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Paper short abstract

This paper explores practices of civilian engagement with war debris in wartime Ukraine. Cleanup, transformation, and reuse of fragments of weaponry, I argue, constitute sensory labor through which material remains of violence are absorbed and damaged environments made livable under prolonged war.

Paper long abstract

In wartime Ukraine, the environmental imprint of military violence is manifested, among other harms, in the widespread presence of military debris - shell casings, missile fragments, ammunition crates, etc. This paper examines how civilians handle and rework these material remnants of violence as part of everyday effort to restore order and livability in militarized environments. Based on year-long ethnographic fieldwork (2024–2025) in Kyiv and its suburbs, I trace the trajectories of war debris as they move from sites of destruction into domestic, civic, and economic spaces.

I argue that these practices constitute a form of tactile and atmospheric infrastructure through which violence is “domesticated” and transformed. First, civilians participate in rapid cleanup efforts, treating war debris as “matter out of place” that disrupts the functioning and moral order of lived environments. Second, through what I call metabolization, people wash, handle, repurpose, and decorate fragments of weaponry, folding hostile materials back into everyday life through improvised artistic practice and embodied care. Third, these transformed objects acquire social biographies as they circulate within moral and monetary economies, particularly through grassroots fundraising networks that support military units and humanitarian needs.

Attending to touch, weight, residue, and fatigue, the paper shows violence is registered in bodies and environments, and how sensory labor becomes a mundane yet consequential practice of repair in the context of prolonged war.