Tokyo College Event: “Thinking through Permafrost”

Today, permafrost undergoes a remarkable revival. Journalists, scientists, citizens, and politicians — everyone appears to be invested in preventing the deterioration of this Arctic ground. What unites these emerging accounts of permafrost is an acknowledgement of its ‘sudden’ global visibility. One gets the impression that permafrost has not been a matter of concern up until very recently. But where was permafrost before? As an historian and specialist on the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, Prof. Dullin is interested in discussing how Permafrost was invented as a scientific issue and, at the same time, how it was a natural and meaningful ground for the native communities living on it. Then, she will show how Permafrost took, at the turn of the twenty-first century, a political meaning in the search of sovereignty in different Arctic substates, such as Yakutia.  

 

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Moderator