The Ukrainian Oral History Association is launching the online seminar series “Field. Risks. War.” We invite you to the first seminar, which focuses on the unique ethical challenges faced by oral history researchers documenting war. Join us for a difficult but necessary conversation with Svitlana Makhovska on October 25 at 7:00 PM.
With the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many professional and non-professional communities began recording oral history testimonies from eyewitnesses and participants of the Russian-Ukrainian war. One of the biggest challenges for many recorders has been adhering to professional ethics, an issue that became especially critical while conducting research in the context of wartime realities.
What does “professional ethics” mean for oral history researchers? Has the war changed the meaning of this concept? Do all those documenting oral history today follow the rule “Do no harm!”? What are the consequences of violating this rule? Is there legal accountability for failure to comply with professional ethics? How do the ethical codes of researchers in Ukraine and abroad differ? These questions and more will be addressed at the online seminar “Professional Ethics in Researching the Oral History of the Russian-Ukrainian War: From Recording to Publication.”
Svitlana MAKHOVSKA is a Candidate of Historical Sciences and the Deputy Director-Head of the Museum-Archive of Folk Culture of Ukrainian Polissya at the State Scientific Center for the Protection of Cultural Heritage from Technogenic Disasters (Kyiv, Ukraine). She is also a co-founder of the NGO Center for Applied Anthropology (2017). Svitlana’s academic and professional interests span various topics related to Ukrainian traditional culture, including wedding rituals, the anthropology of catastrophes, and ethnic communities in Ukraine. After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Svitlana became involved in organizing and implementing the project “Humanitarian Aspects of the Russian-Ukrainian War: Historical and Cultural Visions and Modern Survival Strategies” in Chernihiv, where she has been documenting oral history testimonies since May 2022. Alongside researching Ukrainians’ modern survival strategies and military daily life, she has also been collecting testimonies from Ukrainian historians, ethnologists, and anthropologists about their experiences during the war. In May 2023, Svitlana co-founded the Chernihiv Research Center for the Anthropology of War.
Event Details
Date: October 25, 2023
Time: 19:00 (Kyiv time)
Language: Ukrainian
The recording of the seminar can be viewed here.