Experiencing forced migration: challenges of arriving after displacement from Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on the experiences of displaced Ukrainians who arrived in Austria following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. We draw on the concept of ‘arrival’ as proposed by Ludger Pries, to delve into the multifaceted process of arrival that extends beyond mere physical relocation. By conducting group discussions and employing the documentary method, we reveal the challenges associated with ‘arriving’ at the individual, the interactive, and the institutional level. The findings show that the displaced persons’ conjunctive experiences are characterised by a pervasive sense of loss – of their everyday certainties, past lives, future prospects, social recognition, and established social positions. This study not only contributes to the understanding of displaced Ukrainians in Europe, but also enriches the emerging field of the sociology of loss within the context of forced migration, emphasising the importance of focusing on people’s experiences in addition to arrival societies’ responses.

KEYWORDS:

• Arriving
• forced migration
• Ukraine
• war
• loss

Introduction

Since Russia’s February 2022 attack on Ukraine, approximately 6,335,000 people – mostly women and children – left the country and sought shelter in other states, predominantly (5,931,500) in Europe (UNHCR 2023c). This has created new subject matter for migration research as the situation unfolds. For example, scholars have examined the socio-demographic composition of those displaced from Ukraine (Brücker 2022; Dörfler-Bolt, Kaindl, and Baierl 2022; Dörfler-Bolt and Kaindl 2023; Duszczyk and Kaczmarczyk 2022; Kohlenberger et al. 2023), their situation in the labour market (Duszczyk et al. 2023) and housing market (Haase et al. 2024), as well health issues (Ioffe et al. 2022). Recent studies have paid special attention to intentions of staying abroad or returning home (Dörfler-Bolt and Kaindl 2023; Malynovska 2023). Additionally, several studies examine the attitudes of the established population towards displaced persons from Ukraine (De Coninck 2023; Dražanová and Geddes 2022), as well as the extent and different forms of state and civil society support and assistance (Bang Carlsen, Gårdhus, and Toubøl 2023; Biziukova, Koziienko, and Lazareva 2023; Koziienko 2023; Ociepa-Kicińska and Gorzałczyńska-Koczkodaj 2022; Rosenberger and Lazareva 2022). While these studies provide important, institutional-level socio-demographic data about people who fled Ukraine as well as their opportunities and barriers (particularly regarding registration, financial support, housing, and access to the labour market), little remains known about the experiences of this population. This directs our focus to a central question: How do people experience and negotiate arrival subsequent to displacement, and what challenges are inherent in these processes?

To uncover these unknowns, we draw on eight group discussions we conducted with displaced persons from Ukraine in Austria in the late summer and fall of 2022. These data, which we analysed using the documentary method (Bohnsack 2010), originate from a larger transdisciplinary project on forced migration experiences comprising 23 group discussions that involved a total of 58 participants, including both those with and without refugee experiences from different countries (Afghanistan, Iran, Cameroon, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Ukraine, former Yugoslavia). The group discussions with displaced individuals from Ukraine at this specific moment – a few months after their flight – were especially illustrative for studying the initial phase of arrival processes: These discussions took place at a juncture when forcefully leaving Ukraine was still a very recent experience. Simultaneously, people were beginning to realise that a prompt return – an assumption held by many in the first weeks after the flight (Dörfler-Bolt, Kaindl, and Baierl 2022) – would not be possible and the need for longer-term solutions was gradually emerging. This distinguishes them from research participants from other regions whose refugee experiences are either rooted in a more distant past, as in the case of people from former Yugoslavia, or for whom a prompt return – after a long, challenging, and perilous journey – was never a realistic option, like for many displaced people from Afghanistan or Syria.

In theoretical terms, we align with a growing stream within migration studies that critically engages with the concept of ‘integration’ (e.g. Crul 2016; Jiménez 2018; Penninx 2019; Spencer and Charsley 2021) with a particular focus on understanding the experiences of individuals who have faced forced migration (Bahl and Becker 2020; Barwick-Gross et al. 2023; Masadeh and Pries 2022; Mijić 2022; Parzer 2021). Specifically, we turn to Ludger Pries’ concept of arrival, which explores the multifaceted nature of forced migration experiences and extends beyond physical relocation to encompass a delicate balance between resonance and alienation within the receiving community. By combining this concept with a social phenomenology approach (Schütz 1944; 1945; Schütz and Luckmann 1973), we offer a nuanced understanding of ‘arriving’ as a dialectical process between individuals and society, spanning individual, interactional, and institutional dimensions. We show that the challenges associated with arriving after forced migration are not only limited to difficulties like finding job, housing, or a school for one’s children, but extend to the transformation of self-identity, arising from the disruption of peoples’ everyday lives, with all their routines and certainties, and the necessity to adapt to an unfamiliar environment. These challenges are intrinsically tied to various forms of ‘loss’, including the loss of security and certainty, past life and future visions, resonance, as well as position and status.

Our study contributes to the relatively new strand of research on displaced persons from Ukraine in Europe and, more broadly, to research on forced migration that focuses on people’s experiences rather than how receiving countries respond to these newcomers. Moreover, we seek to enrich the emerging field of sociology of loss (Jakoby 2015; Reckwitz 2021), a hitherto untapped area within the context of forced migration research.

