Discoursive Adjustment Indicators: the Case of Internal Displacement in Ukraine

Abstract

The conflict-inflicted protracted internal displacement situation in Ukraine is marked with social capital redistribution caused by mass and socially complicated influx of forced migration-affected persons into host communities, and restructuring of the latter. The study is based on the regional survey data provided in the UN Social Cohesion and Reconciliation Index for Eastern Ukraine, and National Monitoring System Reports on the Situation of Internally Displaced Persons, 2018-2019. The limitations of the discourse principle realization are viewed through the migration-related indicators of social capital, burden, and (in)visibility. There is also suggested a discussion of the policy-framing outcomes imposed by the imaginative contexts of “burden” and “social capital resource” being applied to newcomers in a host community; and the power implementation based on anopticism and panopticism as deviations of vulnerable groups visibility in the communities, as well as the groups being excluded from agenda-forming at the local level due to pseudoassimilation or state-imposed measures of control. In the article, there is outlined a project of Anopticism and Panopticism Index, AP Index, that is considered to contribute to understanding of visibility of the displaced persons, their access to decision-making, and sense of belonging to the community, as well as the common perspectives of newcomers and locals within a receiving community. This study is aimed at provoking discussion on including the indicators of vulnerable group visibility deviations, as well as social capital vs. burden, in the context of victimization counteracting, into the migration-related surveys.

Untitled

“…In 1994-1997, under the state budget laws for those years, the Pension Fund was included in the state budget. At that time, the phenomenon of non-payment to the Pension Fund was widespread against the background of the deep economic crisis that gave rise to the shadowing of the economy and unemployment (Bazaluk, 2016). The financial base of the pension system was undermined and deformed.…”

(In)visibility of the Displaced Populations: the Blind-Spot Effect

“…(Deleuze and Guattari 1987;353) The Deleuzean unity of chaos, abode and escape can be applied to protracted internal displacement when both return and adaptation to the host community are possible. The dynamic localness acquisition becomes a refrain of adjustment and rejection, on several levels: (1) systemic adaptation to the new place of residence and the norms associated with the IDPstatus; (2) interpersonal communication, such as trust and the reliance of internally displaced persons (IDPs) on locals, the transition from newcomer to new local; (3) unanchoring from the former place of residence and embedding into the host community through transformations in the sense of belonging (Bazaluk and Balinchenko 2020;Balinchenko 2021).…”