Ukrainian Childhood facing War and Displacement : A Life Story Project

The project by the Ukrainian guest researcher Dr. Anna Oksiutovych is dedicated to the recording of life story interviews about children’s experiences during the Russian war against Ukraine in 2022. Before approaching the children, the project by interviewing various groups of people who cared for, lived with, and supported children in Ukraine and during their flight. Recollections of parents and grandparents, care-providers, relief organizations and guest families in the receiving countries will take center stage. The interviews will also incorporate objects that accompanied children during their flight as objects often are of great emotional significance, in inspiring children’s imaginations, and in serving as tools to cope with their surrounding environments and challenges of all sorts. With the support of trained psychologists, the project furthermore aims to record and document children’s own testimonies, rendering children’s voices and perspectives visible. The planned outcome of the project is a digital repository of the recorded life stories to be stored in the digital infrastructure Oral-History. Digital provides. In addition, a research report about children’s experiences during the war and its aftermath will be compiled. The project will be realized in close cooperation with Dr. Friederike Kind-Kovács and Dr. Bettina Hitzer at the HAIT, the Ukrainian branch of the War Childhood Museum and its Ukrainian director, Dr. Iuliia Skubytska, as well as Dr. Olga Gnydiuk from the Central European University in Vienna.