Life landscapes of the Ukrainian civilians in the space of the war

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Life landscapes of the Ukrainian civilians in the space of the war

Tytarenko Tetiana

Institute of Social and Political Psychology for NAES,

Kyiv, Ukraine

Hromova Hanna

Purpose. The purpose is to identify widespread life landscapes with their value-sense and vector configuration in the context of war.

Methods. The method used is the conceptualization of war-experience in 169 Ukrainian civilians' narratives with a descriptive, interpretative analysis, and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) conducted. The clarification of values, communication, professional activity, plans regarding future allowed to determine common landscapes.

Results. The three main types of life landscapes were defined: the landscape of service with the dominant context of volunteering, selfless help to the army (27,8%), the existential landscape with the dominant context of suffering, surviving (24,3 %) and the landscape of care with the dominant context of saving family, partnership (23,7 %). The less common is the landscape of self-development with the context of personal growth and the societal landscape with economic and political contexts. The existential landscape is the most common among young respondents; the landscape of care - among the group of early maturity; the landscape of service - among the group of middle and late maturity. Gender differences are as follows: in women, the landscapes of service, care, and existential are almost equally represented; in men, the landscape of service is the most popular; next, come the existential and societal landscapes. Dimensions of activity-passivity and narrowness-broadness were found out to be the most significant in multiple correspondence analysis.

Conclusions. The study offers an explanation of war experience through the prism of personal life landscapes. The determination of widespread landscapes with age and gender characteristics enables the targeted development of social and psychological support for victims. war experiences ukrainian population

Keywords: war experiences, Ukrainian population, gender and age landscape features, descriptive and interpretative narratives' analyses, multiple correspondence analyses.

Титаренко Тетяна, Громова Ганна. Життєві ландшафти цивільного населення України у просторі війни.

Мета - визначити поширені життєві ландшафти з їх ціннісно-смисловою та векторною конфігурацією в умовах війни.

Методи. Використано метод концептуалізації досвіду війни в наративах 169 українських цивільних осіб із застосуванням дескриптивного, інтерпретаційного аналізу та багатовимірного аналізу відповідностей (БАВ). З'ясування цінностей, особливостей спілкування, професійної діяльності, планів на майбутнє дозволило визначити розповсюджені ландшафти.

Результати. Визначено три основні типи життєвих ландшафтів: ландшафт служіння з домінантним контекстом волонтерства, безкорисливої допомоги армії (27,8 %), екзистенційний ландшафт з домінантним контекстом страждання, виживання (24,3 %) та ландшафт турботи з домінантним контекстом збереження сім'ї, партнерства (23,7 %). Менш поширеними є ландшафт саморозвитку з контекстом особистісного зростання та соцієтальний ландшафт з економічним та політичним контекстами. Екзистенційний ландшафт найбільш поширений серед молодих респондентів, ландшафт турботи - серед групи ранньої зрілості, ландшафт служіння - серед групи середньої та пізньої зрілості. Гендерні відмінності наступні: у жінок майже однаково представлені ландшафти служіння, турботи та екзистенційний; у чоловіків найпопулярнішим є ландшафт служіння; далі йдуть екзистенційний та соцієтальний ландшафти. Виміри активності-пасивності та вузькості-широти виявилися найбільш значущими при аналізі множинних кореспонденцій.

Висновки. У дослідженні пропонується пояснення досвіду війни крізь призму життєвих ландшафтів особистості. Визначення поширених ландшафтів з їхніми віковими та гендерними характеристиками уможливлює таргетовану соціально-психологічну підтримку постраждалих.

Ключові слова: досвід війни, населення України, гендерні та вікові особливості ландшафтів, дескриптивний та інтерпретаційний аналіз наративів, багатовимірний аналіз відповідностей.

Introduction

The civilian Ukrainian population in the midst of a full-scale war, with its suffering, dramatic life conflicts, attempts to protect young children and elderly parents, its comprehension of traumatic experiences, and destroyed life prospects - all these issues are only beginning to come into the focus of scholarship.

