Making Eternity Last: Knowledge, Permafrost, and Stabilisation of Life in the Arctic

Le prochain séminaire doctoral du CSO accueille Anastasiya Halauniova, Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Sciences Po (Bruno Latour Fund )/CSO :

Making Eternity Last: Knowledge, Permafrost, and Stabilisation of Life in the Arctic

La séance se tient de 10h à 12h à la fois en présentiel à Sciences Po, salle K.011 et en distanciel sur zoom. Si vous souhaitez y assister, merci de contacter Samia Ben.

Résumé : 

What happens when the earth upon which life unfolds is no longer stable?

To answer this, I turn to permafrost—the ground that remains frozen throughout years but that is now thawing at an unprecedented rate. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research in Barentsburg, a mining town on Svalbard, this presentation examines the role of permafrost expertise in Soviet and Russian territorial development. It traces the emergence of permafrost science in the Soviet Union in response to challenges faced by builders tasked with realizing state plans to colonize the Arctic. It then delves into the assumptions of permafrost practitioners about the nature and temporality of permafrost.

Finally, it examines a recent shift from viewing permafrost as a stable foundation to recognizing it as a potentially unstable surface—a transition I call "strategic non-eternalism.” As a result, this presentation reveals how permafrost practitioners strive to ‘stabilize’ and 'control' permafrost against all odds.