Multiple Positionalities of a Researcher: The Case of Polish Researchers Interviewing Ukrainian War Refugees in Poland

On the day Russia launched a full-scale military attack on Ukraine, our (as yet unformed) team wondered how we could assist. As nearly two million individuals opted to seek refuge in Poland following the conflict (National Bank of Poland 2023), our initial response was to offer humanitarian aid, using our private resources. Some of us provided additional support, sought accommodation for refugees, welcomed them into our homes, or drove them to safety in our own vehicles. To engage our professional skills further, we joined a documentation project, which was started in Lviv, to document the struggles faced by the refugees.

In light of the insufficient support infrastructure for refugees in Poland, which was unable to meet the current enormous emergency needs, many individuals who fled from Ukraine to Poland initially resided in private houses and other Polish-owned facilities during the first few weeks. What was initially a heartfelt gesture during the onset of the armed conflict has transformed into a policy of providing subsidies to individuals who host Ukrainian refugees in their homes. Similarly, Ukrainian refugees have also been accommodated in the homes of those who offered assistance. In other situations, team members provided assistance in various ways, such as aiding in the search for employment, schools, housing, and financial or material support.

This inevitably directs us to another area related to the positionality of researchers and witnesses, namely: trust. Valerie Yow (1995, 58) wrote prominently about trust; she points out that in many cultures, this concept either does not function or functions differently than it does among members of the Western (or Westernized) middle class. For many, personal friendship and professional acquaintance may be so similar as to be indistinguishable. Our existing academic network from before the war was crucial in organizing the project with our partners in Ukraine and in the process of looking for interlocutors. How do we navigate acquaintance under such circumstances so that the meaning of the relationship is the same for everyone? In our study, an example of this solution was the relationship between hosts hosting refugees in their homes, researchers, and refugees. It was necessary to clarify how to manage daily life given the added responsibility of hosting a refugee family. Our team decided that documenting the lives of refugees residing in our homes may cause psychological distress for the guest. Engagement in the study would be parallel to the access to the resources made available by the hosts-researchers. The act of declining to participate in the study carries the potential consequence of causing offense and, in turn, impeding relationships with the hosts.

On the other hand, by becoming actively involved in the study, participants would determine their decision on utilizing the resources provided by the hosts and possibly being pushed to unwanted gratitude and reciprocity. Hence, it is imperative for individuals involved in this research endeavor to conscientiously recognize the ramifications of their decisions regarding participation, as these consequences transcend the immediate confines of their involvement and exert an influence on the dynamics of the broader academic milieu.

Moreover, lingering questions persist with respect to the nature of the rapport between the host and the refugee. In alignment with Martha Norkunas’s observations (2011), it is often the case that the potential “depth” of this relationship may be unidirectional, as the researcher is the party requiring a more substantial degree of engagement in the research process. Intriguingly, the practice of re-evaluating and contemplating the nature of this rapport with the participant is consistently articulated by the researcher in the form of self-assessments and within academic discourse, whereas such introspection is less frequently articulated by the participants themselves. Consequently, the purported “depth” of this relationship with participants might erroneously be construed as a voluntary inclination to participate in the study rather than an inclination driven by an obligation to gratify the host or maintain a friendship.

Given these considerations, we have made a deliberate decision to safeguard against introducing any potential challenges associated with divided loyalties. It was deemed inappropriate to include individuals who relied to some degree on members of the research team. The majority of individuals that we were able to contact and converse with were either within our network or acquainted with someone we knew. In brief, the external, open approach to recruitment did not work in the context of our research. Looking for interviews via a snowball effect might also result in our interviewees being unlikely to share critical views on Poles, as friends of our friends may have helped them or they may have been afraid of offending us.

