@cam.ac.uk

Please submit your paper proposals using the ICASS VIII submission form (http://resweb.res.unbc.ca/icass2014/ICASSVIII_Abstract_submittal_form_pdf_final.pdf) and indicate that you intend to contribute to the session on “Facing the Monstrous North”. Completed forms should be sent to IASSA Secretary, Cher Mazo (mazo@unbc.ca). The deadline for application is December 17, 2013.

You can find additional information on ICASS VIII at the conference website http://resweb.res.unbc.ca/icass2014/index.htm. Students, early career researchers, indigenous participants, and participants from Russia and other countries who have limited means to attend may apply for travel funding. Please refer to the conference website for details.

CfP: Facing the Monstrous North

Call for Papers: Facing the Monstrous North

ICASS VIII, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
May 22 – 26, 2014

We invite contributions for a panel at the Eighth International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS VIII), taking place at the University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada on May 22 – 26, 2014. The session “Facing the Monstrous North” follows up on its predecessor, “Imagining the Supernatural North”, held at ICASS VII in 2011. In this panel, twenty scholars examined the cultural construction of the North as an area of the supernatural, with examples and case studies ranging from ancient Greek cosmology to present-day fantasy literature. A proceedings volume based on the panel will be published in 2014.

Following on from the success of this panel, we now want to focus on a particular aspect of the supernatural North: the role of monstrosity in the construction and perception of Northernness. In different cultural contexts and discourses, the forbidding and threatening aspects of the North were embodied by monstrous beings, the giants of Old Norse mythology and the Wendigo of the Algonquian tradition being just two examples. Yet the North was not only believed to be inhabited by monsters, it was also perceived as having the ability to draw out the most monstrous and debased aspects of human nature, as the discussions of Northern diabolism in the 16^th century and the morbid fascination with Northern cannibalism in the 19^th century have shown.

However, a scholarly discussion of the monstrous North should not be restricted to a mere juxtaposition of grotesque beings and practices. Evidenced by its etymology, a monstrum is a signifier (Latin monere, “to warn”; monstrare, “to show”), and the septentrional monsters signify and express human attitudes to the North. As such, an in-depth study of the Monstrous North would be an important contribution to the on-going discussion on perceptions of Northernness in the humanities and social sciences.

The panel intends to examine a variety of approaches to monstrosity, and contributions from different methodological angles and different disciplines (cultural and social anthropology, history, theology, literary studies, biology, psychology, gender studies etc.) are very welcome. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

– Northern Cynocephali, Skiapodes and other wondrous races of the Greco-Roman canon
– Giants, trolls and their kin—Northern monsters in European mythology and folklore
– Wendigo, Wechuge and the monstrous North in Native American tradition
– Monstrous bodies and monstrous behavior—corporeality and deviance
– Anthropophagy in the North
– Northern witches as an embodiment of monstrous femininity
– Biological deviance in scientific (and pseudo-scientific) studies of Northern fauna and people
– Frankenstein’s Monster and the monstrous North in European literature
– The monstrous North in modern popular culture

Please submit your paper proposals using the ICASS VIII submission form (http://resweb.res.unbc.ca/icass2014/ICASSVIII_Abstract_submittal_form_pdf_final.pdf) and indicate that you intend to contribute to the session on “Facing the Monstrous North”. Completed forms should be sent to IASSA Secretary, Cher Mazo (mazo@unbc.ca), with a copy mailed to stefan.donecker@eui.eu. The deadline for application is December 17, 2013.

For further questions, don’t hesitate to contact us!

Best regards,

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough (University of Oxford)
eleanor.rosamund@gmail.com

Danielle Cudmore (Cornell University)
dmc282@cornell.edu

Stefan Donecker (Working Group Arctic and Subarctic, Vienna)
stefan.donecker@eui.eu

Arctic Evening with Book Presentation

The Embassy of Canada in Austria, in cooperation with the University of
Vienna and a number of other renowned partners, is pleased to announce
an

“Arctic Evening”

Thursday, December 5, 2013, 18:45Uhr
Institut für Geographie und Regionalforschung (NIG)
1010 Wien, Universitätsstr. 7/ 4.Stock: Hörsaal 4C (Trakt C/Raum C409)

Program:
Welcome words by the Embassy of Canada

Short presentation (in English) of the book “Wege zum Norden. Wiener Forschungen zu Arktis und Subarktis”, published recently by A.A.S. (Working Group Arctic and Subarctic) with discussion

Presentation by Prof Dr. Whitney LACKENBAUER (University of Waterloo/St. Jerome’s University) on followed by a discussion moderated by Prof. Dr. Peter SCHWEITZER (University of Vienna, Austrian Polar Research Institute & Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology)

After the discussion you are kindly invited to refreshments. Please register at vienn.events@international.gc.ca or by phone +43 (1) 531 38-3284

Call “PhD Position Siberian Studies”

The Siberian Studies Center plans to recruit three PhD candidates

to commence their work at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology on (or shortly after) 15 March 2014.

