Ongoing Projects:
Ukraine: An Imagined Borderland
Drawing on research conducted prior to Russia's 2022 invasion, I am currently working on a book monograph (proposal under review) entitled Ukraine: An Imagined Borderland. My book deconstructs the territorial state system in its investigation of the lived experience of nationhood and national belonging. In centering the analysis on territorial borderland areas—a novel approach in both Political Science and International Relations—my research thus explores how space, place, and territory implicate contemporary understandings of citizenship and nationality. Specifically, I use the case of Ukraine, and three of its smaller administrative regions, to analyse nationalism in both micro- and macro-level borderlands; Zakarpattia and Chernihiv as territorial borderlands located near Ukraine’s neighbouring geopolitical entities, and Kirovohrad as the centre of the geographical borderland that is Ukraine. Using a mixed-method approach combining ethnographic research with qualitative interviews, focus groups, and cartographic materials, I critique the assumption that nationalism is primarily constructed through top-down efforts by the state and its institutions.
Nation-Building from (Below) the Grassroots: Everyday Nationalism in Ukraine’s Bomb Shelters
Life has profoundly changed for Ukrainian citizens since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war. Whilst millions have fled Ukraine as refugees and displaced persons, others have remained in their cities to take up arms, volunteer, and/or shield for safety. Despite the devastation at all levels of society caused by Russia’s ongoing attacks, Ukrainians’ expressions and practices of nationhood have nevertheless endured and even evolved in light of their country’s war-torn reality, as is especially evident in the country’s bomb shelters. As hegemonic theorising in nationalism studies often centres on the territorial state and its institutions, this project instead considers the experiences of ordinary individuals who hold important colloquial and vernacular knowledge. Specifically, the project examines the everyday lives of Ukrainians at--or below--the grassroots within bomb shelters to reveal how Ukrainian nationalism has manifested and even been (re)produced amidst the conflict. In demonstrating that nationalism has served as both a sentiment and expression of self, the project shows its significance in the current conflict as an unifying and motivating force in Ukrainians’ everyday lives.
Imagined Cartographies: A Survey Experiment on Territorial Border Preferences in Western Ukraine (with Carl Müller-Crepon)
As little is currently known about grassroots sentiments regarding cartography and territorial borders, especially within borderland areas, this interdisciplinary project seeks to measure popular preferences over the drawing of interstate borders. This project thus asks what territorial geographies individual citizens prefer, and whether their preferences coincide with the structural causes prevalent in previous research. To answer this question, the project develops and uses a new type of pre-registered survey experiment utilizing maps containing ethnic, historical, geographical, political, and economic features to survey approximately 1200 borderland residents. The analysis is centred on Ukraine's westernmost region of Zakarpattia, given the region's multi-faceted history and position neighbouring four EU states, to untangle the effects of ethnic, geographical, and historical borders on contemporary border preferences, as well as alternative explanations for individual preferences. By asking citizens living in borderland areas to draw their preferred territorial setup of states, the project grants agency to a historical understudied population, and combines geographical and sociological insight, to push forward the existing literature on state-construction and nation-building. The project's empirical findings into the determinants of border preferences by the people who engage with borders most directly in their everyday lives-those in the borderlands-also intrinsically highlight the role and importance of grassroots border preferences for both the study and practice of global politics.
Ukraine: An Imagined Borderland
Drawing on research conducted prior to Russia's 2022 invasion, I am currently working on a book monograph (proposal under review) entitled Ukraine: An Imagined Borderland. My book deconstructs the territorial state system in its investigation of the lived experience of nationhood and national belonging. In centering the analysis on territorial borderland areas—a novel approach in both Political Science and International Relations—my research thus explores how space, place, and territory implicate contemporary understandings of citizenship and nationality. Specifically, I use the case of Ukraine, and three of its smaller administrative regions, to analyse nationalism in both micro- and macro-level borderlands; Zakarpattia and Chernihiv as territorial borderlands located near Ukraine’s neighbouring geopolitical entities, and Kirovohrad as the centre of the geographical borderland that is Ukraine. Using a mixed-method approach combining ethnographic research with qualitative interviews, focus groups, and cartographic materials, I critique the assumption that nationalism is primarily constructed through top-down efforts by the state and its institutions.
Nation-Building from (Below) the Grassroots: Everyday Nationalism in Ukraine’s Bomb Shelters
Life has profoundly changed for Ukrainian citizens since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war. Whilst millions have fled Ukraine as refugees and displaced persons, others have remained in their cities to take up arms, volunteer, and/or shield for safety. Despite the devastation at all levels of society caused by Russia’s ongoing attacks, Ukrainians’ expressions and practices of nationhood have nevertheless endured and even evolved in light of their country’s war-torn reality, as is especially evident in the country’s bomb shelters. As hegemonic theorising in nationalism studies often centres on the territorial state and its institutions, this project instead considers the experiences of ordinary individuals who hold important colloquial and vernacular knowledge. Specifically, the project examines the everyday lives of Ukrainians at--or below--the grassroots within bomb shelters to reveal how Ukrainian nationalism has manifested and even been (re)produced amidst the conflict. In demonstrating that nationalism has served as both a sentiment and expression of self, the project shows its significance in the current conflict as an unifying and motivating force in Ukrainians’ everyday lives.
Imagined Cartographies: A Survey Experiment on Territorial Border Preferences in Western Ukraine (with Carl Müller-Crepon)
As little is currently known about grassroots sentiments regarding cartography and territorial borders, especially within borderland areas, this interdisciplinary project seeks to measure popular preferences over the drawing of interstate borders. This project thus asks what territorial geographies individual citizens prefer, and whether their preferences coincide with the structural causes prevalent in previous research. To answer this question, the project develops and uses a new type of pre-registered survey experiment utilizing maps containing ethnic, historical, geographical, political, and economic features to survey approximately 1200 borderland residents. The analysis is centred on Ukraine's westernmost region of Zakarpattia, given the region's multi-faceted history and position neighbouring four EU states, to untangle the effects of ethnic, geographical, and historical borders on contemporary border preferences, as well as alternative explanations for individual preferences. By asking citizens living in borderland areas to draw their preferred territorial setup of states, the project grants agency to a historical understudied population, and combines geographical and sociological insight, to push forward the existing literature on state-construction and nation-building. The project's empirical findings into the determinants of border preferences by the people who engage with borders most directly in their everyday lives-those in the borderlands-also intrinsically highlight the role and importance of grassroots border preferences for both the study and practice of global politics.