The tool that is most commonly used, and has also found wide use in our project, is making the researchers the subject of observation, that is, applying autoethnography procedures. According to Deborah Reed-Danahay (2017), autoethnography in research refers to the placement of researchers within their social context. Autoethnography highlights the fact that ethnography is both a reflective and collaborative process, where the experiences of the researcher and their connections with individuals “in the field” must be examined and scrutinized. Our recorded interviews followed a sociological in-depth questionnaire that allowed participants to discuss their experiences. This necessitated a shift in how we conceptualized our roles, from researcher-interlocutor to narrator-listener (Clandinin and Connelly 2000). The challenge of applying prior research experience to the war context lay in determining the extent to which the ongoing war and refugee experience constitute history.

The term “positionality” pertains to how a researcher’s work is influenced by their social identities, spanning class, gender, ethnicity, race, ability/disability, geographical location (Homan 2023). Especially in the realm of qualitative anthropological, sociological, and ethnographic research, the researcher has not been perceived as an impartial and emotionless tool of investigation. The cognitive processes of researchers, which are influenced not only by professional expertise but also by the “research habitus” that encompasses social position, are an important methodological and ethical matter in empirical research. While the timing (though relevant) and disciplinary and definitional framework of the research are secondary, it is essential to examine how the research is executed. Oral history is frequently used to explore the distant past. However, as publications such as Fieldwork Under Fire by Carolyn Nordstrom and Antonius Robben (1996) and Listening on the Edge by Mark Cave and Stephen M. Sloan (2014) demonstrate, it is also applicable to the current crisis.

To better show the complexities of our positions and to complete the statement on positionality, we also want to explain our individual backgrounds.

The first author of this article, Elżbieta Kwiecińska, was born in Warsaw. Her paternal grandmother came from Volhynia, Ukraine (which before World War II was part of the Polish republic) and was a refugee who survived the Volhynia massacre (1943). Elżbieta completed master’s studies in history and sociology at the University of Warsaw, followed by a PhD in history at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. She started to learn Ukrainian by herself during Maidan 2014 by reading news and books, and began to learn Russian simultaneously. Although she gained experience of international mobility as an Eastern European woman in Western academia (e.g., facing the stereotype of a Polish woman as an uneducated cleaning lady or a desperate husband-seeker), this was incomparable to the rapid, forced mobility of Ukrainian refugee women. What helped Elżbieta in her work was her 18-month stay as a postdoc in Lviv in Ukraine. Although most of her respondents came from eastern and central Ukraine, she got an insight into Ukrainian subjectivities, especially the awareness of regional particularities in Ukraine. Although being an academic usually implies high social status and prestige, in Poland it did not translate into high salaries. Therefore, while conducting interviews with members of the financial elite from Kyiv, she faced a reversed economic hierarchy. When one of those interviewees drove her home in his BMW, he was surprised to find that she lived in a working-class, Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking migrant district.

The second author’s, Małgorzata Łukianow’s, academic background lies in sociology, with a primary focus on qualitative research and oral history investigations. Małgorzata’s body of work encompasses studies related to Polish-Ukrainian relations, some of which delve into complex historical aspects. However, as is the case with Małgorzata, it is not merely a matter of language proficiency or familiarity with certain realities; it’s also about the researcher’s capacity to transcend their own standpoint. This became notably evident in Małgorzata’s research studies when she examined Ukrainian working-class women residing outside major urban centers and holding low-paying jobs. This raises the question: Does our broadly formulated questionnaire adequately address issues related to differing wartime experiences, or is it so general that the researcher must resort to improvisation? The beginning of the Ukrainian language’s resurgence coincided with the 2014 Maidan Nezalezhnosti (“Independence Square”) protests and, faced with the desire to learn another Slavic language, Ukrainian was the obvious choice. However, the question of using the Russian language remained. In the oral history project, the accounts (which we also write about below) were recorded in both Ukrainian and Russian, so it was also a process of learning the language for the researchers whose native language is neither of those.

