Points of Return and Recovery: Trajectories, Emplacement, and Political Participation of the Ukrainian Displaced

The mass displacement in Ukraine, the largest in Europe since WWII, became one of the many overlapping destructive consequences of the full-scale war that produced a multifaceted crisis condition. Subsequently, the issue of return of the displaced has been widely identified in policy and media discourses as a key condition for socio-economic recovery, the revival of local communities, and overcoming the devastation caused by the war.

During the Urban Seminar Volha will present her research project that explores the process of return of displaced Ukrainians from Western countries, the ways in which it has been governed by different actors, and its implications for recovery and reconstruction, especially for reenvisaging the Ukrainian state project and the renegotiation of citizenship. At the same time, along with those externally and internally displaced, there are other people who are expected to "return", such as veterans, people in captivity, and, in general, people coming back to peaceful life itself; thus, return emerges as one of the central metaphors for thinking about and developing policies oriented at the end of the war. In particular, the presentation will describe how the process of return and the experiences of displaced people serve as the medium for transforming people's relationship with the state and fellow citizens. This also implies their changing perception of a socio-political community at the national and local levels. To this end, it will discuss the relationship between "emplacement" and "empatriation," and how these transformative processes encourage new thinking and imagination in terms of "polycentricity" of the state and governance.

Urban Seminar will be held in a workshop format. Researchers are invited to discuss scholarly projects, research at various stages of development, and completed research that is being prepared for publication.

Participation in the Urban Seminar requires preliminary reading and discussion of the researcher's text. If you would like to join the Seminar, please email Maryana Mazurak (m.mazurak@lvivcenter.org), and we will send you the materials in advance.