1. Introduction

Drawing on Dirk Nabers’s 2015 book on crisis and change, this edited volume is built on the key assumption that any social inquiry into global politics should transcend the canonical emphasis on intergovernmental relations with the privileged agency conferred to the role of states. Following a not so recent trend in social theory, we conceptualize the social realm as a discursive space of infinite, endless articulations in which power attempts to transform social relations in an open process to constitute society. We turn our lenses to Ukraine (which has been elsewhere described as a classic crisis) in order to engage with some of the assumptions prescribed above: What is the relationship between crisis and change? Is there an ontology of crisis? How are crises culturally and socially constructed? How do issues of agency and structure come into play in Ukraine? Which subjectivities were brought into existence by the Ukraine crisis discourse? How does identity come to play with the making of this crisis? This introductory chapter explains the rationale behind the book and summarizes the arguments behind the chapters that make this edited volume.