Visnyk of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Series Sociological studies of contemporary society: methodology, theory, methods

War-Traumatized Media Memory as an Open Archive

2026-09-14T19:59:43+00:00

The article is devoted to the conceptualization of the phenomenon of «war-traumatized media memory» as an open archive of testimonies in the context of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine, based on identifying the specific nature of the interrelations between the concepts of «media», «memory» and «war» as an object of sociocultural reflection. The theoretical and methodological framework for investigating the socio-cultural phenomenon of «traumatized media memory» under the conditions of the Russian-Ukrainian war is substantiated. The study traces the genesis and development of media memory research. A conceptual model for studying «war-traumatized media memory» is proposed within the framework of a sociocultural approach, understood as an interdisciplinary field of knowledge at the intersection of Media Studies, Memory Studies, and the sociology of war and armed conflicts (War Studies) in the digital society context. It is demonstrated that media memory in wartime constitutes not only a space of conflict between competing historical narratives but also a battlefield between fundamental ethical poles of understanding war in social consciousness (between archiving and amnesia, memory and forgetting, individual and collective memory). The functioning of wartime media memory is analyzed as an unfinished «wounded testimony» that simultaneously documents violence and carries trauma, forming an archive of pain and evidence, and at the same time performs the functions of social consolidation and mobilization. The article further describes the specific features of «traumatized media memory» as an open networked media archive of digital testimonies of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine. The distinction between «traumatized media memory» and related concepts, such as «prosthetic memory» «memory crash» and «media traumatization», is clarified. Prospective directions for further research on wartime media memory within the conceptual landscape of the socio-cultural approach are outlined, as is the role of «traumatized media memory» in postwar justice and processes of restorative accountability.

Social-Symbolic Capital of Society: Normatism vs Mythology

2026-09-14T19:59:47+00:00

The article is devoted to the problem of under what conditions and how exactly social myths and rituals can be a source of legal norms and at the same time the result of social adaptation of these norms in society. The author positions this approach to the perception of the relationship between law and myth as controversial, noting that law is real and universally binding, and myth is only a fiction and a retelling of certain ideas. However, the article argues the position that together these two social phenomena form the socio-symbolic capital of society and the state. It is shown that both myth and law jointly construct the collective memory of the people and the identity of the nation, and also form a value-normative basis for building legal and power-political institutions. It is noted that through legal norms, myths move from the sphere of the symbolic to the sphere of the normative, consolidating in national law the images of the «heroic past», the ideas of «primordial statehood» and «Cossack freedom». Thanks to this, the law becomes not only a regulator of social relations, but also an effective tool for the reproduction, preservation and development of cultural and value orientations. This gives the author of the article grounds to speak of a «circle of social and symbolic capital», in which there is no dominant normativity or mythology, because both phenomena periodically and permanently transform into each other: myth - symbol - custom - norm - natural given - ritual - archetype (as a perfect myth). It is described how such social and symbolic capital consolidates society, confirms the legitimacy of power, stimulates the defense capacity of the population and encourages the development of the state, which is conceptualized as the mobilization function of social myths and law. At the same time, social and symbolic capital demonstrates the historical continuity of state traditions and the special purpose of the people and nation, which is conceptualized as the legitimizing function of myths and law. Everything is described by the author as contributing to the stability of the state while preserving political pluralism, strengthening public memory, and projecting a vector of collective self-determination.

Things in the (Re)Production of the Emotional: Humility, Stickiness, and Emergency Contexts

