Abstract
Ukraine’s democratization that started after the disintegration of the Soviet Union is an ongoing effort, accompanied by incremental political, social, and ideological transformations as well as tumultuous events—the Orange Revolution (2004–2005), growing authoritarianism during the presidency of Yanukovych (2010–2014), the Revolution of Dignity (2013–2014), Russian annexation of Crimea (2014), and Russia’s ongoing military aggression in Eastern Ukraine (2014-present). This study is concerned not with the actual political and social transformations in the country, but with mental representations of society that these transformations generated. The cultural models theory and method offered a toolkit for examining people’s implicit ideas and taken-for-granted assumptions through the analysis of spoken discourse. I conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with people in Western Ukraine, identified recurrent ideas and conceptual metaphors in the interviewees’ discourses, and propose three cultural models of society underlying them.
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Notes
Strauss (1997, 2012) suggests that people deal with discordant cultural models and conceptual ambiguities using the following strategies:
Integration—an unconscious compromise between conflicting representations.
Cognitive ambivalence—a conflict between different representations that an individual is aware of and feels torn about.
Compartmentalization—differing representations are used in different contexts.
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Appendix: Semi-structured interview questions
Appendix: Semi-structured interview questions
Translated from Ukrainian
I am interested in collecting people’s perspectives about life in Ukraine and Ukrainian society. I would like to hear about your personal experience and point of view. The interview consists of several open-ended questions, followed by a drawing task, a short free-listing activity, and a background information survey (age, occupation, number of household members, etc.). It will take up to 45 minutes, but you can stop anytime. All the answers will be kept confidential. You may choose not to answer certain questions, feel free to do so. Do you have any questions for me before we start?
Individual-level questions
- 1.
Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
- 2.
How would you describe yourself in a few words?
- 3.
Can you walk me through your typical week?
- 4.
What, in your opinion, have been some of the formative experiences in your life that made you a person you are today?
Community-level questions
- 5.
How would you describe living in [city name]?
- 6.
Is this area changing? In what ways?
- 7.
What are the problems in your community?
- 8.
Do you think these problems can be resolved?
- 9.
Who can resolve them?
- 10.
Who, in your opinion has authority in the community?
- 11.
Whom would you consider to be a leader in your community?
- 12.
Do you feel that you are a part of the decision making in your community?
- 13.
How would you describe relationships between people in your city?
Country-level questions
- 14.
How would you describe relationships in Ukrainian society in general?
- 15.
Can you describe what life in Ukraine is like?
- 16.
Ukraine has now been independent for 25 years. How would you characterize those years? What, in your opinion, were the main successes and/or failures?
- 17.
How do you feel things are going in the country now? What affects life in the country today?
[if participants mention economic crisis or military conflict, the following question is selected accordingly] You mentioned _____ (e.g., economic difficulty) that the country is going through. How does it affect you personally?
- 18.
Did Maidan, in your opinion, have long-term influence on life in Ukraine? What about your community?
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Biletska, N. Cultural models of society in Western Ukraine. J Cult Cogn Sci 4, 87–105 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-019-00036-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-019-00036-2