"I am ready!"

Author(s)

Gertrude Saxinger, Elisabeth Öfner, Elvira Shakirova, Maria Ivanova, Maksim Yakovlev, Eduard Gareev

Abstract

This article draws on the example of students from long-distance commuter families, studying at the Ufa State Petroleum Technical University (UGNTU) in the Republic of Bashkortostan. This case study shows that long-distance commuting (LDC) to the sub-arctic extractive industry regions is on the one hand both a socio-economic necessity as well as an attractive form of making a livelihood. A central reason why people on the other hand do not opt for LDC is the cyclical distance from the family. However, even more though the weak living and dangerous working conditions at site reduce the motivation for this multi-local and mobile career path. This article is based on ethnographic and quantitative applied research. It shows on the one hand, where the industry should put the emphasis on in order to use the strong potential of high-qualified workforce for the remote extraction sites in the Arctic and Subarctic. On the other hand, this article shows the tight socio-spatial relations for people from the central and southern parts of Russia to the Far Northern regions and their material meaning as resource peripheries for the social vertical mobility of people including gender specific effects.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Geography and Regional Research, Department of Slavonic Studies

External organisation(s)

Austrian Polar Research Institute (APRI), Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Ufa State Petroleum Technical University

Journal

Siberian Historical Research

Pages

73-103

No. of pages

31

ISSN

2312-461X

Publication date

2014

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

504017 Cultural anthropology

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Archaeology, History, Anthropology, Archaeology

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/7086e04f-9a5a-4f57-974a-3ff037996c5d