Apart from us two, our research team comprised 12 interviewers, including two Ukrainian refugee researchers. Among our team, there were 11 women and 2 men. The principal investigator, a young woman, initiated the project in collaboration with the team at the Center of Urban History in Lviv, Ukraine, which was also led by a woman. Confronted with an almost entirely homogeneous team in terms of gender, we must consider how our gender influences our positionality in research. It should be noted that we are not addressing a situation wherein being a female researcher imposes the hazards that generally accompany a patriarchal culture, such as harassment, diminished self-expression, and condescending treatment (Palęcka 2021). In this case, the relationship dynamics differ significantly, as the majority of interviews in the “Testimonies from the War” project were conducted by women and with women.

The number of men among the witnesses constituted less than 10%, and there are several reasons for this situation. The most evident explanation is that with the advent of Russian aggression and introduction of martial law in Ukraine, men were prohibited from leaving Ukraine. Exceptions were made for seniors, no longer liable for conscription, as well as in certain family circumstances. However, some Ukrainian men came and remained in Poland for various reasons. Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to reach many of them. Among the reasons we see for this situation, though these are our explanations rather than recorded evidence, lies the interviewees’ potential discomfort at being confronted with a question about their presence in Poland. This situation could become a space for animosity, conflicting attitudes, or—even subjective—feelings of discord, even if each of the above was rather based on the perceptions of potential interlocutors, leading to lack of contact and refusals. What’s more, we can also speculate that in this particular case, our situation as Poles may potentially mitigate this discomfort of male interlocutors’ more than it would in the situation of meeting a Ukrainian researcher. It should be stressed, however, that in the case of recording men, these situations did not occur; they are only a pretext for our inquiries.

The fact that the vast majority of our team were women made interviewing other women particularly significant. We understand an interview as a process through which we first build trust, explain the aim of the research and our ethics (the possibility of full anonymity or a right to not answer a question), and establish a safe relationship. In the emergency situation of war, our role went beyond that of a researcher and we became fiduciaries for those who decided to share their testimonies with us. The female witnesses were often more open to discussing motherhood, women’s health issues, and relationships with men. Sharing details of personal life in an intimate atmosphere were moments of rapport that reduced the distance between a Polish researcher and a Ukrainian refugee interviewee. Following Donna Luff (1999), the trust helps to establish female-to-female moments of rapport and dialogue across the divides of power and ethnicity.

On the other hand, being female unintentionally influenced our questionnaire to some extent. When Elżbieta asked our interviewees about organizing their everyday life in the first days of war, we mainly meant hoarding food, water, and medications. As it turned out, these activities were assigned to women. Elżbieta’s male respondents talked primarily about going to the oil station and making sure that their cars were ready to transport their families away from danger. In our questionnaire, when we considered the journey from Ukraine to Poland, we were also interested in hygiene practices in the face of the crisis, which meant, among other things, menstrual hygiene and menstrual supplies. We posit that the observed scenario underscores the significance of gender dynamics in oral history, with potential implications for broader realms of social research. Our conjecture is that female interlocutors might exhibit reticence in divulging intimate details concerning matters such as menstruation, pregnancy, and other aspects of feminine health when engaging with a male researcher. This was mentioned by Lisa Tillmann-Healy (2003), who pointed out the use of interpretivism, phenomenology, and feminist critiques to create a qualitative research approach that emphasizes understanding and reflexivity, ultimately facilitating a more inclusive and empathetic research experience.

Additionally, it is pertinent to consider a feminist perspective regarding the equality of relationships within the research setting. Feminist scholars have played a pivotal role in challenging the notion of value-free inquiry, as articulated by Sandra Harding (1991). They have also been instrumental in advancing communitarian ethics, fostering a sense of collective responsibility, and addressing the hierarchical divisions between researchers and participants. These feminist perspectives encouraged us to engage in self-reflection on our own positionality and to critically approach the role of gender in our research.

