Conflits et apprentissages militants: le mouvement pro-ukrainien en France face à la guerre (2014–2024)

Abstract. In contrast to work on the acquisition of skills within organizations (political parties, trade unions, NGOs), this article examines the ways in which knowledge and know-how are constructed outside militant structures, during political and military critical junctures, as those experienced by Ukraine since 2013. The article is based on two field studies conducted in 2017–2020 and 2023–2024 among immigrants and descendants of Ukrainian immigrants living in France and involved to varying degrees in the so-called “pro-Ukrainian” movement, i.e. the movement in support of Ukraine's territorial integrity during the “first” (2014–2022) and “second” (since 2022) Russian-Ukrainian conflicts. I show that the critical juncture of 2013–2014 was a time of primo engagement for many Ukrainian immigrants, who developed not only know-how in the field of political and humanitarian action, but also interpersonal skills, such as the performance of an anti-colonial Ukrainian identity. These new skills have little value outside of the militant field, but they were remobilized at the time of the large-scale invasion in February 2022. These results add value to recent work on the spatiality of mobilization (which focuses mainly on local spaces and the role of physical co-presence) by showing that politicization and the acquisition of know-how take place in a reticular and transnational “conflict space”, made up of a series of places, sometimes far from the territory in conflict.