Olga Povoroznyuk
Biographic Data
| ID | 669152 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Olga Povoroznyuk |
| GIVEN NAMES | Olga |
| FAMILY NAME | Povoroznyuk |
| SIGNATURE | POVOROZNYUK O |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Vienna |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9359-0729 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 35 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Multi-scale scenario building for community development: Exploring transport infrastructure futures in the Circumpolar North
The severe environment and remoteness of the Circumpolar North elevate transport infrastructure to a crucial factor in community development bridging global trends to local realities. Understanding plausible infrastructure futures is therefore key to robust development planning. To ensure realism and local relevance, scenario building requires a transdisciplinary approach. However, standard participatory methods are often hampered by practical co…
Toward a Comparative Ethnography of Arctic Seaports Projects: Local Impacts of Expanding Maritime Infrastructure in Alaska, Norway, and Russia
My comparative ethnography focuses on suspended seaport expansion projects in three Arctic coastal communities: Nome (USA), Kirkenes (Norway), and Tiksi (Russia). All three projects are driven by similar development promises and geopolitcal threats, enacting divergent national interests and producing diverse local impacts. While Nome and Kirkenes pursue commercial and tourism-oriented futures, Tiksi remains shaped by military and state-centric im…
Scenarios and Ethnography: Infrastructural Futures as Windows into the Present
Large-scale infrastructures are typically part of development projects that are global in ambition and local in their impacts. While anthropology has a decent track record of using ethnographic methods in the study of infrastructure, it typically lacks the capacity to provoke statements or attitudes regarding larger development plans. Scenario workshops, initially developed by researchers in the field of foresight studies, turn out to be producti…
Introduction to the Special Issue “Ethnographies of Infrastructure
A Right to Remoteness? A Missing Bridge and Articulations of Indigeneity Along an East Siberian Railroad
Temporality of Arctic transport infrastructure: Bridging seasonal supply in Egvekinot, Chukotka
This article explores local impacts from and responses to seasonal configurations of connectivity and disruptions in the functioning of transport infrastructure in the Russian Arctic. While paying due attention to longue durée – historical processes and modernization ideologies – in the shaping of infrastructure, communities, and social relations in the Russian Arctic, our main focus is on the cyclical, repetitive, and fleeting seasonal time. Bui…
Ignoring environmental change? On fishing quotas and collapsing coastlines in Bykovskiy, Northern Sakha (Yakutiya)
The Indigenous village of Bykovskiy is located 40 km from Tiksi, the administrative center of Bulunskiy District (Ulus), in the northern part of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya), Russia. Founded as a Soviet fishing cooperative, it became home to Indigenous Sakha, Evenkis, Evens, as well as to Russian settlers and political prisoners from the Baltic states. Post-Soviet transformations, coupled with escalating environmental change processes, has be…
Mapping hierarchies of mobility in the Baikal Amur Mainline region: A quantitative account of needs and expectations relating to railroad usage
The construction of railroad infrastructure in East Siberia and the Russian Far East was a key aspect of Soviet industrialization during the 1970s and 1980s. Although built primarily for freight transportation, the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) and the Amur-Yakutsk Mainline (AYaM) have also been used for passenger transport and have thus contributed to increased mobility and heightened local expectations about future mobility. This article presents …
Ambiguous entanglements: Infrastructure, memory and identity in indigenous Evenki communities along the Baikal–Amur Mainline
The Baikal–Amur Mainline (BAM) project has been the embodiment of (post-)Soviet modernisation with its promises of economic prosperity, mobility and connectivity. It boosted regional development and introduced new forms of mobility, but also accelerated sedentarisation, assimilation and social polarisation among Evenki, an indigenous people who had been living in the region long before the arrival of the megaproject. Complex and often ambiguous e…
(Re)Constructing the Baikal-Amur Mainline: Continuity and Change of (Post)Socialist Infrastructure
The construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in East Siberia and the Russian Far East in the 1970s and 1980s was the largest technological and social engineering project of late socialism. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the BAM was dogged by economic bust, decline, and public disillusionment. BAM-2, a recently launched state program of technological modernization, aims to complete a second railway track. The project elicits memo…
A right to remoteness? A missing bridge and articulations of indigeneity along an East Siberian railroad
The Soviet Union and its successor states have been avid supporters of a modernisation paradigm aimed at 'overcoming remoteness' and 'bringing civilisation' to the periphery and its 'backward' indigenous people. The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railroad, built as a much-hyped prestige project of late socialism, is a good example of that. The BAM has affected indigenous communities and reconfigured the geographic and social space of East Siberia. Ou…
Power of rhythms – trains and work along the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in Siberia
Train rhythms are dictated by regulations as well as the collaboration of human and non-human actants. When a railroad is the prime form of ground transportation and the mono-industry forming force in the cities along the railroad, the rhythms of trains have power over the everyday life of people who rely on them as passengers, workforce and traders. This is the case of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in Siberia. The paper tackles the interaction …
