Politics of mobility in the circumpolar North: Towards anthropology of transport infrastructures

While mobility is a human universal, the specific constellations of mobility and immobility in a given society are culturally and politically determined. Indigenous and settler communities in the North had developed elaborate seasonal mobility patterns (and transportation infrastructures) to enable sustainable livelihoods under harsh conditions. The colonial incorporation into southern states shifted the aim of northern transportation infrastructures and mobility patterns to serve external purposes, that is, what characterizes their design in northern communities today are their non-local origins and intentions. Contemporary politics and culture of mobility in the North are based on existing infrastructures, which trigger a certain "path dependence" of mobility. Thus, the present article focuses on how particular forms of infrastructure - namely transportation infrastructure, with a focus on railroads - re-configure mobility patterns and stir imagination of northern residents. After discussing the notions of 'remoteness' and 'infrastructure', case studies from Russian and North American contexts are being presented. In a way, this is a call for a systematic anthropological study of infrastructure under conditions of remoteness. We need a kind of "grammar" of human-infrastructure interactions, in addition to the fast-growing body of anthropological treatments of infrastructure as "techno-politics". In other words, in order to comprehend the politics and culture of (human) mobility, we need to understand the politics and culture of transport infrastructure.

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