Center for Arctic Social Studies (CESIS) was established in 2016 as an heir of the EUSP Professorship in Arctic Social Studies. Its main focus is on anthropology of the Russian Arctic, a region that presents a challenging social science ‘laboratory’. With its vast territory, thin infrastructure and harsh weather conditions, the Arctic is a treasury of mineral resources and a region strategically important for the whole world. The Arctic local population is very diverse: indigenous and newcoming, reindeer herders and oil industry workers, teachers and fishers, gold miners and drivers, downshifters and bureaucrats, ice-breakers’ captains and shop attendants, doctors and pilots… all these people amounting to approximately 2.5 million people have the right to regard the Arctic as their motherland.
The main directions of CASS activities:
- Research in Arctic anthropology;
- An interdisciplinary, regionally focused MA program in Arctic anthropology;
- Community outreach: media publications, popular off- and online lectures and courses.
Principal academic interests:
- Visual anthropology of the North
- Gender studies in the Arctic
- Research on infrastructures and the state
- Industrial development of the North
- Mobility, migration, perception of space
- Social networks and social connectivity of Northern regions
- History of Arctic research
- Urbanization in the Arctic
Since 2013, European University represented by CASS is a member of the UArctic network.
Contact Information
ovitkovskaya@eu.spb.ru (CASS Administrator)