The Baikal-Amur Mainline
The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), a railroad in East Siberia and the Russian Far East, became the last large Soviet industrial project. Its construction in the 1970s and 1980s attracted migrants from across the USSR, who formed the bamovtsy, or group of BAM builders. They share a history of working and living along the BAM and constitute the majority population in the region. The article argues that emotionally charged social memory of the BAM cons…
Beyond wilderness: Towards an anthropology of infrastructure and the built environment in the Russian North
Public and academic discourses about the Polar regions typically focus on the so-called natural environment. While, these discourses and inquiries continue to be relevant, the current article asks the question how to conceptualize the on-going industrial and infrastructural build-up of the Arctic. Acknowledging that the "built environment" is not an invention of modernity, the article nevertheless focuses on large-scale infrastructural projects o…
S. M. Shirokogoroff’s book Sociаl Organization of the Northern Tungus and its Russian translation: History, structure, and interpretations
S. M. Shirokogoroff’s book Social Organization of the Northern Tungus was originally published in 1929 in English and later also in Chinese and Japanese languages. It is striking that this monograph has still not been published in Russian. It contains rich ethnographic data on Evenki kin relations, family organization, property relations, and various customs regulating social life. This text demonstrates how ethnographic data are translated into …
Beyond wilderness: Towards an anthropology of infrastructure and the built environment in the Russian North
Public and academic discourses about the Polar regions typically focus on the so-called natural environment. While, these discourses and inquiries continue to be relevant, the current article asks the question how to conceptualize the on-going industrial and infrastructural build-up of the Arctic. Acknowledging that the "built environment" is not an invention of modernity, the article nevertheless focuses on large-scale infrastructural projects o…
The Baikal-Amur Mainline
The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), a railroad in East Siberia and the Russian Far East, became the last large Soviet industrial project. Its construction in the 1970s and 1980s attracted migrants from across the USSR, who formed the bamovtsy, or group of BAM builders. They share a history of working and living along the BAM and constitute the majority population in the region. The article argues that emotionally charged social memory of the BAM cons…
Toward a Comparative Ethnography of Arctic Seaports Projects: Local Impacts of Expanding Maritime Infrastructure in Alaska, Norway, and Russia
My comparative ethnography focuses on suspended seaport expansion projects in three Arctic coastal communities: Nome (USA), Kirkenes (Norway), and Tiksi (Russia). All three projects are driven by similar development promises and geopolitcal threats, enacting divergent national interests and producing diverse local impacts. While Nome and Kirkenes pursue commercial and tourism-oriented futures, Tiksi remains shaped by military and state-centric im…
Scenarios and Ethnography: Infrastructural Futures as Windows into the Present
Large-scale infrastructures are typically part of development projects that are global in ambition and local in their impacts. While anthropology has a decent track record of using ethnographic methods in the study of infrastructure, it typically lacks the capacity to provoke statements or attitudes regarding larger development plans. Scenario workshops, initially developed by researchers in the field of foresight studies, turn out to be producti…
Introduction to the Special Issue “Ethnographies of Infrastructure
Ignoring environmental change? On fishing quotas and collapsing coastlines in Bykovskiy, Northern Sakha (Yakutiya)
The Indigenous village of Bykovskiy is located 40 km from Tiksi, the administrative center of Bulunskiy District (Ulus), in the northern part of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya), Russia. Founded as a Soviet fishing cooperative, it became home to Indigenous Sakha, Evenkis, Evens, as well as to Russian settlers and political prisoners from the Baltic states. Post-Soviet transformations, coupled with escalating environmental change processes, has be…
S. M. Shirokogoroff’s book Sociаl Organization of the Northern Tungus and its Russian translation: History, structure, and interpretations
S. M. Shirokogoroff’s book Social Organization of the Northern Tungus was originally published in 1929 in English and later also in Chinese and Japanese languages. It is striking that this monograph has still not been published in Russian. It contains rich ethnographic data on Evenki kin relations, family organization, property relations, and various customs regulating social life. This text demonstrates how ethnographic data are translated into …
Beyond wilderness: Towards an anthropology of infrastructure and the built environment in the Russian North
Public and academic discourses about the Polar regions typically focus on the so-called natural environment. While, these discourses and inquiries continue to be relevant, the current article asks the question how to conceptualize the on-going industrial and infrastructural build-up of the Arctic. Acknowledging that the "built environment" is not an invention of modernity, the article nevertheless focuses on large-scale infrastructural projects o…
A right to remoteness? A missing bridge and articulations of indigeneity along an East Siberian railroad
The Soviet Union and its successor states have been avid supporters of a modernisation paradigm aimed at 'overcoming remoteness' and 'bringing civilisation' to the periphery and its 'backward' indigenous people. The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railroad, built as a much-hyped prestige project of late socialism, is a good example of that. The BAM has affected indigenous communities and reconfigured the geographic and social space of East Siberia. Ou…
