Research interests

• Social anthropology (economic anthropology, legal anthropology), human geography (spatial research), political science (interpretative policy analysis)
• Qualitative research, ethnography, decolonial research methodology and community based participatory research (CBPR)
• Solidarity
• Policy analysis in the context of COVID-19
• Human-environment relations
• Sustainabilities/social transitions and climate change adaptation
• Natural resources, community–extractive industry relations
• Cartographic storytelling for analysis and outreach/visual anthropology
• Post-socialism, political economy, globalization
• Indigenous cultural revitalization and economy, indigeneity, critical indigenous studies
• Infrastructures, built environment
• Remote regions, regional and urban development (sparsely populated areas, mono-industrial cities)
• Labour studies, fly-in/fly out shift work/long-distance commuting (FIFO, LDC)
• Mobility/multi-locality/migration studies, social spaces and places, temporality
• Deportation and migration control
• Gender/diversity/intersectionality, gender in polar research and academia

Regional foci

• Circumpolar North/Arctic and sub-Arctic (focus: Canada, Russia/Siberia), Australia (comparative aspects of remote regions/mining)
• Previously: regional planning and development in Northern Pakistan

2007       Dissertation Prize in Migration Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences, AT

2014       Dissertation Recognition Award of the Dr. Maria Schaumayer Stiftung, AT

• Board member of the Austrian Polar Research Institute (APRI) polarresearch.at
• Spokesperson: RG Circumpolar Regions and Siberia at the German Association of Anthropologists (DGV) zirkumpolargebiete-sibirien.dgv-net.de
• Austrian Representative: IASC International Arctic Science Committee iasc.info
• Former council member: IASSA (International Arctic Social Sciences Association) iassa.org