The following section summarises the situation of displaced persons from Ukraine in Austria. The third section delves into the theoretical background that underpins our research, shaping both our research question and methodology, which will be outlined in the subsequent fourth section. Finally, we will present and discuss our results by highlighting the challenges of arriving on an individual, interactional, and institutional level.

Leaving Ukraine and arriving in Austria

Since the outbreak of the Russian war in Ukraine, 107,720 displaced persons from Ukraine have registered for temporary protection in Austria (UNHCR 2023b). Their group composition is not representative of the total population of Ukraine (Dörfler-Bolt, Kaindl, and Baierl 2022; Dörfler-Bolt and Kaindl 2023; Kohlenberger et al. 2023) in two respects. First, Ukrainian border restrictions on men aged 18–69 led to a female majority among displaced Ukrainians in both Austria (77%) (Dörfler-Bolt and Kaindl 2023, 11) and across Europe (UNHCR 2023a). An overwhelming majority of these women fled with their children and now face (among other challenges) the sole responsibility of childcare (Dörfler-Bolt and Kaindl 2023, 16). Furthermore, the proportion of well-educated individuals coming to Austria is relatively high: In their online survey with 1,008 displaced Ukrainian women aged 18–55 conducted between March 20 and April 12, 2023, Dörfler-Bolt and Kaindl (2023) found that 73% held a university degree. Similarly, a comparative study by Kohlenberger et al. (2023) examining Ukrainian refugees in Vienna found that the majority possessed a higher education degree (82%) and two-thirds were proficient in English. By contrast, Ukrainian data shows that 30% of the Ukrainian population aged 25 and older have attained higher education (Kohlenberger et al. 2023, 9).

Although the majority feel well looked after and welcome in Austria, many also experience feelings of loneliness, listlessness, and marginalisation (Dörfler-Bolt, Kaindl, and Baierl 2022; Dörfler-Bolt and Kaindl 2023). More than two-thirds of the surveyed women expressed being very or fairly dissatisfied with both their financial and working situations (Dörfler-Bolt and Kaindl 2023, 23). While temporary protection status grants them access to the labour market, this access is greatly impeded by difficulties in having qualifications recognised and the necessary proficiency in the German language. According to Rosenberger and Lazareva (2022, 17), the German language poses a significant barrier for individuals from Ukraine in Austria, contributing to a general sense of insecurity, since insufficient language proficiency not only hampers access to the job market, but also impedes the ability to navigate support structures.

The above empirical data is highly relevant for improving Austria’s institutional support of people fleeing Ukraine by focusing on specific needs. However, in order to fully understand the specific challenges and trajectories of arriving, it is beneficial to focus on the concrete experiences of arriving and to view them through a theoretical lens of social phenomenology.

Theoretical background

Our work is anchored in the rich tradition of migration studies that critically engages with the concept of ‘integration’ (e.g. Crul 2016; Jiménez 2018; Penninx 2019; Spencer and Charsley 2021). In line with this research, we do not understand integration as adaptation or assimilation into a supposedly homogeneous receiving society. Such an understanding is usually normatively charged and therefore inadequate for social analysis (Schinkel 2018; Spencer and Charsley 2021). Our research focuses on the processes of arrival, which are considered a two-way process, against the background of the experience of forced migration. Pries introduced the concept of arrival into sociological discourse (Masadeh and Pries 2022; Pries 2018). To Pries, arrival is an ongoing and interactive process involving reciprocity between newcomers and established residents (Pries 2018, 150). This encompasses migrants’ subjective experiences, social interactions, resource access, and the cognitive frames that inform group constructions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Thus, the concept of arrival extends beyond the physical act of arriving somewhere; it also involves being acknowledged and heard, which in German is known as ‘Anklang finden’ (Pries 2016, 131). This notion is similar to Rosa’s idea of resonance (2019). According to Rosa, resonance is a way of existing in the world, whereby the subject and world establish a particular relationship in which the two entities influence each other in a reciprocal manner, while retaining their own distinct identities and perspectives (Rosa 2019, 495–496). Resonance represents a relationship with the world that is defined by emotions, affection, inherent curiosity, and a belief in one's ability to affect change, as well as the expectation that the world will respond in kind. As Rosa explains, this state is the opposite – or ‘antithesis’ – of alienation (Rosa 2019, 542).

Critically, Pries’ concept largely lacks a social theoretical foundation. However, especially when viewed in the context of Rosa’s theory of resonance and combined with a social phenomenological approach focusing on individuals’ lived experiences (Schütz 1944; 1945; Schütz and Luckmann 1973), it provides a different way to think about processes of forced migration and how these are experienced by those forced to migrate. Understanding how they navigate their arrival, specifically delving into the complex dynamics between resonance and alienation in this process, is a crucial endeavour that warrants attention within the field of research focused on migration and integration. However, it is necessary to first establish an understanding of what is meant by experience in this specific context, since ‘experience’ as an idea ‘is often taken at face value in studies on migration’ (Marotta 2020, 591). Drawing on Marotta’s theoretical reflections on the ‘migrant experience’, (Marotta 2020) we posit that two features are important for understanding and analysing the experience of forced migration: First, it unfolds in space and time. On a spatial dimension, it evolves between the place of origin and the place of arrival; on a temporal scale, between the past, present, and future. Second, like ‘integration’ and ‘arrival’, the experience of forced migration must be conceptualised as something that takes place in the dialectical process between the individual and society and is shaped by asymmetrical power relationships. Based on this assumption, we heuristically distinguish between three interrelated levels within which arriving is experienced: the individual, the interactional, and the institutional level. In the following, we will elaborate upon the essential characteristics of these three levels while accounting for the space–time axis.

