Section 3: What can a study of Ukraine in the context of Russian aggression since 2014 tell us about the everyday practices of volunteering?

3.1 Why study Ukrainian volunteering?

The study of Ukrainian volunteering allows us to deepen our understanding of a range of theoretical aspects of volunteering, as well as giving us insights into volunteering more generally in middle- and low-income countries.

Additional emphasis on the processual nature of volunteering allows us to deepen our understanding of the hybrid nature of volunteering through the specifics of its relationships with other actors, including:

• government structures,
• the army,
• business structures,
• civil organizations,
• international organizations,
• foundations (Mikheieva and Kuznetsova, 2024).

In this third section we shift our focus to case studies to examine the main components of volunteering:

• the reasons for volunteering;
• the immediate everyday experience of volunteering;
• and the consequences/outcomes of volunteering.

We’ll also look at volunteering in terms of its hybrid nature, taking into account “the myriad alignments of different actors, discourses and practices, knowledge flows and representational processes that produce and promote the increasingly pervasive notion of volunteering” (Shachar et al., 2010: 15).

3.2 Why are case studies important?

In theoretical terms, we have more studies on the background of volunteering and its outcomes/consequences. However, the process and practice of volunteering remain under-researched.

Important in this context are:

• ethnographic approaches;
• biographical interviews;
• sociological in-depth interviews.

The gradual unfolding of conversations about everyday volunteering allows us to reconstruct the routine practices, challenges and problems associated with people’s rethinking of volunteering. In this way we can learn how people:

• evaluate their role in volunteering;
• narrate activities;
• talk about challenges and crises;
• evaluate successes and failures in partnerships;
• describe dynamics in their own involvement in volunteering.

Case studies can give us important information. They allow us to study all the possible nuances of volunteering as a social phenomenon in different dimensions, in particular:

• personal (motives of participants, their identity, belonging, socio-demographic parameters);
• procedural (stages of participation in volunteer activities);
• organizational (institutional environment, legislative framework, forms of organization, etc.);
• ethical and value (from goals to evaluation of results in terms of the common good).

All this allows us both to detail volunteering in all its variety of manifestations and characteristics, and to assess it in terms of the main features that allow us to distinguish this activity from others.

3.3 What do we learn from the initial stages of the war?

With the beginning of Russian aggression in 2014, Ukrainian volunteering became a response to the challenges of war and mass internal displacement. The period from 2014 to the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 was a period of accumulating experience for Ukrainian volunteering.

In the initial stage of deployment of volunteer activities in Ukraine in response to Russian aggression and the situation of forced mass displacement, volunteer groups faced a number of problems. These related to:

• the lack of legal grounds for activities;
• logistics (e.g. evacuation of people, delivery of humanitarian aid);
• bookkeeping;
• finding additional human resources to implement projects.

This example shows how, step by step, people have built up their volunteering experience by solving unexpected everyday problems and challenges. Such challenges encouraged volunteer groups and initiatives to co-operate with other similar groups, share experiences, resources, and jointly solve tasks.

The need for legal and administrative support for activities led to the formation of additional structures that, like an umbrella, covered and synchronized the activities of individual volunteer groups and initiatives.

3.4 What is the ‘hybrid’ relationship between volunteer groups and business structures?

Volunteer activities led to the building of relationships between volunteer groups and business structures, primarily small and medium-sized businesses.

Mutually beneficial relationships were gradually built between volunteer groups and business representatives. Volunteers appeared interested in obtaining the necessary resources to provide assistance, and representatives of business structures, who themselves often acted as conscious citizens interested in providing humanitarian aid to those in need, saw volunteers as professionals who knew how best to provide this assistance.

The hybrid nature of this activity was manifested in the fact that humanitarian projects could be implemented by volunteers in partnership with business structures. The latter could also initiate their own volunteer projects, and volunteer organizations could create and register their own civic organizations and thus partially relieve the tensions arising from insufficient legislative support for volunteer activities.

The experience of real co-operation was sometimes accompanied by mutual dissatisfaction with both the process and the outcome.

Representatives of business organizations were often wary of volunteers because of the stereotypical perception of them as ‘grant eaters’ common in Ukrainian society. They were also dissatisfied with the inability of volunteer group representatives to use the clear language of budgets, plans, and well-conceived projects.

Volunteer groups were also wary of representatives of the business community because of their desire to use volunteer groups for their own political PR or for money laundering. However, in general, the interest in co-operation proved to be stronger than mutual distrust and possible risks.

3.4 Who were the other major actors in voluntary activities?

In the context of the war, IDPs were also actively involved in volunteer activities. Their personal experience made them more sensitive to similar problems of other people.

In this vein, the activity of IDPs themselves intensified contacts between volunteer groups and state structures for the following purposes:

• as a form of advocacy of IDPs’ rights;
• for co-operation between volunteers, IDPs and representatives of state structures in writing projects to obtain international funding and support;
• to include volunteer activities in state activities (participation on a permanent basis in the work of state commissions, committees, etc.).

Another important point in understanding the phenomenon of Ukrainian volunteering in the context of war and forced mass displacement is the framework established by the official instructions of international organizations.

In most cases, international organizations are focused on humanitarian aid. Military aid and strengthening the country’s defense capacity was and remains outside the scope of their activities.

Accordingly, Ukrainian volunteer groups and non-governmental organizations actively cooperated with international organizations on humanitarian activities. At the same time, they had to find internal resources to address priority tasks related to security, strengthening the army and defending against external aggression (Oleynik 2018).

The specificity of Ukrainian volunteering after 2014 is conditioned by significant social upheavals, namely:

• internal political crisis;
• the external Russian invasion;
• the threat to sovereign statehood;
• the need to protect territorial integrity;
• the mass displacement of people from the Russian-occupied territories.

Many of these tasks go beyond the scope of ordinary civilian volunteer activities.

The variability and hybridity of volunteering has ensured its high effectiveness in conditions of war and mass forced displacement.

Flexible mutual aid structures and civil society organizations in Ukraine responded instantly to the needs of society in the face of a full-scale Russian invasion on 24 February 2022.

Civic organizations and volunteer groups took on assistance to war victims, as well as non-specific functions – addressing security issues, defending territorial integrity and supporting the army. In this sense, civil society in Ukraine actually identified itself with the state and actively participated in maintaining its functions.

Review Exercise

We have now come to the end of the final section in the unit. Complete the following exercise based on what you have learned.