SOCIOCULTURAL DETERMINANTS OF THE VETERAN SPACE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF REINTEGRATION INTO SOCIAL LIFE: A HISTORICAL–PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The article presents a comprehensive theoretical and methodological analysis of the phenomenon of the veteran space as a multidimensional sociocultural instrument for the reintegration of veterans into civilian life. It elucidates the psychological, social, cultural, and communicative dimensions of service members’ return to peaceful environments and emphasizes the importance of an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to conceptualizing this phenomenon. Particular attention is devoted to levels of social inclusion, the quality of interpersonal connections, the intensity of communication, and the degree of restoration of veterans’ personal and social status. The study substantiates the significance of meaning-making, identification, and communicative aspects in the process of veterans’ transition back to civilian life (V. Frankl), highlighting the role of a safe environment that enables the restoration of agency, the re-interpretation of combat experience, and the transformation of traumatic memories into constructive life narratives. In this context, the veteran space is conceptualized as an environment capable of providing conditions for dialogue, solidarity, and shared experience, thereby reducing social isolation and restoring a sense of belonging. The article further reveals the interrelation between the formation of collective memory (as conceptualized by M. Halbwachs) and the processes of veterans’ social integration in contemporary Ukrainian society, where memory functions not only as a historical-cultural resource but also as a mechanism supporting shared identity. The integration of É. Durkheim’s concept of collective representations with J. Habermas’s theory of communicative action makes it possible to construct a holistic theoretical model for analyzing the veteran space as a moral-communicative environment of social integration, in which normative, cultural, and discursive mechanisms of interaction are combined. The presented historical-philosophical discourse has been developed within the framework of the research project of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine No. 0126U001008, “Choreotherapeutic Interventions as an Instrument for the Reintegration of Veterans and Their Families into Social Life,” which underscores the practical orientation and contemporary relevance of the conducted study