Providing water and power in Russia's war against Ukraine : how critical infrastructure adapts and transforms

The project investigates water and electricity supply companies in different parts of Ukraine since the first phase of the war in eastern Ukraine from 2014 when Russia occupied Crimea and parts of Donbas using local proxy authorities. The project documents and analyzes how norms, values, and practices in a corporation that provides essential services to populations are reshaped by the consequences of the conflict. Two series of case studies guide the project. First, the operations of a water supply system across the demarcation line in Donbas from 2014 until 2022. Second, water and electricity suppliers in different regions of Ukraine (Chernihiv, Chernivtsi, Izmail, Mykolaiv) since Russia’s full-scale invasion of February 2024. Both projects explore the day-to-day adaptation of infrastructure workers, managers, and consumers to geopolitical fractures and violent uncertainty using on-site and digital ethnographic and multi-scalar approaches.
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How do critical infrastructure workers and managers of critical services engage with the fluid and unstable conditions of war? How do everyday labor and social practices, know-how, and narratives about essential services transform?
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How are socio-spatial dynamics and networks linking utilities, political actors and consumers affected by the conflict?
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How are the personal and professional trajectories and horizons of expectations of essential workers transformed by wartime ?
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