Department of Anthropology

I have been conducting anthropological research in Ukraine since 1995. My broad research interests have been to track the variable effects of socialist collapse on people’s lives, especially in terms of gender formations, health, social inequalities and social justice, and changing citizen-state relations. Areas of major inquiry have included the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster on health and healing strategies, the symbolic fallout of Chernobyl, the role of women in Ukraine’s civil society, the Ukrainian disability rights movement, and service provision for people who use drugs and people living with HIV in Ukraine, especially women.

I am currently exploring several major research areas:

1. Disability and inclusion in Ukraine during Russia’s war. I’ve researched the experiences of people with disabilities still living in Ukraine, and those who fled Ukraine as war refugees. Ukrainian anthropologist Hanna Zaremba-Kosovych and I have collaborated on a study of inclusive cultural practices (theater, art, music) during wartime in Ukraine.

2. The history of the disability rights movement in Ukraine. Working with Hanna Zaremba-Kosovych a current focus is documenting the movement of the rights for people with intellectual disabilities in Ukraine from the 1980s to present.

3. New research will focus on how Ukrainian war refugees with disabilities living in EU countries experience medical and social services.

4. The resonance of Kurt Vonnegut’s writing in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and early 1980s. I am working on a book tentatively titled Kurt Vonnegut in the USSR.

I describe the Kurt Vonnegut in the USSR project in this interview (https://thedailyvonnegut.com/vonnegut-as-cultural-guide-kurt-vonnegut-in-the-soviet-union-an-interview-with-sarah-d-phillips/) , which links to my October 2020 lecture on YouTube, “American Literary and Cultural Diplomacy during the Cold War: Kurt Vonnegut in the Soviet Union” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM9CgNTgIB8).

UT Austin CREEES’s Slavic Connexion podcast
The Pivoting Anthropologist: From Chernobyl to Social Activism to Kurt Vonnegut to... with Sarah Phillips

2024 H. Zaremba-Kosovych, V. Verbilovich, S.D. Phillips and J. Hemment, “Disability studies in war and care: How to do work otherwise? A conversation between anthropology-and-disability-studies scholars in relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” Feminist Anthropology, 14 March, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1002/fea2.12138

2023 S.D. Phillips and T. Martsenyuk, “Women’s agency and resistance in Russia’s war on Ukraine: From victim of the war to prominent force.” Women’s Studies International Forum 98 (May-June 2023).

2023 S.D. Phillips, T. Herasymova, and U. Pcholkina, “Women with disabilities, and communities of care in wartime Ukraine: Conversations with disability and women’s rights activists about feminist and disability solidarities.” Women’s Studies International Forum 98 (May-June 2023).

2023 J. Owczarzak, S.D. Phillips, A. Allen, P. Alpatova, T. Zub, A. Mazhnaya, and O. Filippova, “Moral Economies of Care and Women Who Use Drugs in Ukraine.” Contemporary Drug Problems, Vol. 1-21.

2021 J. Owczarzak, A. Kazi, A. Mazhnaya, P. Alpatova, T. Zub, O. Filippova, and S.D. Phillips, “You’re nobody without a piece of paper:” Visibility, the state, and access to services among women who use drugs in Ukraine. Social Science & Medicine 269:1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113563

2020 Tamara Martsenyuk and Sarah D. Phillips, “Talking About Sexual Violence in Post-Maidan Ukraine: Analysis of the Online Campaign #IAmNotAfriadToSayIt.” Sexuality & Culture, First Online: 02 January 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-019-09694-4

2018 Jill Owczarzak, Sarah D. Phillips, and Woo Jeong Cho, “ ‘Pure’ Drug Users, Commercial Sex Workers, and ‘Ordinary Girls’: Gendered Narratives of HIV Risk and Prevention in Post-Soviet Ukraine.” Culture, Health & Sexuality 20(11): 1171-1184. DOI: 10.1080/13691058.2017.1421708

2017 Sarah D. Phillips and Jill Owczarzak, “HIV prevention, precarity, and fragmented landscapes of service provision in Ukraine.” Medical Anthropology Theory 4(2). http://www.medanthrotheory.org/article/view/4717/6496

2016 Owczarzak, J., S.D. Phillips, O. Filippova, P. Alpatova, A. Mazhnaya, T. Zub, and R. Aleksanyan. “A ‘Common Factors’ Approach to Developing Culturally Tailored HIV Prevention Interventions.” Health Education & Behavior 43(3): 347-357. DOI: 10.1177/1090198115602665.

2015 Jill Owczarzak, Mikhail Karelin, and Sarah D. Phillips, “A View from the Frontlines in Slavyansk, Ukraine: HIV Prevention, Drug Treatment, and Help for People Who Use Drugs in a Conflict Zone.” International Journal of Drug Policy 26(1). http://www.ijdp.org/article/S0955-3959%2814%2900333-8/abstract

2014 “The Women’s Squad in Ukraine’s protests: Feminism, nationalism, and militarism on the Maidan” American Ethnologist 41(3): 414-426. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/amet.12093/abstract

2009 “‘There Are No Invalids in the USSR!’ A Missing Soviet Chapter in the New Disability History.” Disability Studies Quarterly 29(3). http://www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/936/1111