Да живееш нормално: бележки върху революцията, колективността и социалното различаване в Украйна
To Live a Normal Life: Notes On Revolution, Collectivity, and Social Distinction in Ukraine

Summary/Abstract: On December 12, 2013, Liza Shaposhnik, a volunteer at Kyiv’s EuroMaidan, was interviewed by Radio Svoboda. “I came to Maidan to stand up for my rights”, she said. “The European Union is, for us, a chance to live well, to have a normal life”.On December 12, 2013, Liza Shaposhnik, a volunteer at Kyiv’s EuroMaidan, was interviewed by Radio Svoboda. “I came to Maidan to stand up for my rights”, she said. “The European Union is, for us, a chance to live well, to have a normal life”.This phrase, ‘to have a normal life’, was often invoked by EuroMaidan activists as they elaborated for me the broad goals they held for themselves and their country. This conscious push away from Soviet social paradigms towards a national community that embraces European values (and the ‘normal life’ these values are believed to engender) was a central tenet of the ‘declaration of dignity’ that the EuroMaidan protests embodied. During the protests, I was in Ukraine conducting research on the use of methadone maintenance therapy for chronic opiate users. In interviews with methadone patients, most of whom called themselves ‘addicts’, many portrayed their motivations for starting treatment in similar terms: they want to live like normal people. By comparing the social inclusion of Liza to the social exclusion of drug users at EuroMaidan, this is paper explores the discursive enactment of ‘dignity’ in Ukraine. By considering how and why some Ukrainians are integrated and afforded meaningful personhood in the Maidan, while others are de-humanized, stripped of subjectivity, and excluded from the new society that EuroMaidan represented, it follows these acts of boundary maintenance down to their ideological foundation, suggesting that the praxis of dignity post-Maidan Ukraine is not only a rejection of state corruption and violence, but also a potent form of bio-power, a social reckoning and policing of individuals’ inner psychological states.

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