#Ecotone refugees full

To illustrate, a colleague and I took a car full of medicine across the Polish-Ukrainian border. At the same moment, though, it can feel like you are caught in an eternal present. You have to move quickly because the lives of people engaged in territorial defense are at risk. For example, you might have medical supplies that need to be delivered right away, or you might suddenly be able to acquire bulletproof vests. There is a hypervigilant waiting, yet you are racing around to get things moving as quickly as possible.

It is extremely unpredictable you do not know which rules are being enforced at a given moment and which are not. In my experience, war causes a massive suspension of the rules of everyday life and affects the way people experience time. Could you speak to how this liminality and fear is being experienced in a quotidian sense?Įlizabeth Cullen Dunn: Yes, “The Empire Strikes Back”… the paper which was both totally wrong and surprisingly right about what would happen in Ukraine. Obviously, we have now seen war break out in a very corporeal way.

You have characterized this warfare as a “cultural construction of fear,” a satiric appropriation of US humanitarian interventionist language, and a demonstration of post-Soviet liminality that challenges international law. Natalie Wood: If it is okay with you, I would like to start with your 2014 article, “The Empire Strikes Back: War Without War and Occupation Without Occupation in the Russian Sphere of Influence.” It feels as though it could have been written just a few months ago, which I suppose is a testament to both your ethnographic insight and the consistency of Putin’s brand of warfare.