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Women’s Activism in Ukraine: Artistic Method in Early Civic Documentations of the Ukraine-Russia War

2023; Springer International Publishing; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_13

2523-3092

Jessica Zychowicz,

Military, Security, and Education Studies

This chapter examines case studies in the field of cultural practice, with a particular focus on how activism by women and gender minorities has impacted concepts and legislation around civil and human rights in Ukraine. I employ frameworks from anthropology and visual theory, drawing upon my own participant observation in Donbas in 2019 in formerly occupied Lysychansk, near the front line of the conflict zone and subsequent trips and workshops with fellow researchers in Donbas. Legislation on Anti-Discrimination, particularly in the decade between the Maidan Revolution of Dignity in 2013–2014 and the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2023, played a key role in the initial E.U. Association Agreement paved the way for a National Human Rights Strategy and other key changes. Tracing artistic-activist collaborations in Ukraine in the early phase of the war (first decade) provides documentation of one part of a much wider effort to secure an equitable society through an “ethics of care” (Phillips, 2008; Butler, 2016). Notions of protecting democracy against Kremlin disinformation campaigns have played an equal or even more significant role in simultaneously unifying and pluralizing Ukraine in 2013–2023 than the impetus to grow closer to the E.U. This is because many recognized the same threats of disinformation and discrimination have existed in Europe, even if on a less acute scale than the lethal revanchism in Ukraine. Here, this chapter traces the links between activism, artistic methods as communication, information platforms, social representation, and legislation by narrowing in on three different initiatives: an international art exhibit about the war in East Ukraine; two cultural NGOs based in Donbas; and an annual summer school held in Donbas—all civilian (non-governmental, non-military) contexts that partner with multiple funding sources. Women activists have made civic social and legislative gains in making visible and addressing the needs of displaced, the elderly, and other minorities whose lives were early on drastically changed due to proximity to the front and/or occupied zones. This chapter will give future researchers a valuable reference point for understanding Donbas in further engagements with Ukraine.