‘More Than Sufferers’: Digital Boundary‑Making and Belonging Through Work Among Ukrainian Forced Migrants in Finland

Following Russia’s initiation of full‑scale war against Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainian forced migrants in the EU, including Finland, were granted immediate access to the labor market under the Temporary Protection mechanism. This paper examines what online discussions within the Ukrainian community in Finland reveal about their adaptation strategies. Specifically, it explores how work is instrumentalized in Ukrainians’ adaptation process, how they negotiate conditions for belonging, and how they simultaneously engage in boundary‑making. Drawing on discussions in one of the largest Facebook groups of Ukrainians in Finland, and using the concept of community of value, the findings reveal that Ukrainian migrants use work to establish a sense of belonging in Finnish society and, in doing so, create symbolic boundaries within their own community. In this context, belonging is framed through a deservingness lens, and they construct work as means of asserting worthiness and dignity.