“We’ll Hope That Someday We’ll Be Remembered”: Social Workers in Times of War
Care work is immensely valuable to society, yet for centuries, it has largely remained behind the scenes—hidden behind the closed doors of homes and social institutions. Globally, women and girls perform three-quarters of unpaid caregiving at home, and more than two-thirds of professional caregivers are also women. Ukraine is no exception: the labor market in […]
Bakhmut-Kyiv-Prague: Industrialization, Literary Modernism and Ukrainian Nation-Building Across Interwar Borders
My lecture[1] discusses Ukrainian literary modernism from the perspective of various socialist visions of modernity and is aimed to combine different cases from entangled Ukrainian history of the interwar period through the figure of literary critic, politician and sociologist Mykyta Shapoval-Sriblians’kyi. I propose to consider socialism, including the radical Bolshevik one, – as a distinct […]
The Beginning of the Russian Invasion in the Spring of 2014: An Interview With Serhiy Kudelia About the Seizure of Cities and the Taming of Elites
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, this was only a new stage, as the conflict dates back to 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and the armed conflict in Donbas began. Russia's role therein had been debated until 2022, once the invasion revealed that it was a Russian operation against […]
Austerity or Raising the Minimum Wage: Catarina Martins on Portugal’s Experience
Catarina Martins was the national coordinator of the Left Block, a democratic socialist political party in Portugal, from 2012 until 2023. She was elected a Member of the European Parliament in the 2024 European election and sits in the Left group in the European Parliament — GUE/NGL. Catariana has a training in linguistics and a […]
Groups of Resistance: How Ukrainians Protect Their Interests from ‘Arbitrariness from Above’
Both the war and the economic problems have led to the introduction of a number of controversial reforms in the social sphere. A new labour law has made life for employees significantly more difficult. Healthcare and education reforms are also noticeable, with hospitals and schools often being closed on account of these reforms. Those and […]
Trade Unions, Deregulation, and Social Dialogue: An Interview with Vitaliy Dudin
Vitaliy Dudyn is one of those lawyers for whom the idea of fighting for justice defines his professional practice. This shouldn’t surprise us, as it is the foundation of any legal profession. However, what makes Vitaliy an outstanding lawyer is his understanding that achieving individual justice is impossible without a collective struggle for rights. As […]
Social Reproduction, Destruction and Adaptation: Care Infrastructure and Networks in Ukraine during the War
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since February 2022, as well as both national and international policies to deal with the impact of the war, have surely influenced the spaces and networks of social reproduction, both in Ukraine and in refuge. The destruction and resulting displacement, neoliberal austerity, unprecedented border regulations, and refugee policies, have all […]
Commotion and Margin of Opportunity: How COVID-19 and the War Have Affected the Position of Nurses in Ukraine
During the last few years, there have been two major shakeups in the Ukrainian healthcare system: COVID-19 and the full-scale Russian invasion. Both of these events have increased the demand for healthcare medical staff, as has increased the real risk to their lives. And yet, the majority of healthcare workers in Ukraine are nurses. According […]
2004 and on: ‘Oligarchic Democracy’ and Crises
In this chapter of his book, The Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Working Class: Everyday Politics and Moral Economy in a Post-Soviet City, Denys Gorbach offers an overview of Ukraine’s politico-economic landscape. He puts the economic transformations over the last thirty years in the political and cultural context. The first part covers the 1990s […]
Ukrainian Political Economy: Property Regimes and Identity Cleavages
In this chapter of his book, The Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Working Class: Everyday Politics and Moral Economy in a Post-Soviet City, Denys Gorbach offers an overview of Ukraine’s politico-economic landscape. He puts the economic transformations over the last thirty years in the political and cultural context. The first part covers the 1990s […]
