Abstract: 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has mostly ‘paused’ the 30+ years of collaborative research carried out by Western scholars with Indigenous partners in the Russian North that Gorbachev’s 1987 Murmansk speech instigated. These academics now must decide how to move forward in their careers, given the current geopolitics. In a series of volumes, colleagues Erich Kasten, Igor Krupnik and I have collected 40 papers addressing this scholarly fracture in circumpolar social sciences. Authors span the spectrum from early career researchers to retired colleagues who, like me, began their careers during the previous Cold War. Papers address the ethical dilemmas of continuing versus ceasing research in the Russian North; offer past histories of researchers dealing with repressive regimes; describe collaborative projects that are now ‘on hold’; and discuss new ways of moving forward with research. I will summarize some of the offerings of these three volumes and offer my own thoughts on ‘moving onward’ with work on the Russian North.

Speaker Bio: 

Dr. Gail Fondahl  is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences at UNBC. She has a PhD from the University of California-Berkeley. Professor Fondahl’s research focuses on the legal geographies of indigenous territorial rights in the Russian North, and the cultural and governance dimensions of arctic sustainability. She served as president of the International Arctic Social Sciences Association (2011 to 2014) and as Canada’s representative to the International Arctic Science Committee’s Social and Human Sciences Working Group (2011-2018). Dr. Fondahl co-edited the second Arctic Human Development Report (2014) and Northern Sustainabilities: Understanding and Addressing Change in the Circumpolar World (Springer, 2017).