It has been proven that every war is a source of trauma and personal pathologies (Jawaid et al., 2022; Jones et al., 2002; Munjiza et al., 2017;

Tytarenko, 2020). As recent studies show some of the consequences of this war are the negative impact on the psychological and physical health of the Ukrainian population (Kokun, 2022), deterioration of the psycho- emotional state of the people who remained in the country, including Ukrainian university students and teachers (Kurapov et al., 2022).

The current paper was planned due to the war autobiographical experience of the authors. It motivated as a reflexive starting point for a further narrative study with other Ukrainians' experiences because of the Russian aggression. Every serious ordeal, such as war, requires a person new life-changing project. The realization of these projects involves the transformations of attitudes towards oneself, change of attitudes for others, and the variations in self-actualization practice. As our investigations introduce, life landscapes concept integrates maximally the personal change heterogeneous dynamics, especially the life trajectory during the war-caused trauma (Tytarenko, 2020).

The purpose of the work is to describe widespread life landscapes with their value-semantic and vector configuration in conditions of the war. To find common types of life landscapes, it would be analyzed the trajectories of war-affected life, value dynamics, changes in communication, professional activity, and plans for future lives.

We define the life landscape as a certain territory of life, which is built by a person in accordance with the value-meaning vector, which is the most relevant for them at the present time and in the near future. Focusing on the leading values, a person partially changes the significant environment, begins to transform the meanings on which he/she was oriented earlier, restructures the time of life, sets the horizons of the forecast and tries out a new vector of movement along the life path. In this way, the landscape of life creation changes, and the stay within the new landscape will continue as long as the chosen vector of movement corresponds to the actual life tasks of the individual.

Methods

When choosing the narrative study, there was an appreciation of the possibility of inadvertently seeking to find themes from participant accounts that reflected our own war-affected experience. Qualitative researchers engaged in narrative research propose both thematic analysis and a case-centered approach for emphasizing individual agency, particularities, and context (Bruce et al., 2016).

The experience of war-related daily practice is extremely traumatic, unique, and atypical, and the participants of such studies are not always ready to fill out questionnaires, the stimulus material of which is not designed for such extraordinary experiences. The narrative method, including both thematic analysis and multi-case study orientation, allows for a deeper study of certain individual-psychological characteristics, various features, and contexts (Luno et al., 2013; Rodden-Aubut et al., 2020, Zasiekina et al., 2018).

The selected narrative method has in addition to the diagnostic potential the rehabilitative one. As Parkes and McGarvey-Gill do, we understand autobiographic storytelling is an act of resistance against events that interrupt the expected flow of life experience, moving the wounded toward integration of their injuries as part of the life narrative (Parkes & McGarvey-Gill, 2022). After all, as it known, the story about their experience significantly helps people to integrate negative experiences, to accept painful traumatic experiences, to rethink their role in what has happened, to see new horizons of life.

The research was conducted between March and June, 2022, using an online survey Google Form. Such study has limitations: purposeful sampling sourced participants who are willing to share their war- experiences rather than generalize to the Ukrainian population.

Respondents were asked to create their own story about life and personal experiences during the war, taking four questions into consideration:

1. How did the war change your life (relationships, values, types of activity)?

2. What was/is the most traumatic experience for you during the war? And what is resourceful, life-affirming?

3. How did you overcome and are you overcoming the negative consequences of a traumatic experience?

4. How did the war affect your vision of the future (your own, your family's, your country's)?

169 respondents took part in the study, of which 132 were women (78.1%) and 37 were men (21.9%) aged 19 to 75 years (the average age - 43.2, SD=12). At the time of the survey, the respondents were in settlements belonging to 19 regions of Ukraine (central, western, eastern, northern and southern regions are represented), including cities that were subjected to intense artillery or rocket attacks (Kharkiv, Mariupol) and/or were occupied by Russian troops (Melitopol, Kherson, Berdiansk, Bucha, Irpin, Vorzel). Several respondents evacuated from the war zone in the east of the country in 2014, and in 2022 were forced to evacuate again to safer regions.

