ARCHIVES Danyliw Seminar 2017
ARCHIVES Danyliw Seminar 2017
Program Committee
Program Committee
ARCHIVES Danyliw Seminar 2018
Sophie Lambroschini
Centre Marc Bloch, Humboldt University of Berlin
Sophie Lambroschini earned her PhD in Slavic Studies at Université Paris-Nanterre, defending her thesis on the history of the financial Cold War and its post-Soviet legacy. She is an associate researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin. Her publications include Les Ukrainiens: Lignes de vie d’un peuple, and the articles “Civiliser l’oligarchie – une condition à la stabilisation de l’Etat ukrainien”, and “Ukraine : La colonisation économique russe, mythe ou menace?”
PRESENTATION
Abstract
"Rivers don’t abide by the laws of war": water utilities company Voda Donbasu as a case study of collaborative practices
across the contact line in eastern Ukraine.
Sophie Lambroschini
This article focuses on the trans-border collaborative processes for providing water to civilians living on both sides of the frontline of the war. The water system in Donbas criss-crosses the frontline between separatist-controlled territories and government-controlled Ukraine. The Municipal company Voda Donbasu (VD) is one economic agent responsible for this lifeline of pumping stations, filtering stations, and laboratories, servicing both sides of the frontline. The company is a key actor in the borderlands of the war. Through interviews, Lambroschini observes and analyzes the work of the employees of VD on a micro-sociological level, looking at how, in the context of war, one can maintain cooperative and collaborative interactions with people labeled as the "enemy". This study is part of a broader research project that looks at trans-border economic practices by individual and mid-level actors and builds on the work of anthropologist C. Nordstrom.