Shadow Infrastructures of Care and Resistance

Higher Seminar in Media and Communication Studies with Ekaterina Kalinina from Stockholm University and Södertörn University

Welcome to the next higher seminar organised by the Media and Communication Studies department!
In this higher seminar, Ekaterina Kalinina will present on the topic: ‘Shadow Infrastructures of Care and Resistance: Communicative aspects of activism in Wartime Russia in 2022-2025.’

This seminar talk will shed light on the evolving forms of civic activism in Russia in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, focusing on the communicative and logistical infrastructures that enable these practices. Drawing on several dozens of qualitative interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025 with self-identified activists and volunteers operating in major Russian cities (more than 1 million inhabitants), the research traces how politically sensitive activism, including assistance to Ukrainian refugees, emerged in an increasingly repressive environment.

Post-2022 Russia presents a paradox: while digital infrastructures for e-commerce and lifestyle content remain robust, the state has aggressively criminalised political expression online, blocked global platforms, and ramped up surveillance of communications. As physical public spaces for dissent have become unavailable and open protest criminalised, the internet remains one of the few remaining arenas for coordination, albeit under constant risk and the threat of complete shut down. In this context, humanitarian relief and urban activism although framed by participants as “apolitical” (Bronnikova 2025) frequently operates as silent dissent (Meyer Olimpieva 2025), leveraging informal networks, encrypted messaging platforms, and peer-to-peer aid structures.

Methodologically, this study uses thematic analysis of face-to-face interviews with urban activists who at the beginning of the full-scale invasion were involved in refugee relief and support to the political deteinees either in Russia or while they temporarily left the country. The interviews reveal the importance of communicative ecologies, i.e. blending traditional technologies like landlines and face-to-face networks with tools such as Telegram, Notion, and OVD-Info bot. The study also analyses how domestic spaces (e.g., kitchens, apartments) become key sites of logistical coordination, while activists with previous communication and management skills become the main nodes in the activist communication ecologies, no matter what type of activism or profession they were involved prior to the war. These findings reflect the hybrid nature of civic action in authoritarian contexts, where physical and digital infrastructures are precariously intertwined and rapidly adapted in response to shifting conditions. The study also highlights the transborder dimensions of war-time activism: Ukrainian refugees were moved from occupied zones to Europe via Russia, relying on detailed, often informal knowledge of border regimes. Meanwhile, displaced Russians reconstructed activist networks abroad through diasporic ties, relying heavily on trust, affect, and improvisation, forming what in this study is called shadow infrastructures of care, held together not by hierarchy, but by emotional investment and interpersonal credibility.

By focusing on the intersection of repression, infrastructural fragility, and everyday resistance, this study contributes to broader conversations about civil society under authoritarianism, and the transformation of activist practices in the digital age. It challenges the assumption that repression extinguishes activism in Russia, showing instead how civic engagement mutates under pressure taking on new forms to survive in the times of crisis.

Ekaterina Kalinina, Associate Professor in Media and Communication, Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University / Project researcher at Department of Media and Communication, Södertörn University.  Ekaterina's research is focused on the questions of memory and nostalgia, youth and urban activism in Russia. Ekaterina is a PI of research project Sustainable Urban Development: networks, communication and agency, financed by the Baltic Sea Foundation at Södertörn University. She is also an Analyst at the project European Expert Talks on Russia at Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, SCEEUS at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs.

It is possible to join the lecture on campus and online via Zoom. Contact us for the Zoom details if you'd like to join online.