2026-09-14T19:59:52+00:00

The article is devoted to the sociological analysis of the transformation of the ontological status of material objects in the minds of the war. Based on the theoretical synthesis of the «material turn», the phenomenology of M. Heideger, the theory of practices of P. Bourdieu, the actor -boundary theory and the sociology of emotions, the author of this conceptualization of the transition of speech to status «modest» background of everyday life into the status of active actors in social affairs. The phenomenon of «modesty of speech» is followed by D. Miller, which in peacetime ensures ontological security through the functioning of material culture as an invisible frame that does not require cognitive reflection. War is conceptualized as a process of «illumination» «that causes the collapse of the spiritual Umwelt, transforming «hands-on» (zuhanden) objects into «present» (vorhanden), obsessive to one’s own witchcraft or ritual significance. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of affective economies, where speeches develop the power of «stickiness» for S. Ahmed, accumulating and transmitting emotional states over time and space. It is concluded that in a situation of forced movement of speech, the function of «transitional objects» and «self- objects» is established, maintaining the integrity of biographical identity in the minds there will be a breakdown of social bonds. A methodological research framework has been proposed that integrates the theory of «broader emotions» with the analysis of sociomaterial measures, the emotional process is not delimited by the neurophysiological boundaries of the individual, but is constituted through the functional integration of the «subject – artifact» system. Empirical verification of theoretical constructs is carried out through a series of in-depth biographical interviews with local object-centered techniques. It has been revealed that material objects in the minds of war act as containers of memory, affective affordances for tactile regulation of emotions, anchors of identity and agents of magical thinking. Digital artifacts are seen as «effective mobile self- objects» that ensure minimal coherence of the «I» through permanent access to archives of people. The article introduces contributions from the developments of relational ontology, including the Cartesian dualism of subject and object.

Postmortal Sociality in the Digital and Thing Age: Between The Digitization of Death and the Construction of Immortality

2026-09-14T20:00:00+00:00

This article presents a sociological analysis of the phenomena of digital death and digital immortality as interrelated yet conceptually distinct dimensions of postmortem sociality in the context of digitalization. It has been demonstrated that digital death does not signify the end of an individual’s social existence, but rather their transformation into a different mode of presence, mediated by digital traces, algorithmic mechanisms, and platform infrastructures. In contrast, digital immortality is viewed as a normative-discursive construct regarding the possibility of continuing individual existence in the digital environment. Within the scope of this study, the concepts of «digital death» «digital immortality» and «postmortem sociality» are clarified, and the rationale for their analytical distinction is substantiated. The concept of the «digital liminality» is proposed as a tool for describing the intermediate state between biological death and an individual’s social presence in a networked environment. It is shown that this state is characterized by a disconnect between the loss of agency and the preservation of operational presence in digital interactions. Particular attention is paid to the transformation of practices of memory and mourning in a mediatized culture, where digital platforms serve not only as tools for preservation but also as active agents in the reconfiguration of memory. The role of technosocial mechanisms in maintaining posthumous presence is analyzed, and the ethical, legal, and social challenges associated with the spread of digital immortality practices are outlined. The author concludes that postmortem sociality in the digital age is the result of the interaction between human practices, algorithmic processes, and institutional control, which necessitates a rethinking of the boundaries between life and death in contemporary society.

The Internet in the Artificial Intelligence Age: a New Logic of Access to Knowledge and its Cognitive Consequences

2026-09-14T20:00:03+00:00

The article analyzes the transformation of the Internet in the context of the development of generative artificial intelligence (AI). It argues that the contemporary digital environment is gradually shifting away from the navigational model, in which users independently search for, select, and compare sources, and is acquiring the features of a delivery model, where information is provided through personalized feeds, recommendations, and generated responses. This shift in the logic of access to knowledge is shown to be accompanied by a transformation of cognitive practices: a number of operations related to the search, synthesis, and interpretation of information are delegated to algorithmic systems, while user activity increasingly focuses on refining, selecting, and editing ready-made outputs. Particular attention is paid to changes in the field of creativity. The concept of algorithmically mediated creativity is proposed to describe such a new form of creative activity in which algorithmic systems generate a range of possible solutions, while humans perform the functions of directing, evaluating, combining, and editing them. These processes are found to have significant social implications, including changes in the user’s role, the rethinking of subject autonomy, the risks of standardization in cultural production, and transformations in the ways of interacting with information online. The article also examines the impact of algorithmic mediation on the structure of the information environment, particularly the intensification of filtering, personalization, and the fragmentation of public discourse. It is emphasized that the growing role of generative systems reshapes the nature of trust in information, as the boundary between what is created and what is reproduced becomes less apparent to the user. The study demonstrates that the development of AI transforms not only the technological forms of access to knowledge, but also the cognitive and social mechanisms of its acquisition and production.artificial intelligence