1. The individual level is mostly about how individuals perceive arrival. The central concern of Alfred Schütz’ social phenomenology is to explore the everyday life experiences and the intersubjective understanding that underpin our shared reality. The concept of ‘thinking as usual’ holds significant importance within his theoretical framework, as it refers to the fundamental structure of everyday life routines. These routines are supported by the idealisations of ‘and so on’ and ‘I can do it again’, i.e. ‘namely, that I may continue to act as I have acted so far and that I may again and again recommence the same action under the same condition’ (Schütz 1962, 224). The experience of war or flight leads to a collapse of the everyday lifeworld and the idealisations that support one’s ‘thinking as usual’. The process of arrival on this individual level, therefore, entails two central challenges: (a) transforming the unknown (of a new social environment) into known; (b) dealing with the

   bitter experience of the limits of the ‘thinking as usual’, which has taught [people] that [they] may lose [their] status, [their] rules of guidance, and even [their] history and that the normal way of life is always far less guaranteed than it seems. (Schütz 1944, 507)

2. Everyday life is, however, an intersubjective world and an individual’s ‘thinking as usual’ is developed and continuously secured through social interactions, not only – but particularly – with significant others (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 154). This aligns with a key finding from research on belonging, which suggests that feelings of belonging emerge from collective understandings of reality that are actively negotiated through social interactions, rather than being passively internalised (Anthias 2009; Antonsich 2010; May 2011, 369). These theoretical insights hint that the key challenges of arriving after forced migration on this interactional level (a) arise from individuals being separated from their significant social networks – Schütz’ essay on ‘The Homecomer’ (1945) highlights how these separations and varied experiences promote alienation – and (b) the difficult circumstances surrounding how new relationships are established within the host society.

3. Institutions are acknowledged as established patterns of meaning and practice, bearing the authority of the accepted way of doing things; this is connected to an individual’s ‘thinking as usual’. ‘Doing things as usual’ is no longer feasible after experiencing forced migration. One central challenge (a) lies in deciphering the local ways of doing things (including language acquisition), understanding the rules, and being able to adopt them to act successfully. Critically, however, established residents and newcomers often act under different sets of rules. This poses a second institutional-level challenge: (b) Institutions/organisations possess the power of classification, ascribing institutional identities like ‘refugee’ or ‘temporal protection’, which combined with how such people have neither been socialised into the objective reality of the host society, nor internalised the institutions and legitimations, significantly impact their opportunities for work, education, economic support, and more.

The (abductive) dialogue between our theoretical framework and our data revealed that the challenges of arriving are situated at all three levels and can be attributed to profound experiences of loss, which seem to significantly characterise the experience of forced migration. Loss has not only remained relatively unexplored in (forced) migration studies but also – as noted by Reckwitz (2021), one of the scholars who seek to advance the development of a sociology of loss – in the sphere of social theories and empirical analyses in general. Reckwitz points out that loss introduces an element of uncontrollability into the social arena, which contradicts prevailing notions of malleability in contemporary societies. It is precisely this circumstance that renders an investigation into loss within studies of forced migration promising, particularly those focusing on refugee experiences and identity construction. According to Reckwitz, the objects of loss may vary, yet they consistently revolve around ‘identity’ – whether individual or collective – since loss is felt when the absence of something causes a wounded self-perception (Reckwitz 2021, 7). Expanding on existing sociological and psychological literature on loss (e.g. Charmaz 1980; Lofland 1982; Marris 2016), Jakoby (2015) focusses particularly on the connection between loss and self. She emphasises that any forced transition intrinsically signifies loss and highlights that experiences of loss are inherently tied to identity. Furthermore, building on the tradition of symbolic interactionism, she argues that the loss of significant interactions constitutes a central identity-related crisis experience.

Within the context of a social-phenomenological perspective, our analysis aimed to uncover specific characteristics of arriving after forced migration and the associated losses. In light of the often-unreflected-upon nature of these challenges, this analysis necessitated a reconstructive methodology that extended beyond the substantive content of peoples’ stories.

Methodological background

To capture the collective dimension of the refugee arrival experience, we conducted group discussions with individuals who fled Ukraine and came to Austria between March and August 2022. We adopted the group discussion procedure as developed by Ralf Bohnsack (2010), since this approach is rooted in the assumption that collective implicit knowledge is represented in the discussion, enabling the reconstruction of a collective level of experience.

