Francisco Martínez, "The Future of Hiding: Secrecy, Infrastructure, and Ecological Memory in Estonia's Siberia" (Cornell UP, 2025)

About this episode

The episode discusses the role of secrecy and infrastructure in shaping identity and ecological memory in northeastern Estonia.

How can lives and things that are rendered invisible be crucial to identity, politics, and the future? Drawing on experimental ethnographic research in northeastern Estonia, this book offers vivid answers. The Future of Hiding: Secrecy, Infrastructure, and Ecological Memory in Estonia's Siberia (Cornell UP, 2025) analyzes the territorial dimensions of secrecy and how concealment occurs in relation to energy infrastructure and identity politics in eastern Estonia. It shows that secrets and hiding places are intrinsic to human affairs, while reconsidering the possibilities of relating ethnographically to what appears to be the extraneous. Francisco Martínez highlights how basements, garages, bunkers, holes, and cottages favor alternative forms of sociality, allowing local residents to redesign the terms of their public selves. Shadow spaces in this liminal region, at the border with Russia, are created against the institutional demand to be knowable. People engage in ordinary forms of ambivalence and refusal to negotiate a sense of loss and the consequences of a century of extractive activities. The Future of Hiding invites cross-disciplinary dialogue on topics like mining…

People in this episode

Guest: Francisco Martínez

Topics covered

• secrecy
• infrastructure
• ecological memory
• identity politics
• ethnographic research
• sociality
• cultural landscapes

Keywords

• secrecy
• infrastructure
• ecological memory
• identity politics
• ethnography
• sociality
• cultural landscapes
• Estonia
• Siberia

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cornell UP

Places: Estonia, Siberia, eastern Estonia, Russia

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