Experience of Forced Displacement in Sociological Research: Heuristic Challenges for Ukrainian Sociology

2026-09-14T20:00:05+00:00

This article addresses the problem of accounting for the experience of forced displacement of the Ukrainian population in sociological research, a topic made urgent by Russian aggression since 2014. It is emphasized that due to the war, millions of Ukrainians have become internally displaced persons (IDPs), have returned home, or have fled abroad, making this group too significant to remain a «blind spot» in sociology. The author aims to substantiate the need for a systematic understanding of the forced displacement experience not only as a subject of specialized research or a methodological challenge to representativeness, but as a crucial dimension for structuring contemporary Ukrainian society. The author analyzes existing approaches: from targeted studies examining the problems and adaptation of IDPs to strategies of excluding or integrating IDPs in national surveys. The author argues that forced displacement experience is a significant analytical category that can substantially influence research results and their interpretation. Using the «Bullying and Tolerance in Educational Institutions» study as an material, it is demonstrated how controlling for this variable alters the relationship between the region of residence and support for manipulative narratives, revealing deeper social patterns. The article concludes by stressing the necessity of including a question about displacement experience in sociological research for a more accurate analysis of public sentiment and social processes in wartime.

Church Attendance, Religious Statistics and Patriarchies in Ukraine: the Case of Orthodox Kherson

2026-09-14T20:00:09+00:00

Based on empirical research, the article provides a comparative assessment of the number of adherents of the most mass Orthodox denominations - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) as of 2018 on the regional level (city of Kherson). The authors conclude that the verbal declarations of Ukrainians regarding their confessional affiliation received in different surveys and the real confessional affiliation of actual parishioners (regular churchgoers) differ significantly. It is suggested that this contradiction may also appear due to the lack of sufficient competence of the verbal adherents about the organizational structure of the Cristian Orthodox world in Ukraine, and by the effect of socially approved answers in polls caused by extreme politicization of religious life in Ukraine. Additionally, it was found that the proportion of registered parishes according to the UOC-MP and UOC-KP databases follows the same pattern as the ratio of their parishioners.

The Interrelation of Status (In)Consistency with Religious Knowledge Among Residents of Ukraine: Pre-War and Wartime Context

2026-09-14T20:00:12+00:00

The article examines the interrelation between status (in)consistency and religious knowledge among residents of Ukraine within pre-war and wartime contexts. The relevance of the study is determined by the large-scale social transformations taking place in Ukrainian society under the influence of post-Soviet changes, market reforms, and the hybrid as well as full-scale war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Under conditions of existential threat, religion increasingly functions not only as a form of identity but also as a mechanism of symbolic support, moral orientation, and interpretation of social reality. Particular attention is devoted to the phenomenon of status inconsistency, understood as a mismatch between the levels of education and material well-being, which may shape specific social attitudes, perceptions of injustice, and compensatory strategies associated with religiosity. The purpose of the article is to identify common and distinctive features of religious knowledge among different status-consistent and status-inconsistent categories of the Ukrainian population, as well as to analyze the impact of crisis-driven social processes on citizens’ religious and political perceptions. The theoretical framework of the study is grounded in the concepts of status consistency developed by P. Sorokin, G. Lenski, and their followers, alongside approaches to the analysis of religiosity, secularization, and postmodernization proposed by R. Inglehart, J. Casanova, C. Taylor, and other scholars. The empirical basis of the study consists of data from the World Values Survey Association collected in 1996, 2006, 2011, and 2020. Five combined status categories were constructed for the analysis: low, middle, and high status-consistent groups, as well as education-income inconsistency and income-education inconsistency groups. Religious knowledge was operationalized through attitudes toward the role of religious leaders in interpreting laws, perceptions of the relationship between science and faith, and evaluations of the acceptability of physical violence within marriage as an issue indirectly connected to religious beliefs. The Monte Carlo method was employed to test the statistical significance of differences. The findings reveal statistically significant differences among various status categories across all examined dimensions of religious knowledge. The study demonstrates that in 2006 Ukrainian society displayed relative unanimity in supporting the secular separation of religion and law. However, by 2011, and especially by 2020, a growing internal polarization became evident, particularly among respondents with high status consistency and representatives of income-education inconsistency. The authors conclude that under conditions of war, the COVID-19 pandemic, and declining trust in state and expert institutions, religion has increasingly been perceived as a source of moral authority and social stability even among the most educated and materially privileged groups. Special attention is devoted to attitudes toward the relationship between science and faith. The study demonstrates that under crisis conditions both the most resource-rich and the most resource-deprived status groups were more likely to support faith as an important source of emotional support and interpretation of reality, whereas individuals characterized by «advantageous» status inconsistency displayed a stronger orientation toward science. The study also identifies an increase in tolerance toward domestic violence in 2020, which the authors associate with growing social tension, a crisis of existential security, and a return to more rigid social norms under crisis conditions. In conclusion, the authors argue that status (in)consistency significantly affects the cognitive dimension of religiosity. The study demonstrates that religious knowledge in contemporary Ukraine is shaped by the multidimensionality of the social structure, wartime and crisis-related processes, as well as broader social uncertainty. The findings open up prospects for further research into religiosity, social resilience, and the transformation of value orientations within Ukrainian society under conditions of prolonged crisis challenges.