To engage participants, we employed multiple communication channels, including social media platforms. A Telegram group, ‘Мистецтво прибуття’ (The Art of Arriving), served for announcements and communication. Some contacts were found through Telegram ‘Украина Австрия’ (Ukraine Austria) and Facebook ‘Ukrainische Jugend in Österreich’ channels. On Instagram, the researchers’ page facilitated call dissemination and direct communication. In-person interactions, often spontaneous, occurred at venues like art exhibitions and international bus terminals. Four participants were recruited through personal connections. We followed the principle of theoretical sampling, as suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1994), by developing criteria for the participants’ selection during the research process and based on the empirical insights from our ongoing analysis. We conducted eight group discussions (each consisting of two to four participants), involving 19 participants – mostly women (15) with higher education. This bias and the challenge of recruiting individuals beyond these categories reflected the sociodemographic backgrounds of those displaced from Ukraine residing in Austria (and Europe), as we have outlined above. The participants were aged between 18 and 59 and located in the city of Vienna at the time of the research. Most fled from regions starkly affected by the war, such as Kharkiv, Mariupol, Zaporizhzhya, and Kyiv region, while others came from areas that were less-directly affected at the time of their departure, including Lviv and Vinnytsia region. The group discussions were held in Ukrainian and/or Russian¹ and were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised, and translated into English for subsequent data analysis.

To initiate the discussions, we displayed artworks – photographs and music – that were created during the first part of the overall transdisciplinary project by collaborating artists, whom we invited to translate their experiences of arriving into aesthetic expressions (for more details see Mijić and Parzer 2022). These artworks emerged as a powerful catalyst for initiating conversations, as their interpretation notably eased participants into sharing their personal experiences of arriving. The discussions among participants mostly unfolded naturally, with us only introducing open-ended questions on specific facets of arriving when people stopped talking. While these questions followed a guide, they were deployed in an open manner, adapting to the atmosphere in the room. For methodological and ethical reasons, we considered it critical that the relevant topics emerged organically from the group discussion rather than being imposed by us.

In terms of research ethics, we took several precautions to ensure informed consent and to counteract possible negative effects from participating in the discussions. It was vital to keep in mind that the participants had only recently left Ukraine and many were under great psychological and emotional strain. Therefore, it was essential to create a safe space for interaction, which was largely achieved because the discussions were conducted by the two project members from Ukraine who speak the same language as the participants. This created a safe environment in both the linguistic sense and the sense of having a relatable socio-cultural background, as well as shared experiences of how the war impact the normalcy in all parties’ lives. The research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Faculty of Social Sciences (IRB) at the University of Vienna (Confirmation 665).

The collected data were analysed using the documentary method. This reconstructive method assumes that shared experiences shape our ‘collective orientations’, which are part of the ‘conjunctive knowledge’ (Bohnsack 2010, 105). The method aims to reconstruct this conjunctive knowledge, that, while usually remaining tacit, is assumed to guide practical action. Bohnsack (2010, 103) suggests two levels of analysis in the practical procedure of data analysis: the ‘formulating interpretation’ and the ‘reflecting interpretation’. The latter gains access to conjunctive knowledge by reconstructing the ‘documentary meaning’ of human objectifications.

Analysis and discussion

Our empirical analysis highlighted a noteworthy, central factor when seeking to understand the intricacies of forced migration experiences and the challenges such migrants face upon arriving: the impact of a violent disruption of everyday life caused by the outbreak of war. As detailed below, our analysis underlines how accounting for the experience of this first disruption, which lies in the past, is extremely important to both adequately elaborate upon and understand the specific, current challenges of arriving. Likewise, it recognises that people develop their strategies to cope with these current challenges against an uncertain future.

The group discussion analysis revealed that the experience of forced migration is accompanied by losses that profoundly shape the challenges of arriving, which can be ideal-typically located on the three levels introduced in the theory section: the individual level, the interactional level, and the institutional level. Distinguishing these three levels is highly beneficial both analytically and conceptually, mainly because it enables a more detailed and nuanced exploration of the challenges of arriving and the associated losses. The empirical analysis simultaneously demonstrates that these levels cannot be strictly separated, but have multiple intricate interconnections. Thus, the following outlines these levels by emphasising their intersections and focuses on the interactional level, which serves as a bridge between the individual and the institutional level.

Individual level

It seems to me that if in Ukraine, I felt that everything was broken for me; the universe I lived in before was favourable to me, some cosmic kindness … People asked me what was wrong with me, and I tried to tell them that I don’t feel it … I don’t feel the safety of this universe that I used to feel. It’s just not there. I’m done. I’m somewhere between heaven and earth, and I don’t feel any support. I just have nothing to lean on. The way it used to be. (Woman, 50, Kyiv region)

Common themes that frequently emerged during the group discussions revolve around a profound sense of alienation. Participants shared their experiences of disconnecting from the world, losing their personal framework of reference, and grappling with a lack of trustworthy interpretations of the world. As the theory section outlines, becoming a refugee from a social–phenomenological point of view also means the ‘bitter experience of the limits of the ‘thinking as usual’’ (Schütz 1944, 507). It is accompanied by the experience of losing one’s position within one’s own system of coordinates (Schütz and Luckmann 1973) and, due to the inability to continue holding on to the ‘bracketing of doubt’ (– the ‘epoché of everyday life’), by a loss of ‘ontological security’ (Giddens 1991). Within the framework of a sociology of loss, this can be characterised as loss of meaning (Reckwitz 2021, 20) that is accompanied by a loss of predictability. Our study demonstrates that the objective (‘and so on’) and subjective (‘I can do it again’) idealisations of everyday life (Schütz 1962, 224), which connect the past and the future with each other in the present action, no longer seemed to be effective. In this sense, this loss of positionality includes detachment from one’s previous experiences:

