A week ago I returned from Cambridge, in many ways – as a different person.
The University of Cambridge has been in my life for a while, even though I had never physically visited before this autumn. Back in 2014, I applied there for a PhD, dreaming of the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI)-but this did not work out. Several years later, I applied again, this time for visiting student status, but circumstances led me to the University of Aberdeen instead, and I was happy to get to know its Arctic anthropology community.
The third attempt worked, and I spent part of October as a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Social Anthropology, also attending events at the Scott Polar Research Institute and working in its cosy library, with its impressive Russian and Siberian collection.
As my visit was short, I tried to experience as much university life as possible: I had coffees with my host Dr. Mike Degani and several other researchers, participated in departmental research seminars, post-seminar drinks and dinners, attended SPRI morning coffees and an evening lecture at Darwin College and joined an event for newcomers and visitors where I learnt a lot about Cambridge’s history. I finalised article edits for the Arctic Yearbook and began editing another article on more-than-human authority in Siberia.
I browsed the Cambridge University Press bookshop and a second-hand bookshop, where I got a lovely edition of Alice in Wonderland – which probably describes how I felt most of the time. I sat in on undergraduate and master’s lectures in anthropology (also useful for my pedagogy practice!). I ran from one library to another, visited museums and spent one Sunday in London. I went to a lunch and walk around Selwyn college with an amazing PhD colleague.
I was probably wearing my anthropological hat all the time, observing, making mental notes and reflecting. At times, I tried to step outside my usual interests: I went to a biology lecture, purchased a book about the history of the Roman Empire and attended an event on podcasts. Each time, new ideas were forming, as if these new experiences were changing something inside me.
I am back from Cambridge, facing the Finnish November. But as banal as it sounds, I want to keep this experience with me in my future endeavours – and hopefully return at some stage.
I am very grateful to the mobility funding from the Biodiverse Anthropocenes program (University of Oulu) that supported this visit. This was also the first research visit of my new project DATAVOID: more about it to follow.
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