Heterogeneity of Sources of Social Capital of Territorial Communities

2026-09-14T20:00:18+00:00

The article examines the issues of sources of social capital of formal and informal institutions of territorial communities. The territorial community is characterized as a special territorial-administrative unit with a partnership-based way of interacting with its population and civic initiative in management. Social capital is examined as a key to strengthening self-organization and sustainable development of a territorial community. In the article, the social capital of a community acts as an indicator of the positive effect of management, economic development, infrastructure development, social coagulation, and political participation in the field. The relevance of the topic under study is argued by the need to strengthen internal ties of territorial communities. The problem of their strengthening is considered through the prism of the general state strategy of military confrontation, which does not provide for the satisfaction of local social and household needs, which are basic capital-generating structures. The author describes formal and informal social institutions as centers of origin of social capital, their place, role and action, which have undergone changes under the influence of socio-political transformations in Ukraine. Formal social institutions play the role of the main ones, in the event of their decline, informal institutions lose the chance for legitimate existence. The phenomenon of informal social institutions is described, the number and manifestations of which have significantly increased in recent years in Ukraine. The question of the feasibility of the activities of informal institutions is raised depending on the purpose of their creation and territorial functioning; the prospects of their positive significance in the formation of social capital of the community. The interaction of formal and informal social institutions, their dominant roles, the place of civic participation and the impact on residents of territorial communities are studied. The prospect of further research into the factors influencing various social institutions as separately operating structures and interacting phenomena is identified.

Absent Masses in the Bathroom: the Sociology of the Shower Head

2026-09-14T20:00:22+00:00

The article offers a sociological analysis of the shower head as an example of the «missing mass» in Bruno Latour’s sense – that is, as an everyday material delegate participating in the production of the social. The empirical basis is twelve semi-structured in-depth interviews with users of a multi-mode handheld shower system, conducted as part of a user experience study and re-analyzed from a sociological perspective. The author analytically combines several traditions that develop mostly in parallel in the existing discourse: actor-network theory and new materialism, post-phenomenology, practice theory, and the concept of governance of things. The presentation is organized in five focuses. It shows how the shower head becomes analytically «visible» in moments of failure; it demonstrates the practice of systematic «rewriting» by users of scripts written by the manufacturer; it is analyzed how one artifact physically supports several stable types of human-technology relations, which empirically confirms the post-phenomenological thesis of multistability; it is investigated that the watering can coordinates culturally specific body techniques and materially supports bodily discipline; finally, it is identified how various micro- and macro-politics converge on it as the «last meter». The contribution of the article is three-dimensional: empirical (ANT-sensitive analysis of a household artifact of intimate use), theoretical (demonstration of the complementarity of several optics on one case) and conceptual (extension of the idea of «missing masses» to the sphere of intimate space and formulation of the thesis about the two-way delegation, the direction of which depends on the state of the infrastructure). Separately, the resonance of the expanded framework with the Ukrainian context after 2022 is discussed, in which systematic Russian attacks on energy and water supply networks reveal non-obvious functions initially delegated to infrastructure.

