Coline Maestracci

HURI Research Fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University (February - May 2025)

Supported by HURI with the Alex Woskob Family Foundation Endowment Fund.

Research Project

The War in Ukraine through the Prism of the Family Institution: For a Sociology of the Family at War

Since the onset of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, and especially following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many researchers have questioned the impact of the war on Ukrainian society. While the recent literature has paved the way for a comprehensive analysis of the Russian-Ukrainian war, one aspect remains unexplored: the effects of war on the private sphere. It is this blind spot that this research aims to explore, with a particular focus on the family sphere. From an institutionalist perspective, the family can be defined as a mediating institution between the individual and society. As an institution, the family is therefore a social space deeply rooted in the political and social context in which it evolves, but it is also a space for the promotion of new norms. In the case of Ukraine, war not only reshapes family ties, but it is also the place where new representations of war are developed. The family thus emerges as an eminently political object whose examination provides valuable insight into the societal impact of warfare. Using a qualitative method and an inductive approach, this research aims to analyze the effects of the war experience on the family institution, and the mutating representations of war within the family unit. Through this exploration, the project seeks to lay the groundwork for a sociology of the family at war in a contemporary inter-state conflict.

Biography

Coline Maestracci holds a PhD in political science from the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. Her thesis focuses on the engagement and disengagement trajectories of Ukrainian volunteer combatants in the Russo-Ukrainian war. Her current research focuses on the effects of war on the family institution in Ukraine. After defending her thesis, she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the École des hautes etudes en sciences sociales in Paris and a research fellowship at Harvard University. Coline Maestracci has published several articles in French peer-reviewed journals (Socio and Revue d’étude comparative Est-Ouest). She is currently coordinating a special issue for the peer-reviewed journals Europe-Asia Studies dedicated to the postwar trajectories of combatants in the former Soviet republics. Her doctoral thesis will soon be published in French by Presse Universitaire de Bruxelles. Coline Maestracci has taken part in several international conferences, including the Association for the Study of nationalities, the Danyliw Research Seminar, and several research seminars at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en sciences sociales in Paris. Since the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Coline Maestracci has made numerous public conferences for students, but also for the general public and in the media. She was awarded the 2022 prize for scientific dissemination by Université libre de Bruxelles.