We used individuals' online written narratives according to developed scheme as the basis for later interpretations. A descriptive analysis was used, that is, the structural and content characteristics of the stories written by the respondents were determined in the texts. The texts were re-read several times in order to determine the structure and content of life-stories written by Ukrainian citizens. All fragments of the interviews were coded by themes: life changes, traumatic and resourceful experience, self-recovery practices, vision of the future.

At the second stage of examining the obtained results, after the descriptive analysis, the interpretive analysis took place (Smith & al., 2015) which made it possible to identify: types of life landscapes and their prevalence. Similarly, the results of the narrative study were interpreted by Polish colleagues (Zi^ba & al., 2019).

An integral indicator of the life landscape is the value-meaning configuration of a person's life in a new or partially renewed territory. The analysis of the respondents' attitude to the time of their own life (past, present, future) and determination of value dominants directing a new life trajectory allowed us to identify the following five types of landscapes: existential one, landscape of care, landscape of service, landscape of selfdevelopment and societal one.

The indicators of the existential landscape are: unwillingness to assimilate traumatic experience, inability to analyze life contexts other than painful and tragic, dominance of the value of survival, failure to see life prospects and unwillingness to build a new life trajectory.

The indicators of the landscape of care are: an active desire to preserve the life and health of relatives and loved ones, readiness for a radical change in life for the sake of one's own children and parents, the dominance of the value of close relationships, the existence of a life perspective of a safe and happy family future.

The indicators of the landscape of service are: the need for daily personal contribution to the future victory, the desire to help the army, the readiness to participate in the further restoration of the country, the dominance of the value of selfless activity, the vision of a life perspective in improving the life of one's own city, region, and country.

The indicators of the landscape of self-development are: readiness to integrate traumatic experience, evaluating trials as an opportunity to become more competent and stronger, dominance of the value of personal growth, availability of several options for the future.

The indicators of the societal landscape are: focus on broad social contexts (economic, ecological, and political) without awareness of the individual life context, dominant value and abstract life perspective - the preservation of the well-being of the people, the state.

The next step of the analysis was to build a psychological space of war experiences by Ukrainian citizens and determine the place of each type of life landscape in this field. To do this, we used multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) (Bourdieu, 1985; Lebaron, 2021; Le Roux & Rouanet, 2009), as MCA is often used in the social sciences (Blasius et al., 2019; Lebaron, 2010; Warczok & Beyer, 2021). This method helps to reconstruct the structure of the social field under study (in the sense of Bourdieu's theory) by combining different qualitative variables and allows to reflect the latent dimensions of the field. The analysis was conducted using SPSS v28 and SPAD 9.2.

Results and discussion

In the first months of the full-scale war, when the study was conducted, the types of life landscapes were classified as follows. There were three main life landscapes: landscape of service, existential landscape, and landscape of care, which together made up 75.8% of the sample (128 people).

The landscape of service turned out to be the most widespread (27.8%). The authors of the narratives focused their attention not so much on the traumatic context of individual suffering and fears, as on the contexts of selfless help to other people, one's own contribution to victory, the future of the country (“I find ways to help the army even more”; “I do everything I can for victory”; “I help people to find the medicine they need... I believe that Ukraine will be a free country. I don't want to live abroad”, “... I volunteer... I understand that our situation with the Russian Federation will be like one with Israel with Palestine; “As for the country, I am absolutely sure that we will get out of the darkness and rebuild everything for the better”; “.a resource for me is the unity of people, the desire to support and help each other and the country”; “.I hope I will find my place in the process of development of Ukraine”).

It is noteworthy that among the representatives of the service landscape, the specific significance of civil, social, patriotic contexts of life is increasing, since these people are used to being active, taking the initiative in difficult life situations, and taking responsibility. In addition to it, they manage to make sense of the traumatic experience to a large extent and assimilate it, find a place for it within a complete life story.

