Authors

Tetiana Kostiuchenko¹;  ¹ National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy | Leuphana University, Ukraine

Discussion

A number of studies on social capital address it through the relational network perspective, mostly in the research of the job search (Granovetter, 1978), entrepreneurial activities (Burt, 2000; Lin 2001), migrant communities (Lubbers et al, 2010), and networks mobilization in social movements (Della & Porta Diani, 2006). However, almost no studies were conducted on the social capital gain and loss within the Ukrainian context and considering all economic and demographic challenges of the full-scale war since Feb 2022 onwards. One of the studies of social capital in Ukraine was conducted by Kostiuchenko, Brik and Saveliev as the pilot project “Research on Social Capital in Ukraine” (RESCUE) in 2019 before COVID-19 pandemics and it was the first attempt to apply the network approach and specifically “resource generator” (van der Gaag & Snijders, 2005) in measuring social capital in student groups. Later, Kostiuchenko collected the nationwide data on the social capital in 2019-2021, showing the changes of its structure during the pandemics. The analysis of that nationwide data on social capital revealed the extreme inequality in the access to resources via the social capital depending on the employment and income status, age group, and type of settlement. The recent wartime polls allow further analysis on how the social capital structure changed since Feb, 24, 2022 in terms of people’s co-operation, keeping the contacts between war migrants and IPDs with their home communities, strengthening the social cohesion in communities via volunteering and neighborhood common actions, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, losing the important ties due a variety of factors during the war.