The Volunteer Body Collectors of Ukraine

The chapter follows the Black Tulips, a group of volunteer body collectors, noting the group's strict neutrality that enabled them to operationalize everyday peace with the separatists face-to-face. Body collection was only half the equation, while the other half was supplying life-saving medicines for children by smuggling insulin into the noncontrolled territory in the very same trucks bringing bodies out. The chapter describes the flow of insulin to, and bodies from, the separatist-controlled territories, which illuminates the dialectic between violent conflict and ethics of care. The chapter considers the Black Tulips' work and argues they exemplify the recalibration of personal values and priorities that was occurring as a result of war. It emphasizes how adversity in combination with the state's inattention to people elicited ethically motivated caring.