Anthropological Perspectives on the War in Ukraine A Virtual Discussion

The war in Ukraine has disrupted the lives of millions of people leading to displacement, loss of lives and economic precarity. The University Anthropology Society, in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen Anthropology Society, is hosting this timely and important discussion on the anthropological implications of the war in both local and global contexts. Guest speakers will gather to discuss and answer your questions about displacement, heritage, memory, political economies and other relating themes under their expertise.

Dr Diana Vonnak – University of St Andrews

Dr Vonnak's PhD research focused on the relationship between expertise and the changing state in post-socialist heritage preservation in Lviv, Ukraine, on the infrastructures of heritage preservation, and the challenges municipal organisations face when dealing with national or international protection regimes. Beyond the focus on heritage, she has analysed how the ongoing war changes the stakes of cultural and memory politics.

Dr Denys Gorbach – Max Planck Sciences Po Centre

Dr Gorbach's research interests include political economy, social movements, and working-class formation in the post-Soviet region. Gorbach's current research project is focused on national populism in today's Ukraine, both as the basis of dominant national public discourses and as the defining factor of the country's national variety of capitalism.

Dr Deborah Jones – Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Dr Jones' book manuscript in preparation, Words to Sow: Language and Violence in Ukraine‘ builds on her doctoral research in agrarian Ukraine in the year leading up to the Maidan Revolution and as the country descended into armed conflict (2013 to 2018). As part of the Department of Resilience and Transformation in Eurasia, she has continued to work in Ukraine, most recently studying landmine-affected regions of Kyiv-controlled eastern Ukraine and how unexploded ordnance (and efforts to remove) affects land rights and livelihoods in rural communities.

Dr Volodymyr Artiukh – The University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society

Dr Artiukh's research interests include the anthropology of work and labour organisations in post-Soviet countries, the anthropology of populism, and the comparative study of hegemonic practices in Eastern Europe. He is current working on a book manuscript based on his PhD work. Within the ERC-Funded ‘EMPTINESS' project, Artiukh is studying the movement of Ukrainian migrants.