Languages of Emergency, Infrastructures of Response and Everyday Heroism in the Circumpolar North

The Circumpolar North faces severe propagation of risks across the region turning it into a hot spot for emergencies. In the second in a series of Fall 2021 Working Group Seminars presented by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton (NAISIP), the paper considers ethnographic case examples from Siberia and Alaska to explore local responses to emergencies at the juncture of different forms of expert knowledge.

Professor Olga Ulturgasheva, a senior lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, is currently a Pathy Distinguished Visitor in the Fund for Canadian Studies. She carries out ethnographic research on childhood and adolescence, narrative and memory, animist and nomadic cosmologies, reindeer herding and hunting, climate change and the latest environmental transformations in Siberia and Alaska.

Barbara Bodenhorn is Emeritus Fellow, Pembroke College, in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Her research projects include gathering and communicating climate knowledge, with particular reference to generating impact at local and national levels.

Open to members of the University community, this event is hosted by the Princeton University Humanities Council. Co-sponsors include the Program in American Studies and the Fund for Canadian Studies.

Pre-registration is required, and in-person attendance will be capped at 20 participants. Registrations will be confirmed via email on a first come, first served basis. Registrants must be confirmed to attend.

NAISIP fosters a cross-disciplinary dialogue among faculty, students, staff, and community members whose research and teaching interests focus on Indigenous peoples, and works to establish and maintain ethical partnerships with Indigenous communities. The NAISIP Working Group Seminar Series is a Collaborative Humanities Project of the Humanities Council.