Experiencing liminality as unattainable embodied concern: Practice engagement of displaced Ukrainians

At the time of writing, the war in Ukraine is entering its fourth year. So far, more than six million Ukrainian refugees have sought shelter in the European Union. In this paper, we study the experiences of liminality among the displaced Ukrainian community in Finland. This paper addresses the question: How do Ukrainian refugees seek to organize and make sense of their situation? Using a practice-based phenomenological approach, we identify three practices: integrating into Finnish society; gaining financial independence; and resisting separation from their former lives in Ukraine. Based on these findings, we offer two contributions to understanding liminality: first, that it emerges through a collapse of practical intelligibility; and second, that it becomes an unattainable embodied concern and a site of struggle. Our study re-theorizes liminality not as a fixed feature of certain contexts or boundaries, but as an ongoing process and lived experience.