Apart from a common gender (and sexual orientation), what decreased the social distance between us and our interviewees was a shared social status and education. The majority of our team were academics residing in large urban areas. Our strategy for obtaining participants was via snowball sampling, which resulted in a disproportionate representation of individuals with higher education. As other studies show, middle-class interviewers and interviewees quickly realize their status equivalence. Common class makes a conversation more interactive. As a result, power in such interviews is a two-way process (Brannen 1988; Luff 1999).

Additionally, a significant proportion of our interviews were conducted in major Polish cities, as they were the focal points of academic activity in the country. However, this resulted from our decision not to exploit our privilege by avoiding interviewing potential candidates in railway stations, on the streets, or in shelters where individuals are often at their most vulnerable, and which can lead to negative psychological states. Moreover, we refrained from interviewing minors, who are among the most vulnerable members of society. The latter was perhaps less of a methodological solution than an ethical principle, as it involved not engaging with the most vulnerable groups.

While it was a moral decision not to interview particularly vulnerable groups of Ukrainian refugees, it was due to logistics and technical problems that we conducted only a limited number of interviews in small towns and villages. We made attempts to go beyond big cities, however. Some of them were successful, some were not. Elżbieta tried to expand her research field to Słubice, a town next to the Polish-German border, during her one-month stay at the Viadrina University, located in the neighboring German town of Frankfurt am Main on the other side of the river. She had Ukrainian informants who were students, professors, and refugee academics from the Viadrina. Nevertheless, a month was not enough time to become part of the Słubice community or to build trust among the Ukrainian female refugees who worked in local cafés or beauty salons. Either the gap in social status could not be overcome, or the Ukrainian refugees whom Elżbieta met in Słubice were not ready to talk, and Elżbieta did not want to push them. In Warsaw, a big capital city, things were much easier due to the already existing network of people. Our interviewees in big cities were Ukrainian friends of our friends, Ukrainian refugees hosted or helped by the people we knew before the war, and so on. The refugee academics in Słubice agreed to talk to Elżbieta, but they were all officially registered in Germany to receive scholarships from the Viadrina and so did not qualify for our project, which is aimed at refugees based in Poland. Germany proposed a quite different migration policy than the Polish government.

The introduction of reflexivity through psychological supervision within the team constitutes an innovative development within the realm of social sciences (Unger 2021). Although project managers and researchers are typically aware that researching certain topics can carry emotional risks and potential for vicarious trauma, it is still uncommon to introduce professional support for social researchers. The researcher’s positionality, due to extended exposure to challenging topics, indicates that they receive comparatively less help and support than other professions. There are no standardized procedures for assisting researchers who encounter difficult issues, as evidenced by the lack of guidance when applying to research organizations and for grants. As Agnieszka Golczyńska-Grondas and Katarzyna Waniek (2022) state, supervision plays a crucial role as a platform for professionals conducting research, where humans are involved, to critically analyze their professional work. This holds particular significance across various professional domains wherein individuals interact with others and confront the potential for miscommunication, errors, and unpredictability. These variables can give rise to substantial emotional distress, with the potential to precipitate post-traumatic stress disorder.

Within this context, modifications in team meetings became noticeable in tandem with the earliest, highly demanding, and challenging scenarios encountered in the realm of research practice. These scenarios were not primarily methodological in nature but pertain specifically to the emotional well-being and research ethics of the researchers involved. Research team supervision serves a dual purpose by facilitating discussions on pertinent issues. It not only offers researchers comfort and support to enhance their productivity but also addresses ethical dilemmas. In this context, supervision serves as an informal ethical mechanism, addressing the continuous evolution of ethical challenges encountered during fieldwork. So, in this sense, informal ethics means that these were team practices that did not find a formal outlet in ongoing discussions with the ethical board and were a response to the dynamic situation of the war. In addition, sometimes the ethical dilemmas were related to the personal positionalities of the researcher and her relationship with a particular person. And these situations do not conform to methodological generalizations and often escape—as one-off or unique—theorization. Hence the practice of informal, shared internal experiences and micro ethical practices.