Here, in this respect I understand that … well, it’s some kind of complete separation of your past. (Woman, 20, Crimea)

I just recently remembered that we started our business … ‘Damn! I was starting a business! What!’ I forgot about it … And that we started recording an album. I was recording an album! I had a production project! I forgot about it. (Woman, 30, Kyiv)

The collapse of the everyday life-world and lost validity of ‘thinking as usual’ demonstrates the fragility of the overall social world. Likewise, this additionally directly impacts perceptions of the future, which are uncertain or unpredictable:

I’ll be honest, I don’t have a clear vision. It’s very difficult for me to make plans after you’ve been living your life, and in one moment, they come and ruin everything. (Woman, 30, Kyiv)

It’s very close to a personal perception, when, er, well, the past life is just cut off and a new one begins and you don’t know what will happen at all? No predictions, no aspirations, none of that at all. A whole new experience (…) And the new experience is just not understanding at all how to go on, how to live. (Woman, 45, Kharkiv)

From a social-phenomenological perspective, the loss of routines and predictability, of taken-for-grantedness, and unquestionability can be understood as trauma (Endreß 2021, 219) – as a profound and typically disruptively experienced upheaval of one’s previous connections to oneself and the (social) world (Endreß 2021, 219). The traumatising experience itself is usually characterised by a fundamental disruption of the perception of the current situation (Endreß 2021, 232). Our material provides clear indications of this disruption: Across all group discussions, individuals described their feelings or states of being using words like ‘trance’, ‘stupor’, ‘frozen’, and ‘petrification’. Despite the different choice of words, they all seem to refer to the same phenomenon, i.e. the loss of ontological security and the loss world-trust, of self-trust – and hence a loss of trust in one’s own competencies and agency – as well as social trust (Endreß 2021). This experience of loss is significantly shaped by social interactions.

Interactional level

And when that environment disappears, a person as a person disappears. (…) when I came here, after the war, the first days you could not understand who of your friends was alive and who was not. And that whole foundation of society crumbles. And you collapse as a person, because you are a person only in the eyes of your friends. And here you’re nobody. (Woman, 30, Kyiv)

Subjective reality can only be effectively maintained if ‘the conversational apparatus [is] continual and consistent. Disruptions of continuity or consistency […] posit a threat to the subjective reality’ (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 174). Our analysis distinctly indicates how (often) no longer being surrounded by significant others like spouses, other family members, or friends – who either stayed in Ukraine or fled to another place – has an immediate effect on participants’ self-perception and how they perceive their own self-efficacy. In situations characterised by uncertainty and a loss of ontological security, it is essential to be surrounded by those who can ensure security in the reality of one’s life-world. In other words, losing the certainty of everyday life is amplified by the absence of (the usual) significant others, which was evident in the above passage. Building on the work of Charmaz (1980) and Marris (2016), Jakoby (2015) offers reflections from a symbolic interactionism perspective on the fundamental consequences that the loss of significant others can have on the identity and self-images of individuals. While existing literature on the loss of others primarily centres around their death, our perspective, influenced by Jakoby (2015) and Reckwitz (2021), contends that this concept can also be extended to other circumstances. By no longer being surrounded by their significant others, a person’s subjective reality loses plausibility, and their self-image – their identity – fades.

The examined material indicates that participants see themselves as being simultaneously situated in two social realities, yet not truly socially positioned in either one, but rather in-between:

When I arrived, my association is that life is like living in two geographies, because you are always somewhere, in one place, physically, and somewhere else … Well, and maybe not only physically, but also building your future in some way. (Man, 25, Kyiv/Zaporizhia)

It’s like it is nominal in the sense that it is not exactly (2) not exactly there in Ukraine, not exactly here, it is like somewhere in between and it is like (.) as if … somehow inferior. As if it is not enough to (2) fully feel particular people, or … fully understand some people. (Man, 25, Kyiv/Zaporizhia)

This positioning within the in-between is accompanied by alienation, by a loss of resonance (Rosa 2019). Next, we will take a closer look at the interactions within the arrival society and then at the interactions with the more or less significant others who remained in Ukraine.

The loss of ontological security and lack of significant others as well as the subsequent weakening of one’s self-perception (Reckwitz 2021, 7; Jakoby 2015) also leads to abstract external categorisations that dominated self-identifications:

Because you didn’t realise for yourself who you are. Who you are in the first place. How you were connected to your past life, you didn’t realise yet that when you crossed the border, you were already a refugee. You are already in a completely different status. (Woman, 60, Odesa)

The material repeatedly showed that people felt categorised by others as ‘refugees’, but that this external categorisation also seemingly imposed a singular identity on them that disregarded all other aspects of their identity, including their past experiences and traits:

When he gets into this bureaucracy, where they try to fit him into certain frameworks, in which his life experience does not fit. And so part of it fits in, and the other part sticks out and it is completely invisible to the system, and it has no value. (Woman 30, Kyiv)

Being reduced to refugee status has been critically discussed in existing research (Ludwig 2016; Mijić 2022; Parzer 2021). Our data points to resistance towards this categorisation, mainly because it overshadows other facets of people’s identities and was often inherently linked to victimisation:

