Living in between: Strategies of adaptation and horizons of expectations in Ukraine and Moldova – LimSpaces

The war had a profound effect on sources and methodological approaches. The Limspaces team has therefore reassessed theoretical frameworks and methodologies in the context of a conflict that has suddenly become active. Our research is based on a large amount of original qualitative data (interviews, ethnographic observations, cartographic studies) collected during surveys of ordinary people.
In the case of Ukraine, our research now focuses on the victims of a large-scale war, internally displaced persons and refugees (around 12 million people in total). That's almost a quarter of Ukrainians who are no longer living where they did at the beginning of 2022. We are studying the educational strategies used by Ukrainian refugees who have left for European Union countries, particularly Germany, the reconfiguration of transnational family networks between Ukraine and Russia among Ukrainians displaced from the east, the reconfiguration of higher education trajectories, and the dynamics of sociability in the reception of displaced populations within Ukraine itself. We are also looking at the reconfiguration of infrastructures: we are studying the resilience strategies of the actors in charge of services to the population, particularly water services, or the recomposition of commercial dynamics and networks of small entrepreneurs and transporters in the nodes at the crossroads of Romania, Ukraine and Moldavia, as well as the geo-economic dynamics of the Ukrainian economy at war.
In Moldova, the team is examining the experience of families in this geopolitical in-between situation and the consequences of the conflict for their strategies of economic multi-positioning between Russia and the European Union. It is also analysing the effects of overlapping external influences and dominations over the course of history on the composition of urban spaces and the construction of strategic infrastructures of international importance.

Work in progress. See publications

The start of the Limspaces project was disrupted by the Russian army's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. While this fundamental crisis hampered access to the field, it also highlighted the fundamental relevance of the project's objective - to understand the effect of conflict on societies on the periphery of Europe. Access to the survey sites (interviews, archives, observations, etc.) is hampered in Moldavia and almost impossible in Ukraine. This state of affairs has necessitated a revision of research methods and objects. As a result, the production of scientific results has been delayed in relation to the initial timetable: the project's activities were initially focused on supporting scientists in Ukraine and on disseminating information to the general public through popularisation work and interventions, as well as holding ad hoc events in response to the Russian war in Ukraine. Since autumn 2022, field research missions have been carried out in Moldavia and Poland, and scientific work (conferences, publications) has been produced.

Publications

• D. Eckert, I. Savchuk, 2022. « Mist Viïny » [Bridge of war]. Visnyk Kyivskogo nacionalnogo universytetu imeni Tarasa Shevchenka, Geografiya [Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Geography], 1/2 (82/83), 24-27 (in Ukrainian, abstr. in English), 10.17721/1728-2721.2022.82.3

• D. Eckert, I. Savchuk, 2022, « Khto taki „orki”? », in PERELOM: Viina Rosii proty Ukrainy u chasovykh plastakh i prostorakh mynuvshyny. Dialohy z istorykamy. U 2-kh kn. – Livre 1 / Vidp. red. V. Smolii; Uporiad.: H. Boriak, O. Yas. NAN Ukrainy. Instytut istorii Ukrainy. – Kyiv: Instytut istorii Ukrainy, 2022, 213-214. resource.history.org.ua/item/0016979

• S. Lambroschini (2021) “Alexandra Goujon, L’Ukraine, de l’indépendance à la guerre, Éd. Le Cavalier bleu, 176 pages, 2021.” Revue d’études comparatives Est-Ouest 2, no. 2 (2021): 208–12. doi.org/10.3917/receo1.522.0208.

• I. Mützelburg (2023) ‘NGOs in Ukraine’s Multi-Scalar Asylum Governance – Between Influence and Dependence on State Authorities’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 1, pp. 1–18. Available at:https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2022.2146664.

• I. Mützelburg (2022) Transferring Asylum Norms to EU Neighbours. Multi-Scalar Policies and Practices in Ukraine. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan (The European Union in International Affairs). Available at: link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-04528-8.

The project offers a new interpretation of the societies of Ukraine and Moldova which seem to have settled into a lasting state of political and social instability at the very doors of the European Union. The originality of the project lies in looking at these societies not as peripheral versions of the European model but rather at the microsocial effects of the "in-between" position of these populations, caught between Western and Russian spheres of intervention. The project breaks with a widely held perception of these societies as cultural and historical "others." Instead it analyzes them from an actor-centered, grounded and relational perspective.

The project pursues three objectives.
On the empirical level, it offers a comprehensive reading of these societies from the study of everyday strategies in situations of high uncertainty when living "in between". It seeks to shed light on the ways in which actors orient their choices to meet their basic needs, engage in business, receive occupational training, or project themselves into the future despite the instability of existing geopolitical allegiances and political fields.
On a theoretical level, the project mobilizes the concept of liminality in order to approach the French concept of "in-between space" and the German one of "Zwischenraum" from a dynamic perspective . Microsocial studies of these spaces are often rigidified by presentisms that miss local dynamics. This study will privilege creative movement, a locus where experiences and expectations are reshaped on the backdrop of changes in the political space.
On the academic level, the project helps to de-compartimentalize French and German approaches in the field of Central-Eastern European studies. It develops transnational networks with the prospect of building a European research project. As part of its mission, it provides scientific training to young researchers.
The research will collect original qualitative data (interviews, ethnographic observations, cartographic studies), integrating 3 partner-teams with a solid experience of such field research. Based on surveys carried out in 12 locations, it includes the separatist territories in Transnistria and in the border areas of the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The project will explore the imaginaries and strategies that different types of actors (ordinary inhabitants, market traders, entrepreneurs, parents of pupils, students) use to adapt (axis A) or to escape (axis B) the uncertainties of their liminal state. Axis C is transversal: it organizes the coordination and the promotion of research.
This project aims for a better understanding of Ukrainian and Moldovan societies. This is necessary to adapted European neighborhood and migration policies. More broadly, it supports a pluralistic reflection by Europe about itself, its inhabitants, its history and its territories.