Paper Short Abstract:

This presentation reflects on the unreported aspects of academic life, focusing on my experiences as a mother, migrant, and Russian researcher in Germany while writing my PhD. It explores the intangible — care work, navigating bureaucracy, and the emotions and experiences of living through a war.

Paper Abstract:

This poster presentation explores the potential of drawing as both a method of representation of ethnographic material and a mode of inquiry in the context of an (auto)ethnographic PhD project.

My doctoral work, comprising four articles on themes such as border externalization, subjectivization, migrant resistance, and online misogyny, was developed during a period marked by profound challenges. The process started when my youngest child was 6 months old. The active phase of field data collection coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the war in Ukraine. These events added layers of complexity to my positionality as a Russian scholar researching, among others, Ukrainian respondents in a German academic context. At the same time, the intersecting demands of motherhood, care work, and migration shaped my scholarly identity in ways that remain largely undocumented in conventional academic discourse.

This poster will seek to visualize and articulate these intersections, drawing on feminist and artistic inspirations, particularly the works of Emma (The Mental Load, 2018) and Nora Krug (Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home, 2018; Diaries of War, 2023). By engaging with these personal and professional tensions, the poster will highlight the gaps between the reported and unreported dimensions of academic life, as well as the emotions and experiences of living through a war while grappling with the complex perceptions associated with my national identity.