But I did not want to feel like a victim (…) So, despite my experiences in Ukraine or whatever, I didn’t want to feel like I’m poor and unhappy. On the contrary, it was important to me that people … Instead of ‘I’m from Ukraine.’ They make that ‘We feel so sorry for you’ face. But really, why can’t they say ‘Oh, you’re from Ukraine! Come on, hang in there, it’s okay!’ I feel very alienated because of this. Isolated from society. And also feeling as if … (3) society doesn’t accept you, and you’re at its bottom. (Woman, 30, Kyiv)

This quote vividly shows that the individuals do not want to see themselves as victims, which they believe would jeopardise their agency since such perceptions make it challenging to break free from this passive role. What the above participant referred to as the ‘we feel so sorry for you face’ was described by a participant in a different group discussion as the ‘face of pity’, adding that people belonging to the ingroup (‘we’) ‘[don’t] have to make that face of pity when we hear of something [about war], we just speak about it’ (Man, 35, Kharkiv). This issue clearly had a deep effect on relationships with people who had not experienced forced migration:

That is … people, Austrians don’t know how to react when they learn about the war, about the things that a person had to go through. They’ve never experienced anything of this kind and so they feel awkward, because they don’t know what emotion fits the situation, right? And so I feel at ease with the Easterners, because they lived through similar events: they’ve escaped the war and the like. So, we establish communication immediately, no discomfort arises in the interactions. (Man, 35, Kharkiv)

Here, having experienced forced migration is considered a necessary condition for knowing which emotions were appropriate in this situation. The wording is reminiscent of Arlie Hochschild’s theory of emotion management, which suggests that people learn which emotions are appropriate in different social situations (Hochschild 1979). With forced migration, there are no prescribed emotions in the receiving society and this aspect of not being understood due to a lack of experience was found to varying extents in all group discussions. Furthermore, the notion of feeling better understood by people who fled from other world regions to Austria was also apparent.

The passage quoted above demonstrates two features: First, the significance of the conjunctive space of the experience of forced migration. Outside of this space, in interactions with those who never experienced such a life disruption, participants did not truly feel understood nor were they met with any resonance (and resonance must not be misunderstood as pity), which ultimately makes it more difficult to ‘arrive’. Second, the importance of conducting the group discussions by people with a shared conjunctive space of experience was essential for encouraging the participants’ elaborations within the discussion framework. We cannot assume that the participants would have opened up similarly if non-Ukrainians had led the group discussions.

Our data revealed that participants’ relationships with people who remained in Ukraine also changed: They frequently acknowledged having lost their connections with those who stayed ‘at home’. Living in disparate realities created a sense of estrangement that left them with little shared ground:

My social circle has changed (…) With my best friend, with whom I communicated for many, many years, I stopped, I stopped communicating, but … (.) It's just that people – a lot of people – suddenly, with their will or without their will, their lives changed completely. (Woman, 25, Luhansk/Kyiv)

Schütz describes the phenomenon of alienation within primary relationships in his essay on ‘The Homecomer’. By drawing on Cooley's concept, he defines primary relationships as intimate face-to-face connections that are characterised by a community of time—members participate ‘in the onrolling inner life of the other’ (Schütz 1945, 371)—and by a community of space. However, community of space does not only mean the ability to interpret the other person’s facial expressions and body language (this is arguably now possible over greater distances through video calls); it also means:

that a certain sector of the outer world is equally accessible to all the partners in the face-to-face relationships. The same things are within reach, within sight, within hearing, and so on. Within this common horizon there are objects of common interest and common relevance; things to work with or upon, actually or potentially (Schütz 1945, 371).

For example:

Now I live in better conditions as compared to those who are being shelled; I am the one who received everything. And … this … is a very weird situation, because when I felt that a bomb fell somewhere nearby – or something of this sort – I would hear them and that’s enough. I know. Whatever happened or did not. But when I read this on the Internet … I just read: Kharkiv is being shelled again. And I don’t know if people I know are alive. I don’t know what it’s like there: whether the damage was serious or not. I don’t know at all. So, even though it sounds strange, I am worried much more because I don’t know anything, as compared to the time when I was on the ground and saw everything with my own eyes. (Man, 35, Kharkiv)

In this regard, the participants also spoke of measures that aimed to restore a community of space:

My friend set up a camera, streamed it online so that I could at least follow along, and I fell asleep listening to the shelling with my friends, because it was so much easier for me to sleep and at least hear the shelling, at least know where it was: close, far, or elsewhere. (Man, 35, Kharkiv)

When people find themselves in different environments, their priorities and experiences shift and new aspects become significant, while old ones are re-evaluated. This transformation of the system of relevance also affects the level of intimacy, which refers to the depth of reliable knowledge individuals have about each other or their social interactions (Schütz 1945, 372). When separated, the absence of direct contact can lead to a sense of strangeness and disguise, which was alluded to in the above-quoted passages. Analysing these paragraphs and other sequences from the group discussions, however, also revealed two related, frequent features: comparisons of different life situations and expressions of guilt.

The participants often compared different life situations with each other. In this context, it concerned comparing one's own situation as a refugee in Austria with those who stayed behind in Ukraine. However, comparisons were also drawn between people who came before or after the war started as well as those who fled earlier or later; between people from different regions of Ukraine; between people who fled to different countries, and also between people who fled to Austria from different countries or world regions. In light of the challenges we identified on the individual level – dropping out of one’s system of coordinates – we interpreted these comparisons as a strategy to deal with the loss of position (relational to others).

