Kateryna Ihnatenko

Kateryna Ihnatenko, PhD in Social Sciences, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University (Poltava, Ukraine). From 2023 to 2025, she was an MSCA4Ukraine Fellow at Ilia State University in Georgia, where she investigated effective pathways to reach Ukrainian refugees with disabilities. She has collaborated with French research initiatives, including the ANR-funded EXILEST project and War in Ukraine: Experiences, Narratives, Resonances in Isère. Her work combines academic research with practical experience in designing and evaluating humanitarian and social protection interventions for vulnerable populations affected by war and displacement.

The project

Title: Civic Engagement of Ukrainian Women among Forced Migrations: Mapping Trajectories and Social Relations.

"This project explores the civic engagement, community-building, and transnational practices of Ukrainian women displaced by Russia's full-scale invasion and currently living in France. It examines how forced migration reshapes social relations, political participation, and access to humanitarian and public services while highlighting gendered experiences of displacement. The study investigates how Ukrainian refugee women build solidarity, negotiate belonging, and maintain transnational ties with Ukraine through civic activism and everyday practices. Particular attention is given to the role of intangible cultural heritage in fostering resilience, identity, and collective action within refugee communities and in interactions with host societies and other post-Soviet migrant groups. By positioning displaced women as active social and political actors rather than passive recipients of aid, the project contributes to scholarship on forced migration, gender, transnationalism, and refugee integration while generating evidence to inform more inclusive policies and community-based support initiatives."

Hosting institution: unité de recherche Plurielles de l’université Bordeaux-Montaigne

Selective Bibliography

• Ihnatenko Kateryna, Sadzaglishvili Shorena, "Pragmatic analysis of the problems of Ukrainian refugees using the visual research method: Photovoice", Arguments of modern philology: "Ethics of care" (Proceedings of the 5th International Scientific Conference, April 2–3, 2025, Kharkiv), Kharkiv: H.S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, p. 102-111 
• Ihnatenko Kateryna, "Photovoice as a participatory method in working with Ukrainian refugees", First International Scientific-Practical Conference "Social Work in Wartime Ukraine: Problems and Solutions", Mariupol State Technical University, Ukraine, 2025
• Ihnatenko Kateryna, Sadzaglishvili Shorena, "Barriers to Social Service Access for Ukrainian Refugees with Disabilities in Georgia: Outreach and Communication", Social Sciences, 14(2), 95, 2025