https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3305-5433
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ABSTRACT
Why do some geographical locales experience higher levels of violent mobilization during armed conflicts than others? Existing studies on high-risk mobilization examined economic greed and ethno-nationalist grievances, as well as incentives- and sanctions-based motivations to fight in civil wars. In order to explain violent mobilization beyond the extant theories of participation in civil wars, this article borrows from ethnography, psychology, and anthropology the previously unexplored in security studies concept of “belonging” to a locality. Drawing its empirical insights from unique interview data on mass wartime mobilization, which occurred between March and September 2014 in Ukraine, this study argues that belonging to a particular locale serves as a robust cause of violent mobilization. Using a rare sample of former and active members of pro-government paramilitary battalions from one carefully selected locality in Kyiv, reveals that individuals engaged in high-risk mobilization in the East Ukraine’s conflict were influenced by the sense of belonging more than by political or ethnic grievances.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The term violent mobilization refers to participation in armed conflict and is used in this study synonymously with high-risk activism and high-risk mobilization, as in other studies on mobilization in armed conflicts. See Mironova and Whitt (Citation2019), Parkinson (Citation2013).
2. The concept of belonging has also been central in research on collective memory, community, and identity construction in sociology.
4. While there is no verifiable data on the exact numbers of Russian and Ukrainian-speakers among the volunteer battalions in 2014, the consensus among interviewees was that there were about as many Russian-speakers as Ukrainian-speakers across the entire spectrum of paramilitary forces.
5. I conceptualize locality as a physical space, urban or rural area, neighborhood or a district. This conforms to presentation of locality in sociology, anthropology, and ethnography.
6. These multifaceted boundaries of belonging distinguish it from the “imagined communities” (Anderson Citation1991), which are built around a clearly defined notion of a physical community.
7. For example, see a recent study by the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42863116.
8. Viterna (Citation2006) has argued that “there are multiple, conjunctural causes of mobilization, even among individuals embedded … within similar structural context.” This might also be the case with belonging-driven mobilization, which may be filtered to various degrees through ethnicity, nationalism, political ideology, and individual grievances. While these factors leave an imprint on perceptions and obligations, they may also become part of narratives peculiar to a locality. Some locales may adopt more ethno-nationalist narratives than others.
9. Four members of different volunteer centers confirmed on the condition of anonymity that 7 out of 10 volunteers from Kyiv – who had joined volunteer battalions through their centers in Spring-Summer 2014 – had permanent addresses (propiska) at the Left Bank.
10. When the sample was last updated in September–October 2017, out of the first pool of 35 active combatants, 16 individuals confirmed their status as demobilized.
11. The Left Bank of Kyiv encompasses three districts (Desnyansk`yi, Dniprovsky, and Darnitsky) and has a population of 1,062,894 (2017). See (in Ukrainian): http://www.kiev.ukrstat.gov.ua/p.php3?c=1123&lang=1.
12. I conducted interviews in Russian, which was the first language for 96% of informants. All informants described themselves as bilingual Ukrainian citizens and native speakers of both Russian and Ukrainian languages.
13. As described by Fujii (Citation2010), “meta-data” consists of “informants’ spoken and unspoken thoughts and feelings which they do not always articulate in their stories or interview responses, but which emerge in other ways.”
14. Each interviewee was assigned a fictitious name and their identifying details have been altered.
15. Interestingly, “Azov” battalion received frequent donations from a powerful Ukrainian-Jewish oligarch, Ihor Kolomoyski, who holds dual Ukrainian-Israeli citizenship. See more at: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/05/05/in-the-battle-between-ukraine-and-russian-separatists-shady-private-armies-take-the-field/.
16. Quotidian networks are defined as everyday family and friendship networks, which could be both personal and localized (Wood Citation2008).
17. Conflict participants and witnesses across Kyiv were more or less unanimous in their perception of conflict in the East as something that “will not directly affect their lives.”
18. See RiaNovostiUkraine (in Russian): https://rian.com.ua/columnist/20150207/363141410.html.
19. It is noteworthy that many battalion commanders are originally from “mobilization hubs” in eastern Ukraine, such as cities of Kharkov (Andryi Biletsky “Azov”), Dnipro (Yury Bereza “Dnipro-1”) and Donetsk (Semen Semenchenko “Donbas”).
20. “Self-Defense of Maidan” (Samooborona Maydana) were volunteer brigades assembled during the Euromaidan events to protect peaceful protesters at the Maidan square in Kyiv. The brigades were tasked by the Maidan leadership with maintaining law and order during protests. Brigades were organized into sotnias (hundreds) which imitated military organization of the Cossack armies of pre-Soviet Ukraine. Few members of “Self-Defense of Maidan” units were veterans of the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan, the First Chechen War, as well as of Ukraine’s mission to Iraq. See (in Ukrainian): http://www.samooboronaua.org/.
21. See (in Russian): http://argumentua.com/stati/samooborona-maidana-simvolika-soten-uzhe-istoriya.
22. Many of them were also veterans of Euromaidan.
23. The Left Bank area of Kyiv was also a hub for environmental activism, booming since Ukraine’s independence (see Cybriwsky Citation2016).
24. According to various sources, partisan activity at the Left Bank of Dnieper river was so intense that in order to reduce popular support for partisans, the German military was forced to relocate most of its population to other parts of Ukraine, leaving in the Left Bank only 30% of its residents (Dubina Citation1945; Mulligan Citation1988; Lower Citation2005).