Émotions, liens affectifs et pratiques de soin en contexte de conflit armé. Les ressorts de l’engagement des femmes bénévoles dans l’assistance aux blessés militaires du Donbass

The sociology of commitment and the sociology of care, as well as ethnographic research methods, are combined to draw from the fieldwork accomplished at the military hospital in Kharkiv with volunteers of the association Sister of Mercy ATO/Kharkiv. Why have Ukrainian women, at the rear of the armed conflict in Donbas, volunteered to care for wounded or sick soldiers? Their commitment to volunteering has arisen out of the encounter between everyday emotional, affective and sentimental experiences and their sociological and biographical characteristics. Thanks to a particular attention paid to practices of their profane caregiving, light is also shed on the ties created among the care-givers themselves and, too, between them and hospitalized soldiers. The affective intensity of this experience (which extends to circles of sociability, love, family life and volunteer activities) makes it hard for these women to imagine being demobilized as long as the conflict continues, despite the occupational and financial ?marginalization? to which their commitment exposes them.