Congratulations dr Ulturgasheva!

Last week, Anastasia Ulturgasheva successfully defended her dissertation Crafting Futurities on Thawing Grounds: Climate Change, Terrafrontiering, and Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Siberian Artic

The thesis is about how Eveny reindeer-herding communities in northeastern Siberia are responding to major changes in their environment and political landscape, such as permafrost thaw, mining and resource extraction, and state policies. Based on fieldwork in two Eveny communities in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Anastasia focuses on how everyday relationships between people, reindeer, and the land shape how these communities imagine their futures in the context of climate change and resource extraction.

-I’m excited to engage with Indigenous scholarship and developing cosmopolitical approaches in the context of Siberia, where this lens is rarely applied. The thesis allows me to contribute to broader theoretical debates while grounding them in Siberian ethnography.

The dissertation shows that climate change and environmental problems are not just scientific or technical issues, but also deeply social and cultural ones.

-By learning from how Eveny reindeer herders live and think with the land and animals around them, my work offers alternative ways of understanding responsibility, care, and co-existence with other-than-human beings, says Anastasia.