An existential landscape took the second place in the sample (24.3%). Almost a quarter of the respondents at the time of writing the narrative concentrated on describing their own suffering without analyzing their role in what is happening in their lives, did not think about their prospects or the prospects of the family, community, country (“animal fear, fear of violence against me and children ... until I see our future...danger for years”; “.now the goal is to survive, preserve property, make a living”; “the very thought that I will not return home makes me cry .I do not see the future, I live a day”; “starting since February 24, all days are the same. I see dreams about war, about evacuation”; “... all life through the prism of war.sadness.horror”; “awareness of myself as a lonely victim of circumstances and the inability to give advice to one's life”; “there are no personal plans, they are destroyed”).

The representatives of the existential landscape show an unwillingness to expand the contexts that are analyzed, an inability to see different aspects of their present, an inability to switch from the tragic past and colourless present to a brighter future, the dominance of the single mono value of survival, self-preservation in the value system.

The landscape of care (23.7%), in which the main context was family, domestic, partnership, was the third most common. People built the landscape of their lives around the creation of the safest possible environment for those who are significant, family, close to them (“.I have responsibility for my sons, mother and dog, we are still lucky, we are all together, we are not hungry, there is a place to sleep, and we are safe. My husband (an officer of the Armed Forces) and my brother are in contact every day, the main thing is that they are alive”; “everything became brighter in the relationship. Relatives and friends became dearer”; “There was a panic when I realized that I could not save family.I'm glad that my wife and daughter are no longer in Mariupol”; “you need to diversify your income, increase your savings, get a weapon at home so that you and your family are ready for any eventuality”).

The specificity of the care landscape consists in the assimilation of acquired traumatic experience, which helps to evaluate more adequately the possibilities of one's own help to the close environment and the construction of life plans for the future.

The landscape of self-development (8.9%) turned out to be in fourth place in terms of prevalence, the main life context of which is activity aimed at personal growth, self-realization in its various aspects (“I found a resource almost everywhere. Even the destruction of two houses in some sense gave a resource “Hard crisis, but new opportunities “The war strengthened me spiritually... I plan, work, dream in colors”; “I am familiar with some self-regulation practices... I have an interesting profession, the opportunity to learn. This is my support”; “I perceive negative experiences as experience, I distance myself and ask: why do I need it.what did not I dare to do without him”).

The landscape of self-development is distinguished by the ability and willingness of respondents to analyze ways to overcome difficulties and purposefully develop their abilities, find areas of application of their strengths, rethink traumatic experiences in the context of new opportunities and perspectives for themselves.

The societal landscape turned out to be the least widespread, whose representatives showed the ability to see simultaneously several socially significant contexts of their own lives (“My family has a future. The country also has a future, if the so-called “kites” do not fly in after the victory and do not loot the reconstruction aid of the country”; “The country is becoming more integrated into Europe. Mentally and geopolitically... there will be qualitative changes in state management.”; “It is clear what is most important in my life and on the scale of Ukraine as a single social community: revision of plans, further path and development”).

The peculiarity of this landscape lies in pronounced socio-economic and political accents, which prevail over individual and family ones.

If we consider the prevalence of life landscapes in different age groups (Fig. 1), the existential landscape (27.5%) is the most common among young respondents (19-34 years old). We assume that a lack of experience in overcoming difficult life situations, a small set of coping strategies, is indicated. This is followed by landscapes of service (25.0%), care (22.5%), self-development (12.5%) and societal (5.0%).

In the largest group of early maturity (35-49 years old), the landscape of care is the most widespread (30.8%), because this group includes people who are simultaneously responsible for their own children and elderly parents. This is followed by existential (26.9%) and service (23.1%) landscapes. The societal landscape and one of self-development are the least common (7.7% each).

