Everyday Adaptation as a Form of Knowledge
When electricity disappears, ordinary infrastructure collapses into improvisation. Across social media, Ukrainians share videos of handmade stoves made from metal cans, clay candle heaters, and improvised cooking devices assembled from scarcely available materials. These are not experimental hobbies — they are responses to dire necessities for survival.
“Kamforka-parties” around heat sources in courtyards and parks bring moments of warmth, conversation, and shared presence in our fragmented daily life. When there’s laughter, it is rarely carefree. Laughter shields despair–humor is our emotional insulation.
Our adaptation agility is part of our intergenerational psyche. Ukrainian society carries an extended, layered memory of scarcity and crisis. Our elderly survived the devastation and hunger following World War II. Their children navigated the economic collapse of the 1990s by learning how to “make do,” save, reuse, and store things “just in case.”
These habits — sometimes dismissed as relics of the Soviet era — are in fact forms of embodied, collective social knowledge. They resurface as survival mechanisms amidst crisis, extending continuity when formal systems fail.
Laughter through tears
Outsiders often misunderstand when Ukrainian humor springs up under extreme conditions. Memes, jokes, and ironic videos — reflect impressions of lightness, even defiance. In reality, our humor is rarely about comfort. It is about our endurance.
Ukrainian writer Lesya Ukrainka once wrote: “To avoid crying, I laughed.”
This perfectly captures what’s essential in our present moment. Humor here is not denial of suffering; it’s the means to remain emotionally present without being overwhelmed. It is laughter born of exhaustion, not ease.
Social Dehumanisation: When Hardship Becomes “Normal”
Prolonged exposure to crisis produces more than fatigue. It reshapes social perception. Researchers of violence and social psychology describe this process as social dehumanisation — not as cruelty, but as a gradual normalisation of unacceptable conditions.
When cold homes, blackouts, fear, and uncertainty persist over long periods, society adapts by lowering expectations. Suffering becomes routine. Empathy dulls not because people stop caring, but because continuous caring is unsustainable.
This shift can manifest subtly:
- in phrases like “everyone is going through this”;
- in the silent acceptance of deprivation as inevitable;
- in the displacement of responsibility from systems to individuals;
- in humor that hides pain rather than expressing it.
The danger of dehumanisation lies precisely in its invisibility. When survival is romanticised as resilience, the structural causes of suffering fade. Survival becomes a moral virtue instead of a sign of systemic failure.
Survival Is Not a Goal
This distinction matters deeply. Survival should never be mistaken for success.
Strategies to stay warm, fed, and psychologically intact are signals — indicators of unmet needs. They point to failed infrastructure, insufficient social support, and dignity under threat.
Understanding survival practices is not about celebrating ingenuity. It is about identifying what must be restored.
Post-Conflict Recovery: Beyond Rebuilding Walls
Postwar survival often focuses on physical reconstruction: power grids, housing, roads. Yet research on post-conflict recovery consistently shows that psychosocial damage lasts longer than physical destruction.
Long-term crisis erodes:
- trust between people,
- the sense of predictability,
- the ability to plan,
- the feeling of safety — even after violence subsides.
Survival and coping strategies during war can become obstacles in peace time if left unaddressed. Constant alertness, hoarding, emotional detachment, and humor as armor — self-protective amidst crisis may hinder recovery if not gently unpacked.
Post-conflict resilience depends on whether societies create space to acknowledge exhaustion, fear, and grief — without rushing people back into “normality.”
Rebuilding social bonds requires:
- recognising fatigue as a collective condition, not individual weakness;
- creating safe spaces for shared reflection and meaning-making;
- restoring dignity through care, not through demands for strength.
Why This Matters Beyond Ukraine
In a global context increasingly shaped by geopolitical competition, shifting alliances, and the language of power and military might, losing focus on human dignity is dangerously easy.
Ukraine’s experience is not exceptional — it is instructive. What has been unleashed in Ukraine has gone beyond our borders.
It proves how quickly modern societies can be pushed back to survival mode. It shows the thin fragility t of normality. And it demonstrates the extent of recovery beyond infrastructure, but humanity itself.
For global populations, especially in the United States, this is not a distant tragedy. It is a reminder: crises test not only states, but values. When human life becomes negotiable, when suffering is treated as collateral, dehumanisation spreads far beyond the battlefield.
From Survival to a Liveable Future
The survival strategies emerging today in Ukraine are not merely temporary solutions. They are a form of social evidence — proving needs to live, not just endure.
If future reconstruction efforts ignore this treacherous lived experience, peace may arrive only on paper while society remains in a permanent state of emergency.
True recovery begins when daily survival skills are no longer required — when warmth, safety, and dignity are no longer improvised, but guaranteed.
