Paper Short Abstract:

The paper explores the multidimensionality and processuality of the identity of Ukrainian forced migrants, who came to Lithuania after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Research is funded by the Lithuanian Research Council (LMTLT) (No. S-MIP-23-39).

Paper Abstract:

The paper explores the ways in which cultural, social and physical boundaries are narrated in the construction of Ukrainian identity in interviews with Ukrainian refugees in Lithuania. Boundaries in identity construction are understood as processual and constructed between "us" and "them" through the selective and contextual application of certain social and cultural criteria (see Barth 1969, Eriksen 2010, Lawler 2013, etc.). The paper is based on more than twenty in-depth interviews with forced migrants from Ukraine who arrived in Lithuania after February 24, 2022. The analysis of the interviews reveals that narratives of shared history, language, notions of European-ness, and other socio-cultural markers are used to construct divisions and unities among Ukrainians as well as with outsiders. The paper examines how socio-cultural boundaries are (re)constructed in the context of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, as reflected by research participants, and what notions of Ukrainian-ness are constructed in these narratives; whether and how physical borders interrelate with cultural and social borders. I will argue that the narratives reveal the construction of Ukrainian-ness as inclusive, and at the same time, certain aspects of Ukrainian identity (e.g. the Ukrainian language) are seen as becoming more important in the construction of national identity in the context of war. The research was conducted within the framework of the collaborative research project "Ethnic, national and transnational identities and geopolitical attitudes of third-country nationals in Lithuania in the context of the war in Ukraine" funded by the Lithuanian Research Council (LMTLT) in 2023-2026 (No. S-MIP-23-39).