Sarah Phillips, associate professor of anthropology, Indiana University. Sponsors: CREES, WCED.
This talk draws on Professor Phillips’ book Disability and Mobile Citizenship in Postsocialist Ukraine to discuss the many ways in which disabled persons in Ukraine are becoming more “mobile” citizens in this post-Soviet state. She will highlight the following areas, among others: the creative appropriation of transnational empowerment and rehabilitation strategies, impromptu public performances, uses of mass media and visual arts, political protests, and new digital technologies. Phillips argues that these outlets are important for mobilizing a more inclusive citizenship for the disabled because they help expand notions of relatedness, kinship, and mutual responsibility in ways that resonate with people in postsocialist contexts.
Sarah D. Phillips is associate professor of anthropology at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her geographical specialization is Central and Eastern Europe, and she has conducted research in Ukraine since 1995. Her primary research interests include disability, gender, civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), development, post-Chernobyl health and healing, and the economic and cultural revitalization of the Chernobyl “exclusion zone.”