Looking at the statements where refugees compared their own situation with those remaining in Ukraine showed clear, immediate expressions of guilty feelings:

I’m talking from my own experience … I was like that … I felt like I was betraying someone. That I’m betraying my family, Ukraine, since I’m leaving – I simply couldn’t do anything about that. (Woman, 45, Kyiv region)

And this, probably, falls under the experience of arrival, because (.) the moment I found myself in Vienna, and started settling down somehow, my psychological problems returned. First of all, panic attacks came back, and this, I suppose, feeling of guilt, that my friends in Ukraine are suffering, ride to the front line, my sister is in the ZSU [Armed Forces of Ukraine] and many other things. It may sound strange, but from the psychological perspective, it was easier for me to be in Ukraine, under the shelling, because this way I at least would feel that I am in the same situation as everyone. (.) And here I feel like I am in a different, better situation than everyone else, while I did nothing for that. What did I do to have this? (Man, 35, Kharkiv)

Literature on ‘survivor guilt’ helps interpret these results. In research on trauma, ‘survivor guilt’ usually captures feelings of guilt from escaping harm (Niederland 1968; 1981), omitting situations beyond severe traumas. Drawing on social psychological research, Fimiani et al. (2022) argue that survivor guilt can arise when individuals identify others facing adversity they have avoided, or when they have advantages that especially significant others (but also less-close people from an ingroup) lack. From a sociological perspective, it is notable how societal norms, cultural expectations, and social interactions influence this psychological phenomenon. Our data analysis demonstrates that this expression of guilt also serves a function: Recognising the (greater) sacrifices made by those who stayed in Ukraine, especially those who support its defence, helps ensure that the acknowledger remains part of the community of fate. For example, a 30-year-old female participant from Kyiv noted that – especially at the war’s onset – there was an obviously strong sense of unity and no room for differences and disputes (which are now apparent). Participants had to position themselves in these disputes by at least feeling guilty for not contributing more and ‘just’ leaving the country, which they saw as being associated with weakness. Here, the focus was not primarily on the current situation, but rather on the open future and one's own position in the future society: Where will I be able to say I was at that time and what will my contribution have been? Group discussion participants described how they engaged, and these different ways to engage ultimately became strategies to remain part of the community: For example, contributing financially or pursuing education outside of Ukraine to be able to participate in the country’s reconstruction. Another strategy was acknowledging that they would probably always feel like they were not doing enough or have not done enough compared to the sacrifices of those defending the country.

Closely examining the challenges faced by participants at the interactional level clarifies how shortly after their flight to Austria, people found themselves in an intermediate state. However, this state does not yet include the decision to permanently settle or return. As a result, this transitional status creates significant uncertainty regarding ongoing interactions and, more broadly, their envisioned futures. In other words, this situation can be seen as a category that falls between Schütz’ concept of ‘The Stranger’ and that of ‘The Homecomer’.

Institutional level

Now you must live by someone else's rules. Just like that. I accepted it and that’s all. What rules do you have? Tell us what rules you have, just so that we are all on the same page. (Woman, 45, Kyiv region)

Participants spoke about the challenges they faced with Austrian institutions and often compared them to how things worked in Ukraine. At first glance, these comments could be misunderstood as criticisms or complaints. In light of our knowledge about the loss of effectiveness of their thinking-as-usual and of ‘trustworthy recipes for interpreting the social world and handling things’ (Schütz 1944, 501) it became evident that people just tried to comprehend the hitherto unfamiliar rules; this was also reflected upon by Schütz:

The stranger is called ungrateful, since he refuses to acknowledge that the cultural pattern offered to him grants him shelter and protection. But these people do not understand that the stranger in the state of transition does not consider this pattern as a protecting shelter at all but as a labyrinth in which he has lost all sense of his bearings (Schütz 1944, 507).

The institutional order represents the intricate and enduring framework of human society. It is the product of social construction, created and maintained by individuals as they interact with each other. These activity patterns solidify over time and are protected by legitimations (Berger and Luckmann 1967, Chapter 2). According to Berger and Luckmann, institutions and their legitimations constitute the objective reality of a society, which is internalised during processes of socialisation and becomes the subjective reality of an individual – their personal experience of reality. In the context of displaced people, significant institutional-level challenges arise from the absent correspondence between the subjective reality of those arriving and the objective reality they are confronted with in the society of arrival (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 163). This was especially apparent in two ways:

First, the ‘established ways of doing things’ does not fit easily into the reality of people’s lives who recently experienced forced migration, as is evident in the following passage:

How do we [in Ukraine] get a credit card … You go to the bank, fill out the documents, you get the card, they help you if you can’t open the account on the computer. You simply get everything. You walk out, and you already have the card, and the account is already open. (.) Here I went to a bank, I told them, ‘I need a banking account.’ – ‘Get a Termin [German term for appointment]. In a week.’ – ‘Well, okay’ I came in a week. It took two men half of the day to register me. I ask ‘where is the card?’ They tell me ‘The card will come to your mailbox. The pin code will come as a separate message.’ Okay. (2) During this time, while my card had to come, I moved – the registration changed. (Woman, 45, Kyiv region)

Many participants shared similar experiences; for example, the fact many change their residential addresses multiple times shortly after their arrival in Austria considerably complicates every interaction with institutions and authorities. The institutionalised – the ‘established’ procedures – often prove to be highly inefficient under these specific circumstances.

