Paper short abstract:

In this paper I will present insights from my ethnographic study of Ukraine about research methods in uncertain, unsafe and complicated situations. As well as I will give examples how it helps to disclose the individual and collective narratives that were entrusted in the context of war.

Paper long abstract:

Russia's aggression against Ukraine raised an academic opportunity and necessity to analyse how people live and how they experience situations of war, how they create individual and collective narratives. However, researching people who live in war conditions requires special attention to their emotional and physical state. It means that you must make some ethical considerations collecting material and writing about their experiences: to ensure that all information will be used for academic purposes; maintain the ethnographic imperative to preserve full anonymity; know what to ask at a particular time. It is especially important in such insecure, unsafe, and uncertain situations.

As a PhD student, I analyse war in Ukraine from micro level perspective. To collect information, I am using online semi-structured interviews and method of participant observation with people who live now in Lithuania, with people who left Ukraine in the beginning of war and with those people who are now in Ukraine. It raised some questions which are also important in the writing process: how digital ethnographic fieldwork helps to solve people's accessibility issues? Are these online conversations being more comfortable for people who are interviewed? How distance in research helps to control personal emotions and create a reflexive research process? How can we compare online and live material collection practices?

In this paper I will make some insights from my case study about methods in uncertain lives and I will give methodological examples how it helps to disclose individual and collective narratives that were created.