Monica Eppinger, PhD, J.D.
Media coverage of the war in Ukraine has focused intensely on the “front”––where it is, who controls it, how it is moving, etc. This talk analyzes the “front” as a cultural construction comprising material forms (like weapons), ideational forms (like security doctrines and ideas about identity), and practices (like invading, defending, resisting, ignoring). Understood in this way, the “front” compels us to view the war in Ukraine, and our broader present moment, in light of shifting and volatile notions of sovereignty, hegemony, and decolonization. Working at the intersection of law, anthropology and other disciplines, my study of the war is grounded in two decades of ethnographic fieldwork in Ukraine and nine prior years in the U.S. diplomatic service. I start by comparing operative definitions of sovereignty from Russian and Ukrainian traditions, situating the latter within a broader context of rupture and experimentation in Ukraine. Engaging linguistic-anthropological approaches to deixis, I then argue for an understanding of hegemony based not just on spatial distinctions (“here” vs. “there”), but also temporal ones (“then” and “now”). Finally, I draw on Ukrainian intellectual history and my own anthropological research to explore decolonization in theory and how theory is being brought into practice in contemporary Ukraine. That brings one last challenge. With an intimate turn to us/here/now, I conclude by considering how Ukrainian experimentation with technologies of decolonization might inform our responses to challenges closer to home. These are loaded questions but, like a live grenade, we ignore them at our peril.
The NSS lecture series is made possible by generous contributions from Con Edison.