The notion that team meetings were to serve not only as professional assistance, but also for unwinding, was integrated into the project from its inception. Initially, the sessions were conducted on a rotating basis by the project coordinators. Nonetheless, this approach has its constraints, predominantly due to the disparate, often hierarchical roles of the researchers in relation to one another. While this system was appropriate for training and organizational meetings, it was unsatisfactory for meetings intended for emotional sharing; therefore, we opted to work alongside a professional supervisor. This pioneering approach was facilitated by a psychotraumatologist who possesses extensive training and hands-on experience in the provision of trauma-related care within non-European contexts, particularly among survivors of genocide in Rwanda and individuals belonging to religious and ethnic minority groups in Poland who have endured genocidal experiences. This professional has significantly contributed to fostering introspection among team members, prompting them to contemplate their perspective on informal ethics and individual solutions. Furthermore, the discourse has been enriched by an emphasis on the corporeal domain and nonverbal communication cues, as well as strategies for managing stress and trauma.

These are issues that cannot be resolved solely through the application of broad ethical codes, study-specific guidelines, or initial project recommendations (Surmiak 2022, 49; cf. Guillemin and Gillam 2004). Therefore, supervision did not fully replace formalized ethical advice, which is provided by the host institution, but supplemented it. The second important function of supervision is to improve the methodological workshop. Although our meetings no longer had a training element when they were conducted by the supervisor, the discussion of each case meant that it was not only the person directly involved in the situation who benefited. We learned from each other and, by learning about the strategies used by a particular researcher, we were better prepared for problematic situations in our own research practice.

Language serves as the primary tool in the practice of oral history, facilitating the verbal exchange between the researcher and the interviewee. In this context, data collection is a dynamic, two-way process that hinges on the reciprocal actions of speaking and attentive listening, as highlighted by Sharlene Hesse-Biber and Particia Leavy (2005). The choice of language assumes a pivotal role in shaping the researcher’s positionality, especially when engaging with war refugees and other vulnerable populations. A fundamental prerequisite for participating in our project was a proficient command of either Ukrainian, Russian, or both. Researchers who were proficient solely in Ukrainian took on the responsibility of conducting interviews with individuals hailing from western and central Ukraine only. It is worth noting that our Polish team members had diligently acquired these language skills well before the eruption of the conflict. Moreover, it became incumbent upon us to grasp the intricacies of various regional dialects and the linguistic hybrid known as surzhyk, which comprises elements of both Russian and Ukrainian. Notably, we made a conscious decision to refrain from engaging Ukrainian translators in our project. This deliberate choice was a testament to our commitment to position our interviewees at the core of the research process. Our aim was to ensure a direct and unmediated exchange between the researchers and the interviewees, fostering a more authentic and intimate exploration of their experiences, viewpoints, and narratives. This approach underscored our dedication to preserving the authenticity and integrity of the personal stories we sought to document, while also reinforcing the principle of narrative agency among the individuals who generously shared their experiences with us.

Furthermore, our decision to stick to Ukrainian or Russian encouraged our interlocutors to treat us more as an “in-group” and build trust. However, as “out-groups” we often had basic facts about Ukrainian history and culture explained to us, and our interviewees shared with us their historiosophical and philosophical reflections. In those situations we were treated as students by our interviewees, who played the role of teachers of Ukrainian history, culture, and society. As a result, the hierarchy became momentarily reversed.

The choice of the language of the interview was always made by interviewees, and we were obliged to respect their decision without any judgment. We prepared questionnaires, biographies, and data protection forms in both Russian and Ukrainian. Nonetheless, there was a remarkable tendency among Russian-speaking younger respondents with higher education from big cities to choose Ukrainian instead of Russian as a way to underline their pro-Ukrainian position. They explained their decision by the fact that they were svidomi ukraintsi (“conscious Ukrainians”). Some individuals refused to associate with the language of oppression, even if Russian was their first language, due to Russia’s role as an aggressor in the ongoing conflict. This stance reflected a desire to distance themselves from perceived associations with aggression and conflict.