Second, our analysis indicates that those trying to arrive also experience a substantial ‘status loss’ (Jakoby 2015) and – as ‘displaced’ – they find themselves as subject to distinct rules. Hence, they are not only tasked with understanding the established ways of doing things in Austria – like opening a bank account – but also understanding what is expected from people classified as displaced within this institutional framework. On the interactional level, we have reflected upon the symbolic dimension of being categorised as a ‘refugee’ and how this affects people's self-perception. Here, the focus shifts to the institutionalised categorisation as a ‘person under temporary protection’ and the rules that apply to them. Several participants shared their efforts to understand these rules, repeatedly emphasising their impression that not even representatives from the authorities were entirely sure about the right procedure – as illustrated in the following passage:

I am being pushed from one side to the other, to the third, to the fourth. And you can spend days trying to do something, not understanding the language, nothing, not understanding where to go. I went to Caritas to re-register. I had no information on how to do it. I couldn’t find it anywhere. They sent me to one, to another, to the third Caritas. And only then I was told that there is a separate place for Ukrainians ‘go there!’ Couldn't they have told me earlier? (Woman, 30, Kyiv)

Ultimately, our reconstructive analysis indicates that the central challenge in this institutional context ultimately lies in navigating the fine line between established general rules and the specific rules applicable to individuals under temporary protection.

Conclusion

In Hannah Arendt’s 1941 essay, ‘We refugees’, she points out:

We lost our home, which means the familiarity of daily life. We lost our occupation, which means the confidence that we are of some use in this world. We lost our language, which means the naturalness of reactions, the simplicity of gestures, the unaffected expressions of feelings (Arendt 1943, 264).

The data collected as part of our research project also highlight the importance of these three aspects of home, occupation, and language. However, our data analysis clarifies that ‘arriving’ encompasses more than just finding accommodations, pursuing a profession, and speaking the language. Thus, the challenges of arriving should be understood more broadly, which brings us to the second half of the quote: It is also about losing the familiarity of daily life including its predictability, the loss of feeling useful, and the loss of being able to fully understand and be understood. These comprise much of what our analyses identified as challenges on the three heuristically distinguishable but empirically interwoven levels: On the individual level, it is particularly about the disruption of people’s everyday lives and the effectiveness of their ‘thinking-as-usual’ (Schütz 1944; Schütz and Luckmann 1973). On the interactional level, a significant challenge of arriving lies in the fact that individuals find themselves positioned within two realities (in the host society and the country of origin), and their positioning in both realities is characterised by a specific isolation emerging from divergent experiences (Schütz 1945). The challenges on the institutional level primarily stem from an asymmetry between subjective and objective reality (Berger and Luckmann 1967). They involve understanding when newcomers must adhere to the established rules and when certain rules are applicable to them. Furthermore, our reconstructive analysis illustrates how the conjunctive experience and the accompanying conjunctive knowledge of the Ukrainian people who came to Austria in 2022 is characterised by loss on these three interrelated levels, particularly the loss of ontological security, the loss of significant relationships, and the loss of position and status. In other words, in constant dialogue with theories – particularly those rooted in social phenomenology – this analysis enabled us to explore and decipher challenges of arriving and their associated losses beyond the obvious ones such as housing and employment. This is the cornerstone of our primary contribution to research.

Given our study’s robust theoretical foundation, we are confident that our findings extend beyond the specific context of Ukrainian refugees in Vienna and also provide valuable insights into other populations in the immediate aftermath of displacement. Additionally, our work enriches the newly developing field of the sociology of loss, although there remains substantial scope for further exploration in this domain: One crucial question would be how individuals and society each navigate losses associated with displacement. This involves questioning which losses are socially acknowledged and which are not, which has significant implications for how individuals experiencing losses in the context of forced migration can (or cannot) cope with them, as well as for understanding how the experience of loss translates into specific practices. Reckwitz outlines five potential translations, including, for instance, the transformation of losses into traumatisation or their narrative–aesthetic processing (Reckwitz 2021, 10–12). To comprehensively explore these questions, our future research agenda includes a qualitative–reconstructive longitudinal study, since we are convinced that it is the only type of study that could decipher the strategies used to deal with the central challenges of arriving and associated losses over an extended period of time. Although we did not yet delve into these questions, the current data analysis – which was gathered just a few weeks or months after participants were forced to leave their homes in Ukraine – provides valuable insights into the processes of arrival in the context of forced displacement. Here, it becomes evident that at this point in time, this process is significantly characterised by a sense of a ‘half-life:’ One is neither here nor there; surviving without truly living. As one participant put it: ‘We’re not dead, thank you, but we’re not living either’ (Woman, 35, Kyiv).

Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to the reviewers for their helpful comments on a previous version of this paper that significantly contributed to its improvement. Furthermore, we would like to thank Leora Courtney-Wolfman for her thorough copyediting and proofreading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded in whole or in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [TAI 154].

Notes

1 Given Ukraine’s linguistic diversity, language-related issues were discussed and resolved prior to the group discussions. In three of eight discussions, Russian was the primary language of communication; the remaining five were held in Ukrainian.