Digital Technologies, Disrupted Parenthood, and Ethical Challenges: Methodological Reflections from Research with Ukrainian Refugee Mothers in Bulgaria
Digital Technologies, Disrupted Parenthood, and Ethical Challenges: Methodological Reflections from Research with Ukrainian Refugee Mothers in Bulgaria

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the methodological and ethical challenges of researching parenthood in contexts of war, forced mobility, and digital mediation, drawing on material from an online study with Ukrainian mothers displaced to Bulgaria after February 2022. The text advances the argument that digital connectivity does not merely maintain family relations at a distance, but produces specific forms of proximity and tension that transform both the practice and study of parenthood. The analytical focus is placed on the ethics of proximity, emotional labour, and the limits of access to intimate digital spaces, as well as on uneven rhythms of communication, periods of silence, and interruptions as social and emotional phenomena. The discussion draws on five semi-structured online interviews conducted with Ukrainian refugee mothers residing in Bulgaria in 2025 and reflects on the opportunities and limitations of digitally mediated qualitative research. The article contributes to ongoing methodological debates on researching transnational family life in situations of war and forced displacement by foregrounding the ethical significance of absence, silence, and participants’ moral boundaries.

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