Awards

• Winner of 2023 AAUS Book Prize Awarded by the American Association of Ukrainian Studies 2023 (United States)

Overview

Without the State explores the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests - a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine - through in-depth ethnographic research with leftist, feminist, and student activists in Kyiv. The book discusses the concept of 'self-organization' and the notion that if something needs to be done and a person has the competence to do it, then they should simply do it. Emily Channell-Justice reveals how self-organization in Ukraine came out of leftist practices but actors from across the spectrum of political views also adopted self-organization over the course of Euromaidan, including far-right groups. The widespread adoption of self-organization encouraged Ukrainians to rethink their expectations of the relationship between citizens and their state. The book explains how self-organized practices have changed people's views on what they think they can contribute to their own communities, and in the wake of Russia's renewed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has also motivated new networks of mutual aid within Ukraine and beyond. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, including the author's first-hand experience of the entirety of the Euromaidan protests, Without the State provides a unique analytical account of this crucial moment in Ukraine's post-Soviet history.

Full Product Details

9781487509736

Table of Contents

Reviews

This is a wonderfully animated ethnographic study of efforts to forge new forms of political activism during an acute political crisis. Emily Channell-Justice presents emerging political actors, who seek to pioneer new methods of 'self-organization' to introduce sweeping and lasting political change. Without the State has echoes far beyond Ukraine, or even the post-Soviet space, and illustrates the spectrum of possible responses to political polarization and state dysfunction. - Catherine Wanner, Professor of History, Anthropology, and Religious Studies, Pennsylvania State University and author of Everyday Religiosity and the Politics of Belonging in Ukraine Compelling, well-represented, and engagingly written, Without the State is an important work of scholarship that presents fresh research on a topic of great contemporary interest and (geo)political significance. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with left-oriented activists, as well as Emily Channell-Justice's own participation in the protest events of Maidan, this book offers a rich and nuanced account of the protests and their implications for contemporary Ukrainian politics. - Julie Hemment, Chair and Professor of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Compelling, well-represented, and engagingly written, Without the State is an important work of scholarship that presents fresh research on a topic of great contemporary interest and (geo)political significance. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with left-oriented activists, as well as Emily Channell-Justice's own participation in the protest events of Maidan, this book offers a rich and nuanced account of the protests and their implications for contemporary Ukrainian politics. - Julie Hemment, Chair and Professor of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst This is a wonderfully animated ethnographic study of efforts to forge new forms of political activism during an acute political crisis. Emily Channell-Justice presents emerging political actors, who seek to pioneer new methods of 'self-organization' to introduce sweeping and lasting political change. Without the State has echoes far beyond Ukraine, or even the post-Soviet space, and illustrates the spectrum of possible responses to political polarization and state dysfunction. - Catherine Wanner, Professor of History, Anthropology, and Religious Studies, Pennsylvania State University and author of Everyday Religiosity and the Politics of Belonging in Ukraine

Compelling, well-represented, and engagingly written, Without the State is an important work of scholarship that presents fresh research on a topic of great contemporary interest and (geo)political significance. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with left-oriented activists, as well as Emily Channell-Justice's own participation in the protest events of Maidan, this book offers a rich and nuanced account of the protests and their implications for contemporary Ukrainian politics. - Julie Hemment, Chair and Professor of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst This is a wonderfully animated ethnographic study of efforts to forge new forms of political activism during an acute political crisis. Emily Channell-Justice presents emerging political actors, who seek to pioneer new methods of self-organization to introduce sweeping and lasting political change. Without the State has echoes far beyond Ukraine, or even the post-Soviet space, and illustrates the spectrum of possible responses to political polarization and state dysfunction. - Catherine Wanner, Professor of History, Anthropology, and Religious Studies, Pennsylvania State University and author of Everyday Religiosity and the Politics of Belonging in Ukraine

Author Information

Emily Channell-Justice is the director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University.

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