Power of rhythms – trains and work along the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in Siberia
Train rhythms are dictated by regulations as well as the collaboration of human and non-human actants. When a railroad is the prime form of ground transportation and the mono-industry forming force in the cities along the railroad, the rhythms of trains have power over the everyday life of people who rely on them as passengers, workforce and traders. This is the case of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in Siberia. The paper tackles the interaction …
The Baikal-Amur Mainline
The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), a railroad in East Siberia and the Russian Far East, became the last large Soviet industrial project. Its construction in the 1970s and 1980s attracted migrants from across the USSR, who formed the bamovtsy, or group of BAM builders. They share a history of working and living along the BAM and constitute the majority population in the region. The article argues that emotionally charged social memory of the BAM cons…
(Re)Constructing the Baikal-Amur Mainline: Continuity and Change of (Post)Socialist Infrastructure
The construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in East Siberia and the Russian Far East in the 1970s and 1980s was the largest technological and social engineering project of late socialism. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the BAM was dogged by economic bust, decline, and public disillusionment. BAM-2, a recently launched state program of technological modernization, aims to complete a second railway track. The project elicits memo…
Ambiguous entanglements: Infrastructure, memory and identity in indigenous Evenki communities along the Baikal–Amur Mainline
The Baikal–Amur Mainline (BAM) project has been the embodiment of (post-)Soviet modernisation with its promises of economic prosperity, mobility and connectivity. It boosted regional development and introduced new forms of mobility, but also accelerated sedentarisation, assimilation and social polarisation among Evenki, an indigenous people who had been living in the region long before the arrival of the megaproject. Complex and often ambiguous e…
Mapping hierarchies of mobility in the Baikal Amur Mainline region: A quantitative account of needs and expectations relating to railroad usage
The construction of railroad infrastructure in East Siberia and the Russian Far East was a key aspect of Soviet industrialization during the 1970s and 1980s. Although built primarily for freight transportation, the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) and the Amur-Yakutsk Mainline (AYaM) have also been used for passenger transport and have thus contributed to increased mobility and heightened local expectations about future mobility. This article presents …
Ignoring environmental change? On fishing quotas and collapsing coastlines in Bykovskiy, Northern Sakha (Yakutiya)
The Indigenous village of Bykovskiy is located 40 km from Tiksi, the administrative center of Bulunskiy District (Ulus), in the northern part of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya), Russia. Founded as a Soviet fishing cooperative, it became home to Indigenous Sakha, Evenkis, Evens, as well as to Russian settlers and political prisoners from the Baltic states. Post-Soviet transformations, coupled with escalating environmental change processes, has be…
A Right to Remoteness? A Missing Bridge and Articulations of Indigeneity Along an East Siberian Railroad
Temporality of Arctic transport infrastructure: Bridging seasonal supply in Egvekinot, Chukotka
This article explores local impacts from and responses to seasonal configurations of connectivity and disruptions in the functioning of transport infrastructure in the Russian Arctic. While paying due attention to longue durée – historical processes and modernization ideologies – in the shaping of infrastructure, communities, and social relations in the Russian Arctic, our main focus is on the cyclical, repetitive, and fleeting seasonal time. Bui…
Multi-scale scenario building for community development: Exploring transport infrastructure futures in the Circumpolar North
The severe environment and remoteness of the Circumpolar North elevate transport infrastructure to a crucial factor in community development bridging global trends to local realities. Understanding plausible infrastructure futures is therefore key to robust development planning. To ensure realism and local relevance, scenario building requires a transdisciplinary approach. However, standard participatory methods are often hampered by practical co…
Toward a Comparative Ethnography of Arctic Seaports Projects: Local Impacts of Expanding Maritime Infrastructure in Alaska, Norway, and Russia
My comparative ethnography focuses on suspended seaport expansion projects in three Arctic coastal communities: Nome (USA), Kirkenes (Norway), and Tiksi (Russia). All three projects are driven by similar development promises and geopolitcal threats, enacting divergent national interests and producing diverse local impacts. While Nome and Kirkenes pursue commercial and tourism-oriented futures, Tiksi remains shaped by military and state-centric im…
Scenarios and Ethnography: Infrastructural Futures as Windows into the Present
Large-scale infrastructures are typically part of development projects that are global in ambition and local in their impacts. While anthropology has a decent track record of using ethnographic methods in the study of infrastructure, it typically lacks the capacity to provoke statements or attitudes regarding larger development plans. Scenario workshops, initially developed by researchers in the field of foresight studies, turn out to be producti…
Introduction to the Special Issue “Ethnographies of Infrastructure
Indigenous Studies and Ecology (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Geography (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Anthropology (4 works) · Archaeology (4 works) · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies (4 works) · Ethnography (4 works)