Sonja Apfler is a student member in Gertrude Saxinger’s APRI research group, focusing on socio-cultural systems.
She is currently working on her Master’s thesis at the University of Vienna as part of the Master’s programme in Global History and Global Studies. Her thesis examines the extraction of critical minerals in the Arctic and cooperation amongst the Arctic states. At its core lies the question of whether “Arctic Exceptionalism” – the particular form of
peaceful cooperation among Arctic states – continues to hold with regard to the extraction of critical minerals. However, the thesis also adopts an environmental-historical approach, viewing current developments as part of a long history and continuity of resource extraction in the Arctic.
Professionally, she works with international money flows and their legitimacy, which has also shaped her research interest in investment flows and the economic and
geopolitical entanglements of resource extraction in the Arctic – and how these affect not only economic dynamics, but also socio-cultural ways of life in the Arctic.
She enjoys examining topics from different perspectives and is therefore particularly interested in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research projects.
Her main research interests include climate change and sustainability, geopolitics, environmental history and Indigenous Studies.
