Scholar in Residence 2026

ERSTE Foundation - Winter 2025 1 – 28 February 2026

Humphrey’s intended project during his residency, entitled ‘A Day in the Life of War: Narratives of Everyday Life in Wartime Ukraine’, aims to explore the everyday experiences of non-combatant Ukrainians throughout the war, including how they navigate work or study commitments, the coping practices they may employ, and how they endeavour to cultivate their well-being during this time.

The project aims to compile a series of narratives from the lives of ordinary Ukrainians on a typical day during wartime. Through interviews with a broad cross-section of Ukrainians, the work seeks to reveal the ways in which the war has affected their day-to-day behaviours, social habits, and patterns of thinking. It also explores the coping practices people have employed and the ways in which they have sought to cultivate their well-being over time. Above all, the project seeks to humanise the lived experiences of people living through the war.

Ashley Humphrey

Ashley Humphrey works as a lecturer in the Social Sciences at Monash University, Australia, where he earlier completed his PhD in Psychology. His work over the past few years has focused extensively on the impacts the war in Ukraine has had on people’s lives, and in particular the toll it has taken on the mental health and wellbeing of young Ukrainians. He has also completed research looking at the significant challenges young people living in other states affected by the threat of Russian aggression face, including those living in the separatist region of Transnistria, located in eastern Moldova, as well as in Georgia. This is work that he is compiling into a book manuscript.