Education in The New Social Reality: a Resource for Inclusion

2026-09-14T20:00:25+00:00

The article outlines the impact of the war on education in Ukraine. It examines and analyzes current research and publications that reveal the state of study of the problem. The content of the concept of «social technologies» is revealed, in particular, the author's definition of this concept is proposed, namely: the author defines social technologies as a system of scientifically sound techniques, methods and means, the implementation of which allows achieving the desired state of functioning of a certain social sphere, including education. It is emphasized that the emergence of new numerous groups of «excluded» in Ukrainian society, namely, people who have experienced psychological, emotional and physical trauma of war, requires the intensification of the implementation of innovative pedagogical and social technologies, the implementation of which will help overcome barriers to social integration of representatives of these groups who are in a situation of exclusion. It is emphasized that the social technology that should ensure a successful exit from the state of social alienation is the technology of inclusion. The content of this technology, its mission and structure are considered. The expected results of its implementation are outlined, which include the formation of the necessary social conditions and motivation of the individual to build his own successful life strategy. The results of the empirical research conducted by the author are proposed, in particular, the data of interviews with pedagogical workers of the Odessa and Zhytomyr regions. The focus of these interviews was on the issues of implementing inclusion in the practical activities of general secondary and higher education institutions. It is demonstrated that the respondents generally understand the content and purpose of the inclusion technology. It is shown that this technology is implemented primarily for students who have serious health problems, disabilities or mental disorders. The advantages of using inclusion in the educational process as a factor of socialization are identified. The shortcomings in the process of implementing the specified technology are outlined: firstly, the low readiness of teachers and teacher assistants to work in an inclusive format; secondly, significant difficulties in creating a barrier-free environment due to lack of funding; thirdly, the biased attitude of parents of students towards joint learning. It was found that the surveyed educators, realizing the need for sensitive professional support for students traumatized by war, do not always implement the social technology of inclusion, which allows identifying barriers to an inclusive educational environment and creating conditions for overcoming them. It was noted that the insufficient level of awareness of respondents about inclusion, among other things, determines the low level of its implementation in the educational process. Recommendations for optimizing the inclusive educational process, in particular with groups of people who have experienced war trauma, are formulated.

Order, Power, Space: an Integrative Lens for Studying the Transformation of School Education in Wartime

2026-09-14T20:00:28+00:00

This article presents an integrated theoretical framework for the sociological analysis of the transformation of the order of school education amid the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, using the example of Kharkiv’s underground (metro)schools. It emphasizes that the sociology of education has theorized the school mainly under conditions of stability, whereas the order of education and its transformation have rarely become an object of analysis in their own right. The article addresses neither the humanitarian consequences of the war for schooling nor the scale of learning loss, but the question of what happens to the order of schooling when its participants, its location and its security regime all change. Answering that question, it is argued, requires a theoretical instrument of its own, which the article sets out to build. The author justifies the use of a modal rather than a substantive definition of order as the structured probability of establishing connections. The paper advocates the application of three theoretical perspectives to the analysis of the social order of an underground school: Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory (the question of «what» is transformed), Michel Foucault’s analysis of power (the question of «how» power operates), and Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space (the question of «where», in which space). The focus is on the principle of non-eclectic integration of these theoretical approaches, at the intersection of which the study of the social order of the underground (metro) school takes place. The ontological tension between N. Luhmann’s «communication without a subject» and M. Foucault’s «power that produces the subject» is examined. The central idea of the article is formulated: what appears to be a return to the prewar school is in fact the production of a new order «clothed in the old». The author presents his interpretation of the concept of «biopolitics of preservation», which emphasizes the protection of life in the context of a defensive war. Possible directions for further research on the selected problem are identified and hypotheses for these research are proposed.