Faculty

Research Group Schweitzer

Research Topic

Infrastructure Studies, Human-Environment Interactions, Anthropology of Climate Change and Globalization, Arctic and Subarctic

Research Interest

I am working on issues of mobility, climate change, and identity in the circumpolar North, in particular in Alaska and Siberia. Human communities in the North are facing tremendous socioeconomic and environmental change. The adaptive capacity of northern groups and individuals, as much as geopolitics and global resource economics, will determine the social and cultural futures of the Arctic and Subarctic.

  Social & Cultural Systems

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna

Tel. +43-1-4277-495 37
peter.schweitzer@univie.ac.at
peter.schweitzer@polarresearch.at

Team

 

  • Ria-Maria Adams, BA MA. PhD Student, Dpt. of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Univ. of Vienna & Arctic Centre, Univ. of Lapland. PhD Project: (Re-)Production of Social Identities: An Anthropological Approach to Cultural Adaptation Processes of Migrated Youth in Finnish Lapland
  • Alexandra Meyer, BA MA. PhD Student, Dpt. of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Univ. of Vienna & Project Nunataryuk. PhD Project: The Societal Impacts of and Adaptation to a Changing Environment in Longyearbyen, Svalbard:
    An Ethnography of Arctic Change
  • Cand. Sc. (kand. nauk) Olga Povorozyuk, Post Doc, Dpt. of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Univ. of Vienna. Project Configurations of “remoteness” (CoRe).
  • Mag.a Sigrid Schiesser, PhD Student, Dpt. of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Univ. of Vienna. Project Configurations of “remoteness” (CoRe).
  • Mag. a Susanna Gartler, PhD Student, Dpt. of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Univ. of Vienna. PhD Project: First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun cultural revitalisation and the making of a cultural centre. Projects Nunataryuk and LACE.
Team

Ria-Maria Adams, BA MA

Team

Alexandra Meyer, BA MA

Team

kandidat nauk Olga Povoroznyuk

Team

Mag.a Sigrid Schiesser

Team

Mag.a Susanna Gartler

Selected Publications

  • Schweitzer, Peter/Florian Stammler/Cecilie Ebsen/Aytalina Ivanova/Irina Litvina. 2018. Social Impacts of Non-Renewable Resource Development on Indigenous Communities in Alaska, Greenland, and Russia. In: C. Southcott/F. Abele/D. Natcher/B. Parlee (eds.). Resources and Sustainable Development in the Arctic. New York: Routledge, pp. 42-64.
  • Schweitzer, Peter/Olga Povoroznyuk/Sigrid Schiesser. 2017. Beyond wilderness: towards an anthropology of infrastructure and the built environment in the Russian North. The Polar Journal 7(1).
  • Schweitzer, Peter. 2017. Polar anthropology, or why we need to study more than humans in order to understand people. The Polar Journal 7(1).
  • Schweitzer, Peter. 2016. Can one see the Arctic from Vienna? In: Hot Spots, Cultural Anthropology Website.

Projects

  • NUNATARYUK – Permafrost thaw and the changing Arctic coast, science for socioeconomic adaptation
  • CoRe: Configurations of ‘Remoteness’: Entanglements of Humans and Transportation Infrastructure in the Baykal-Amur Mainline (BAM) Region