Workshop 1

Security and the Pandemic

Global Perspectives

28.01.2021

Morning Session

Covid-19
and Turmoil

Covid-19
and Turmoil

Experiences from the field

Time: 09:30h-12:30h (CET)

Moderation: Lene Swetzer & Samira Marty (Co-Organisers)

Welcome Note by Dennis Rodgers (IHEID)

The morning session, ‘Covid-19 and turmoils: Experiences from the field’ brings four practitioners from Chile, Eastern Ukraine and Lebanon together to together to discuss the implications, challenges and newly emerging opportunities that the Covid-19 pandemic has implicated in their respective field (civil society, journalism and activism).

In a second part, we invite the audience to engage with both the speakers’ contributions and contrast that with their own experiences.

Afternoon Session

Anthropologies of Security

Anthropologies of Security

Dealing with
Multiple Crises

Time: 14:30h – 17:30h (CET)

Moderation: Thomas Hylland Eriksen

In the afternoon session, ‘Anthropologies of Security in multiple crises’, five invited anthropologists reflect on their experiences with and on the pandemic from their respective contexts and specialisations, including an interrupted field work in a South African township, (im)possible border crossing in North Ireland, gendered outrage and burdens, and the collection and archiving of Corona diaries.

The overall objective, to foster a more holistic anthropological understanding of the term “security”, is then discussed between the speakers and the audience.

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Igor Mitchnik

Relentless action: Civil society responses to multifaceted risks aggravated by Covid-19 in East Ukraine

Similarly to many other conflict regions across the world, the outbreak of the pandemic turned life in East Ukraine upside down. The pandemic added an additional layer of complexity to the region already suffering from multiple intersecting crises – most prominent of which is the war which started in 2014 and already caused more than 13 000 casualties. In addition, civilians struggle with the economic crisis, loss of livelihoods as a result of the wildfires that hit East Ukraine twice this year. People in the occupied regions face massive difficulties accessing the governmental controlled part of Ukraine. This puts the elderly in particular of the region in a dire situation, which in some locations of East Ukraine make up more than 40 percent of the population. While being the main risk group threatened by the virus, all elderly are also confronted with a heavily underfunded and ill-prepared health system. Those pensioners living in the non-government controlled regions face difficulties accessing their Ukrainian pensions, as access through the checkpoints has become much harder. This group also remains particularly vulnerable to the impact of disinformation in the region that furthers their anxieties and overall mistrust in the society. Media channels often specifically target civic stakeholders in order to discredit pro-democratic movements in this difficult and polarized political environment. And while the level of gender-based violence was already immense in Ukraine and particularly in the conflict-region, the numbers of registered cases skyrocketed during the pandemic when many women were bound to stay for weeks with their abusive partners. Igor Mitchnik, who is heading a German-funded civil society hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast around 70 kilometres away from the contact line, will talk in his presentation about civil society responses to the pandemic and how they reacted to the multifaceted risks that exist in East Ukraine.

Biography

Igor Mitchnik is Head of Office at Drukarnia – Civil Society Center Sloviansk. The Center was established in 2019 as a field office of the Berlin-based non-profit organization DRA e.V. and supports active citizens and grass root initiatives with relevant resources to overcome the consequences of the armed conflict in the city of Sloviansk and other parts of the government-controlled regions of East Ukraine. The center provides an open space for citizens and organizes international seminars, discussions, community-building activities and exchange programs on political participation, civic education, and environmental protection. Prior to starting this project with DRA e.V., he has gained multifaceted research and professional experience in and on different post-Soviet conflict regions over the last years, such as a Mercator Fellow on International Affairs at the Sloviansk-based office of the Czech Humanitarian Organisation People in Need, and at the British peacebuilding organisation Conciliation Resources in their South Caucasus team. Among other organisations, he has gained work experience with the Central Asia programme of the International Crisis Group in Bishkek, and the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine. He graduated with a double master’s degree in Politics & Security at the University College London (UCL) School of Slavonic and East European Studies and at University of Tartu. He published articles on civil society in East Ukraine, conflict-related identity dynamics among youth in East Ukraine, and about the impact of the Covid-19 in the region.