The time of war and the time of peace on the gendered continuum in Ukraine

Abstract

The article provides an in-depth analysis of how wartime and peacetime are conceptualized by women against the backdrop of war, in what ways these conceptualizations of time are gendered, and what do “the before,” “the during,” and “the after” war mean in this timely Ukrainian context. It offers the discussion of wartime and peacetime as socially constructed concepts, the distinction between which is further problematized through close reading of women's experiences at war. The canvas of “eight years of war” (2014–2022) before the full-scale invasion used by the participants to navigate the reality of in-betweenness war and peace is closely analyzed along with the participants’ perceptions that the peacetime that comes “after the war” would not be identical to the peacetime “before the war.”