In our pre-interview communication, our focus was on gauging the well-being and psychological state of the interviewee. We aimed to discuss the preferred language for the interview and delve into the specific course it would take. Additionally, we addressed the interviewee’s comfort level regarding certain topics, allowing them the option to omit subjects for any reason. This approach prioritized a considerate interview experience, ensuring the individual’s mental and emotional welfare was respected, while also accommodating preferences to create a more open and collaborative environment for meaningful dialogue. One example of creating a comfortable situation is discussing the preferred language and the reasons for this choice. As a result, there were situations in which the interview was conducted in Ukrainian as a second language of both the researcher and the respondent. This made the relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee less hierarchical. Ukrainian was our common choice and preferred political position. Elżbieta remembers that talking about learning Ukrainian and visiting Ukrainian-speaking cities like Lviv provided an ice-breaker before beginning an interview.

There was a risk that using Ukrainian as our default language in the first contact might discourage our interviewees from using Russian instead of Ukrainian or sharing pro-Russian views. However, they themselves often stressed that it was their own decision as the “svidomi ukraintsi” to speak Ukrainian in public. For them, the interview situation belonged to the public sphere and they treated speaking Ukrainian with us as a part of their testimony and message to the world. They reserved Russian for the private sphere, including family and close friends. They sometimes switched to Russian in emotional moments and then reverted to Ukrainian, or interjected Russian terms. Those who spoke only Russian or surzhyk were usually older or working-class Ukrainians from the eastern part of the country.

Often the mother tongue declared in the biographical form (that we filled in at the end of the interview) contrasted with the actual situation. This especially concerned the Ukrainian language being put next to Russian in the form, when the interview took place entirely in Russian. Respondents insisted that they were bilingual in Russian and Ukrainian, but in fact their Ukrainian was not as fluent as it appeared in our first contact before the interview.

Furthermore, our interlocutors were sometimes confused when they needed to indicate nationality in the form. Elżbieta always explained that they could declare a nationality different from the one in their documents or chosen by their parents. This was important for those respondents who were born in the USSR and could have had Russian nationality and USSR citizenship if that was their parents’ choice. In the Soviet Union there were two kinds of identification: citizenship and nationality. For those respondents who were born in Russia, it was important to declare a different nationality than the country of origin that is stated in their passport. Among Elżbieta’s interviewees, there were those who very much insisted on using Ukrainian during the interview.

Interestingly, among Russian speakers and others we did not encounter any respondents giving pro-Russian or pro-Kremlin views. They chose countries that were more pro-Russian than pro-Ukrainian as destinations for their refuge, such as Turkey, Georgia, Serbia, or Hungary. Russian official media often exploit the topic of Polish Russophobia. Therefore, even those who happen to stay in Poland might not be interested in sharing their story within a project whose agenda is condemnation of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Nevertheless, if we had encountered people of different worldviews than ours, we would have been obliged to keep ours to ourselves.

As noted in the introduction, the researcher’s approach to oral history interlocutors does not conclude after the interview. As David Dunaway (1992, 257) put it: “Live subjects aren’t always the last word on their own life.” In academic communication, the researcher disseminates the outcomes of their work—taking them to scientific conferences, the media, and publishing on social platforms. In this study, we are examining a group that is commonly acknowledged within Polish public discourse. The knowledge that many war refugees from Ukraine settled in Poland for varying lengths of time is widespread in Poland. Nevertheless, their accounts, derived from the testimonies gathered by us, are likely to be disseminated primarily by researchers. This brings us to another instance where the relationship between the researcher and the narrator is unequal. The researcher’s agency is evident as they manage, interpret, present, and build their academic career on the collected data. However, some decisions on how the narratives of the respondents will be presented are made after the meeting. Thus, ensuring the narrators’ agency is crucial.

