Sgoil Cheumnaichean Saidheans Sòisealta na h-Alba
Through a case study of urban transformation in Mariupol, a former centre of the Soviet steel industry that was temporarily occupied by Russian-backed separatists in the spring of 2014, my PhD explored how different categories of residents re-evaluate their relationship to a shared Soviet past and its spatial and environmental legacies as a result of geopolitical conflict and immediate experiences of military violence. In the thesis I argued that despite the significant cultural, linguistic and kinship ties with Russia, the first-hand experience of military aggression prompted my interlocutors to gradually distance themselves from the ‘Russian Other’ and articulate their belonging to a Ukrainian political nation associated with ideas of freedom and open-ended visions of the future. My findings also demonstrated that the changing economic significance of local steel industry was just as defining for the way people related to Soviet urban legacies in Mariupol as the military conflict. With the start of full-scale war in 2022, the gradual shifts taking place in Ukrainian society since 2014 have experienced rapid and radical crystallization in many cases. Using the ethnographic data collected for my PhD between 2015 and 2018, the aim of my work during the Fellowship is to show how lived experiences of geopolitical conflict shaped a sense of belonging and anticipations of the future in East Ukraine in the interim period between the start of the Donbas war in 2014 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Besides developing my theoretical work further, the fellowship provided an opportunity to develop my skills in organizing public engagement and knowledge exchange activities. I organized and participated in a series of events that introduced the topic of Ukrainian industrial heritage to broader audiences, raising awareness about the threats caused by the Russian invasion and the work of Ukrainian cultural professionals to protect this heritage in a context of collective trauma and destroyed infrastructures. Being part of these collaborations, I learnt about the practical and ethical aspects of how to do co-production projects in a way that benefits all parties.
The main achievement of the fellowship in terms of my career was being able to develop a new research proposal that, after a couple of rejections and revisions, eventually led to a job offer.
Finding a good mentor is probably the most important: a mentor who is a good fit in terms of research topic or theoretical approach, but also one who will be invested in reading your work and involving you in projects you can learn from. In most cases, a good fit is obvious already at the stage of preparing the application. I worked with two wonderful mentors at the University of St Andrews, Prof Mette High from Social Anthropology and Prof Victoria Donovan from Modern Languages, who helped me in a number of ways from developing my proposal, involving me in their projects, discussing publishing and application strategies, and sometimes sharing their best practices regarding work-life balance.
I also recommend making use of the intellectual environment of the department, university, and the doctoral training partnership as much as possible. Doing my fellowship part-time with a small child, I was not able to use these opportunities as much as I would have liked to, and I did feel I was missing out!
© 2024 All rights reserved
Scottish Graduate School of Social Science, proudly funded by
