Abstract
Ioulia Shukan’s chapter analyzes the contradictory impact of the war in Donbas on Ukrainian women’s life trajectories, as well their social and gendered roles, through the lenses of sociology of commitment, sociology of care and ethnography of citizenship, and on the basis of fieldwork conducted at the military hospital in Kharkiv, with women of the association “Sister of Mercy ATO/Kharkiv”. Those women volunteered in the summer 2014 to care about wounded soldiers; the affective intensity of their doing-together, as well as an overlap it inevitably operates between their sociability, love and family life, everyday volunteering, make it hard for those women to imagine being demobilized as long as the armed conflict continues. On the one hand, the war has greatly contributed to emancipate those women, who previously stayed away from any form of collective action. It has also empowered them as active and concerned citizens, has brought social recognition and visibility to their voluntary mobilization, has contributed to their professional socialization as quasi-professional care-givers. On the other hand, the war locks volunteers in very traditional gendered roles—that are perceived by them as being totally natural and corresponding to their social and affective characteristics—of women careering, at the rear front, about men fighting at the far-front. It also exposes them, in the long run, to an important occupation and financial marginalization.
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Notes
- 1.
Translated from French by Sophie Schlondorff.
- 2.
From April 2014 to April 2018, Ukraine’s military operations against its pro-Russian separatist territories, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, were described officially as an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO). Since May 2018, they have been categorized as a “Joint Forces Operation” (OOS).
- 3.
In May 2014, when the group’s founder, Yaryna Chahovets, had just launched calls for solidarity with the first soldiers hospitalized in Kharkiv via a Facebook page, a donor suggested this name to her. It was only later that the volunteers discovered the existence of an eponymous Catholic religious order. (Informal conversation with Yaryna Chahovets, May 2015.)
- 4.
According to the World Health Organization, the equipment and quality of the Ukrainian health-care services has worsened steadily since the end of the USSR. In 2000, 50% of the equipment was obsolete; in 2007, 60–70%—after 20–25 years of use, which is two to three times longer than its typical useful life.
- 5.
Evacuated from the battlefield, the wounded are transported to the hospital without personal belongings. When they are admitted, they are issued pajamas and a standard sleeveless shirt, as well as a pair of slippers. They then have to get a hold of spare T-shirts, socks, sometimes even a towel, as well as civilian clothing—all while not being permitted to leave the hospital. These circumstances make the volunteers’ logistical support especially important.
- 6.
As opposed to the masculine ethic, which is purportedly based on justice.
- 7.
A Ukrainian-language poet and iconic figure of the national revival in the nineteenth century.
- 8.
Field notes, February 2015.
- 9.
Ibid., July 2015.
- 10.
Ibid., May 2015.
- 11.
On average, there are only two nursing assistants per division: one for every twenty patients. They carry out many wide-ranging tasks, from cleaning the facilities to assisting patients.
- 12.
Field notes, October 2015.
- 13.
Ibid., July 2016.
- 14.
The authors refer to the “fast breeder reactor” side of commitment analyzed by Albert O. Hirschman (Hirschman 1970).
- 15.
Field notes, July 2015.
- 16.
Ibid., October 2016.
- 17.
Ibid., January 2017.
- 18.
In December 2015 and December 2016, these percentages were, respectively, 67 and 65%. Survey “Dovira Socialnym Instytutam 2018” (Trust in Social Institutions 2018), Kiev International Institute of Sociology, January 29, 2019, https://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=817&page=2 (Accessed 12 June 2019).
- 19.
Field notes, October 2016.
- 20.
Ibid., October 2016.
- 21.
Ibid., May 2015.
- 22.
Ibid., October 2016.
- 23.
Ibid., February 2019.
- 24.
Ibid., October 2015.
- 25.
Ibid., October 2016.
- 26.
Ibid., May 2016.
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Shukan, I. (2021). Gender Roles in the Rear of the War in Donbas: Women’s Engagement in the Care of Wounded Combatants. In: Bluhm, K., Pickhan, G., Stypińska, J., Wierzcholska, A. (eds) Gender and Power in Eastern Europe. Societies and Political Orders in Transition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53130-0_7
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