As Fujii pointed out, research ethics should not be limited to procedures such as passing the stage of Institutional Review Board approval and signing a consent form by an interviewee. Instead, “ethics is an ongoing responsibility, not a discrete task to be checked off the researcher’s ‘to do’ list.” Research ethics should be embedded in every stage of the research starting from its design (Fujii 2012, 717). The initial goal of our study was to empower the narrators by providing them control over their narratives, the content they shared, and the recordings they provided to the researchers. To achieve this, we undertook a fundamental restructuring of the process of obtaining informed consent, aiming for absolute transparency in disclosing the potential uses of their contributions. It became apparent that phrases like “for academic purposes” fell short in effectively conveying the intricate ways in which oral history narratives are academically processed, as this pertains to specialized, rather than common, knowledge. Thus, our consent form incorporates explicit and comprehensive information detailing the intended uses of the recordings, encompassing research, archiving, and academic dissemination. Furthermore, our consent process extends the option for participants to grant permission for artistic, educational, and public communication purposes, each treated as distinct consents, allowing participants the freedom to decide the future applications of their recordings independently. It is crucial to underscore that these consent obligations are entirely discrete from one another, granting participants full autonomy in making informed decisions regarding the potential utilization of their recorded narratives.

To ensure that participants remain in control of their contributions, the researcher provides the interlocutors with their contact information. This provision is made to facilitate the process of withdrawal from any of the granted consents, should participants choose to do so. Importantly, withdrawal is an option available at any point in time, and participants are not obligated to provide reasons for their decision. They may initiate the withdrawal process through simple means such as email or telephone communication, thereby maintaining agency over their contributions throughout the research endeavor.

The participants were given complete autonomy to determine the guidelines for submitting their life stories. They were presented with three privacy choices: taking part in the survey under their real name; using a pseudonym for their first and last name, but without pseudonymization of other personal information (e.g., place of residence, workplace, or the names of other individuals mentioned during the interview); or opting for complete pseudonymization of all personal details. In addition, the speaker could specify the intended use of their account, which may be for scientific, exhibition, educational, or artistic purposes, as well as the intended destination for archiving. They may also include specific requests regarding the use of the recording, such as suspending the sharing of the material for a certain period or reserving the anonymization of only specific fragments. In practice, this means that an account may be accessible under the name and surname for research purposes in Poland and with partial pseudonymization for artistic purposes. Although our interviewees declared that they valued a broad range of options, in practice the majority of them (approximately two-thirds of 220 recordings) did not request any form of anonymization. This suggests that among the reasons why individuals wish to speak to a wider audience, it is often the desire to share their story with the world that drives them. This aligns with the fundamental concept of oral history, which provides a platform for those who may not have their voices heard otherwise.

An additional challenge tied to conveying the essence of our study lies in the intricate task of engaging narrators, researchers, and citizens of Ukraine in the narrative of their national history. It is presupposed that the narratives and testimonies we gather form an invaluable component of the intangible cultural heritage of their homeland and, as such, should not be viewed as the intellectual property of external entities. Yet, the utilization of these oral history accounts by academic researchers who may not directly experience the realities of war introduces yet another layer of complex power dynamics. The act of using these narratives for academic research, especially by those who lack direct personal experience of the subjects they explore, presents a nuanced challenge regarding the control and representation of these narratives. This scenario underscores the importance of addressing the inherent power imbalances that can emerge in research practices, wherein external researchers wield influence over narratives and experiences that are deeply rooted in the lives of others. To address this challenge, we must consider how to navigate these power dynamics and ensure that the voices and experiences of those intimately tied to the narrative are respectfully and ethically represented.

Therefore, we must delve into the role of the researcher as the conduit for disseminating research outcomes to the broader public. At the time of writing, a distressing history of ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine continues to unfold. This is compounded by Russia’s deliberate targeting of civilian populations, an egregious violation of international law. Simultaneously, the life experiences and perspectives of our witnesses have dynamically evolved over months since we interviewed them. The initial narratives we captured primarily revolved around individuals who fled their homes in the early stages of Russian aggression, some even in its earliest days. As time passed, the central offensive in Ukraine subsided, leading a few of these individuals to return to their homeland. In contrast, subsequent accounts reflect life in an environment marked by persistent conflict over many months or the experiences of individuals who have resided in Poland for an extended duration.

