Abstract
This article provides an anthropologically inspired analysis of the Maidan protest movement in Ukraine. We argue that the uprisings involved all essential features of liminality: a dramatic situation marked by volatility, ambivalence, and potentiality that led to the embryonic formation of a communitas. The article describes how protesters met and mobilized on Independence Square in ritualized action, and how these forms of action served to frame the meaningfulness of the events. Engaging this social drama as a “liminal hotspot,” we discuss how subjectivity and affectivity must be analysed jointly as part of the same political-ritual process.
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