Details: http://www.eth.mpg.de/cms/en/vacancies/

Polar research on air

Live discussion with Stefan Donecker and Gertrude
Eilmsteiner-Saxinger on the Austrian radio station OE1

Aug 7th, 2013, Oe1: 14.05

Our AAS members Stefan Donecker (historian) and Gertrude Eilmsteiner-Saxinger (social anthropologist) were invited to discuss on air with Johann Kneihs: From Austrian polar exhibitions in the 19th century to contemporary researches in the Arctic. They talked about various myths about the North and the Northeners, and discussed urgent issues concerning climate change, indigenous people and current issues on exploiting natural resources.

Link to the broadcast:
http://oe1.orf.at/programm/345264

Request the full recording:
http://oe1.orf.at/kontakt/mitschnitte

Conference “Contemporary issues in long-distance commute work”

International conference: Contemporary issues in long-distance commute work in the extractive industries and other sectors

July 8-10th, 2013, Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz, Treitlstraße 2, 1040 Vienna

Our AAS members Gertrude Eilmsteiner-Saxinger, Elena Nuikina, and Elisabeth Öfner were organizing this international conference and presented their papers. The Arctic- and Subarctic working group is a co-organizer of this symposium.

Тhe symposium

Long-distance commute (LDC) work and fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) operations are types of mobile work arrangements where workers are resident at one location, but for varying periods of time live and work at another, commuting between the two on a periodic basis. Typically the workplace is at some distance from the normal place of residence, isolated from other communities such that accommodations and other services have to be supplied by the resource or project developer. This type of work arrangement has become increasingly relevant for the extractive industries as well as in construction, technology, administration and service sectors worldwide. This is especially the case in remote regions such as the Sub-Arctic as well as in regions where a qualified labour force is not available. Though these work arrangements date back to the early days of offshore oil exploration and to the 1970s in the mining sector, however studies on many aspects of LDC in different contexts are still often at an exploratory stage.

Contemporary research primarily refers to community and regional development implications of LDC and to a lesser extent research on impacts on LDC workers and their families. The LDC workers, their mobile life-style and the conditions of long-distance commuting in the variety of industries and sectors where it is used has so far still only received limited attention. LDC is not a homogenous organisation of mobile labour, and as such involves a wide variety of forms and settings.

This symposium strives to shed light on contemporary scientific discussions, theory and methodology in the study of LDC labour matters, as well as to applied studies and entrepreneurial practice related to mobile labour organization. In particular, contributions will examine the complexity of modes and impacts of LDC and the responses of the workers themselves to this method of organising a labour force. The organisers welcome contributions from those in private sector, government, academic and other groups with interests in any of the sectors that utilize this form of work organization or with interests in this type of work organization from a variety of perspectives from theory to practice, policy making to regulation, assessment to management, etc. Conference languages will be English and Russian (translations provided).

Read more about the conference:
https://raumforschung.univie.ac.at/index.php?id=140601

Organized by: FWF Project „Lives on the Move”
Institute for Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna
Institute for Urban Studies and Regional Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences,
A.A.S. Working Group Arctic and Subarctic

Publication “Wege zum Norden”

Wiener Forschungen zu Arktis und Subarktis

edited by Stefan Donecker, Igor Eberhard, and Markus Hirnsperger
Series: Beiträge zum zirkumpolaren
Norden — Contributions to Circumpolar
Studies, Band 2 — volume 2

Vienna: Lit-Verlag, 2013

x, 182 p.: ill., maps, Includes bibliographical references, Paperback,
ISBN 978-3643504975,
19,90 EUR

Die österreichischen Forscher Julius Payer und Carl Weyprecht mussten im Jahr 1873 auf der Suche nach dem Nordpol einen eisigen und dunklen Winter auf Franz-Josef-Land überstehen. Heute, 140 Jahre später, gibt es andere Wege in den Norden. In diesem Band demonstrieren Wiener Forscherinnen und Forscher die Bandbreite ihrer Zugänge zum zirkumpolaren Norden. Die Beiträge behandeln moderne grönländische Fischfangmethoden, Fernpendler auf sibirischen Gasfeldern, die postsowjetische Zivilgesellschaft, Ethnologie und Nationalismus in Finnland, den Wiener Forscher und Sammler Josef Troll sowie die Sibirien-Sammlung von Julius Bryner, dem Großvater des Schauspielers Yul Brynner. Frühneuzeitliche Bilder des Nordens als Orte von Hexerei und Teufelswerk werden modernen Motiven in George R. R. Martins Fantasyromanen gegenübergestellt.

See details on the publisher’s homepage.
http://www.lit-verlag.de/