If we were to present the initial findings of our study at academic conferences, they would quickly become outdated, as the ongoing situation in Ukraine is fluid and ever-changing. What might have seemed valid and representative of the broader context in 2022 could be disproven by the new information we gather in 2023. Consequently, our approach to academic communication has not focused primarily on presenting specific research findings. Instead, we have allocated substantial discussion to the intricacies of research methodology and ethical considerations within the framework of crisis situations.

To address this challenge, a methodology in harmony with the ethical standards of oral history has been employed. It involves a collaborative approach with the interviewees to present their narratives, emphasizing their agency and giving them a great degree of control over how their stories are conveyed and to whom. This approach, often referred to as research partnership or multi-stakeholder research (Numans, Van Regenmortel, and Schalk 2019; Hoekstra et al. 2018), places a significant emphasis on the narrators’ participation and empowerment. It aligns seamlessly with ethical principles and strives to establish equity in the research process. As Hoekstra et al. (2018, 2) aptly term it, this process represents “knowledge translation,” wherein we aim to gain a deeper understanding of the source material and effectively communicate its meaning to various audiences, encompassing academic communities, policymakers, and society at large. This method ensures that the voices of the narrators remain a central and ethical component of our research dissemination, providing a dynamic and responsive approach to the evolving circumstances of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The core of our considerations draws inspiration from Alessandro Portelli’s (1991) perspective on oral history, viewing it as a collaborative endeavor in knowledge production that unfolds between the narrator and the researcher. We wanted to showcase the principles of equality, particularly those relating to the agency of the respondents, ought to permeate every facet of the research process. This extends from the initial point of contact, through the evolving rapport established during interviews, right up to the ultimate presentation of research findings. It is imperative, however, to acknowledge that these endeavors will remain futile unless the research apparatus incorporates both ethical and methodological dimensions, underpinned by the conscious efforts of researchers to establish equilibrium in these relationships.

It has been more than three years since the beginning of our plans to record war testimonies. What has undoubtedly worked well for our project is the phrase “informal ethics” discussed in the text. During three years of war, the situation of Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian refugees in Poland, has changed. We no longer meet people in temporary places of residence, and there are now discussions about inclusivity in schools. If it were not for ongoing reflection on the situation, we would not have been able to work for so long. Gender restrictions have certainly not changed over that time.

In this context, we unreservedly position ourselves in relation to the individuals with whom we engage in our research project. Specifically, we hold the convictions that (a) these individuals are in a vulnerable position, and (b) as denizens of Ukraine, their historical narratives within the Polish historical narrative call for greater empowerment and decolonization. Furthermore, our team has embraced a framework of supervision that serves a dual purpose. It functions as a sanctuary for emotional respite, providing our researchers with a secure space for reflecting on the emotional challenges that may arise in the course of their research. Additionally, it nurtures an ongoing dialogue centered around matters of research ethics, methodology, and the practical difficulties that researchers encounter.

This mechanism enables us to consistently refine our research practice and navigate the ethical intricacies inherent in our study. Simultaneously, it is important to underscore that our study operates within an evolving context. Thus, our ethical procedures are inherently dynamic. We have opted to apply a set of ethical principles that remain adaptable as the situation continues to unfold. This malleability allows us to align our research practices and ethical conduct with the ever-shifting landscape of the research environment.

This article is published as a result of the project “24.02.2022, 5 a.m.: Testimonies from the War” supported by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Center for Urban History in Lviv, Foundation for Polish Science, Mieroszewski Center, House of European History, Polish Oral History Association, House of European History, University of St Andrews, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History.

Published online: April 03, 2025