Fig. 1. Prevalence of life landscapes in different age groups, n=169 (%)

In the group of middle and late maturity (50-75 years), the landscape of service clearly prevails (37.3%), when volunteering and helping the army come to the fore. The existential landscape (17.6%) and landscape of care (13.7%) follow it by a large margin. The same landscapes as in the previous age group are the least common: the landscape of selfdevelopment and societal one (7.8% each).

It is worth considering gender differences in the spread of lifedesigning landscapes (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Gender differences in the spread of life-designing landscapes, n=169(%)

In women, the landscapes of service (28.8%), care (27.3%), and existential one (26.5%) are almost equally represented. The landscape of self-development (9.1%) and societal one (5.3%) are the least common. For men, the picture is somewhat different. As in case of women, the landscape of service is most represented (24.3%). Existential (16.2%), social (13.5%) landscapes and one of care (10.8%) followed it by a large margin. The landscape of self-development is the least common (8.1%).

To understand the location of respondents with different types of landscapes in the psychological field of war, MCA was applied. The analyzed field is based on 6 active variables (17 active categories, which serve to define the distance between individuals). The variables include life landscapes, the vision of the future, experiences of changes in an established lifestyle and relationships, forced migration, and loss of work. The analysis of the chosen variables resulted in 7 dimensions, of which 2 were retained for further exploration. The sum of the modified rates of both axes is 84.8% (Table 1).

Table 1

Eigenvalues, Modified Rates and Cumulated Modified Rates for Axes 1 - 3

Fig. 3 depicts the location of the respondents in the psychological field according to the type of life landscape, to which their text refers.

The horizontal axis reflects personal involvement in events, direct participation in what is happening or avoidance of external activity. The right side “passivity, reactivity” represents passive participation, the experience of being in the object position.

Respondents write a lot about their experience of losing an established type of life, relationships, home, or job on this side of the axis. The left side “proactivity, the desire to change something” shows how much a person feels the need to be at the epicenter of events, actively react to circumstances and change them. We see, in particular, a vividly presented landscape of service in the lower left plane.

Fig. 3 Location of respondents with different types of life landscapes in the field of measured variables

The vertical axis distinguishes the narrowness or breadth of perception of events, which can occur through the prism of individual experiences, focusing attention on oneself or through a view of circumstances and one's role in relation to other people, the nation, the economy of the state and the world. Vertically: from above - narrow circle of attention, loneliness/individualism - existential landscape and landscape of self-development; from below - a wide circle of attention, feeling of being a part of something bigger, belonging to the community - landscapes of care and societal one.

Conclusions

The study offers an explanation of war-affected personal traumatizing through the prism of life-designing landscapes. Five types of landscapes are taken as a basis: the existential landscape (life design in accordance with the value of one's own survival), the landscape of care (life design in accordance with the value of the well-being of relatives and loved ones), the landscape of service (life design in accordance with the value of selfless help to others, contribution to victory), the landscape of self-development (life design in accordance with the value of self-realization, personal growth) and the societal landscape (life design in accordance with the value of the well-being of the country, society, humanity).

The components of the traumatic experience were revealed by applying the narrative method. 169 Ukrainian respondents created their own written stories about life and personal experiences during the war. These narratives were coded according to the value-meaning context of life landscapes. The constructed field of traumatic experiences is the first approach to structure the people's life changes highlighted in their narratives. At the same time different value-temporal orientation of the respondents, depending on their type of life landscape has clearly manifested in the space of reactions to military events. A passive or proactive position in responding to events and a broad or narrow individual perception of the situation turned out to be the most significant for life landscape constellation.

Three landscapes were most common: the landscape of service, the existential landscape, and the landscape of care. In the women's narratives, they were presented almost equally, and in the men's narratives, the landscape of service came to the fore. Among the young respondents, the existential landscape occurred most often; in the group of early maturity, - the landscape of care prevailed, in the group of middle and late maturity, - the landscape of service prevailed.

The determination of widespread life landscapes with their value- semantic and vector configuration enables the targeted development of effective methods of social and psychological support for victims, which is a perspective for further research.

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

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