Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-wxhwt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T16:16:06.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Curse of Displacement: Local Narratives of Forced Expulsion and the Appropriation of Abandoned Property in Abkhazia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2020

Andrea Peinhopf Open the ORCID record for Andrea Peinhopf [Opens in a new window]
Andrea Peinhopf*
Affiliation:
School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
*
*Corresponding author. Email: andrea.peinhopf.14@ucl.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since the end of the Georgian-Abkhaz war, the often-precarious status of the Georgians displaced from Abkhazia has received significant academic attention. In contrast, the consequences of displacement from the reverse perspective—how it has affected the people who stayed behind—remains underanalyzed. Drawing on narratives collected during several months of ethnographic fieldwork, this article argues that although ethnic Abkhazians see themselves as victims of ethnic violence rather than perpetrators, the re-distribution of Georgian property nevertheless caused significant distress. Many condemned the practice of appropriation, suggesting that taking what is not one’s own is not only a violation of the property of the original owner, but also of the Abkhaz moral code and therefore shameful. To them, the trophy houses were a curse, both literally—as spaces haunted by former occupants—and metaphorically, as a source and reminder of a certain “moral corruption” within Abkhazian society. However, while the stories around the trophy houses reflect substantial intra-communal divisions, I suggest that they are also an expression of a shared postwar experience. Like the horror stories of Georgian violence, and the tales of Abkhaz heroism, they have become part of an intimate national repertoire constitutive of Abkhazia’s postwar community.

Keywords

forced displacementethnic cleansingnarrativesvictimhoodAbkhazia
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 49 , Issue 4: Special Issue on 1918 and the Ambiguities of “Old-New Europe” , July 2021 , pp. 710 - 727
Check for updates
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amnesty International. 2010. In the Waiting Room: Internally Displaced People in Georgia. London: Amnesty International Publications.Google Scholar
Bandura, Albert. 1999. “Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 3 (3): 193–209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bar-Siman-Tov, Yacoov. 2014. Justice and Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Tal, Daniel. 2000. “From Intractable Conflict Through Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation: Psychological Analysis.” Political Psychology 21 (2): 351–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Tal, Daniel. 2013. Intractable Conflicts: Socio-Psychological Foundations and Dynamics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Tal, Daniel, and Salomon, Gavriel. 2006. “Israeli-Jewish Arratives of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Evolution, Contents, Functions, and Consequences.” In Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History’s Double Helix, edited by Rotberg, Robert I., 19–46. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Benet, Sula. 1974. Abkhasians: The Long-Living People of the Caucasus. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Berg, Eiki, and Mölder, Martin. 2012. “Who Is Entitled to ‘Earn Sovereignty?’ Legitimacy and Regime Support in Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabagh.” Nations and Nationalism 18 (3): 527–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blakkisrud, Helge, and Kolstø, Pål. 2012. “Dynamics of de Facto Statehood: The South Caucasian de Facto States between Secession and Sovereignty.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 12 (2): 281–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blauvelt, Timothy. 2007. “Abkhazia: Patronage and Power in the Stalin Era.” Nationalities Papers 35 (2): 203–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Branscombe, Nyla R., and Miron, Anca M.. 2004. “Interpreting the Ingroup’s Negative Actions Toward Another Group: Emotional Reactions to Appraised Harm.” In The Social Life of Emotion, edited by Tiedens, L. Z. and Leach, C. W., 314-335. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broers, Laurence. 2012. “‘Two Sons of One Mother’: Nested Identities and Centre-Periphery Politics in Post-Soviet Georgia.” In When the Elephant Broke Out of the Zoo: A Festschrift for Donald Rayfield, edited by Schönle, Andreas, 234–67. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2004. Ethnicity Without Groups. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bryant, Rebecca. 2010. The Past in Pieces: Belonging in the New Cyprus. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryant, Rebecca. 2014. “History’s Remainders: On Time and Objects after Conflict in Cyprus.” American Ethnologist 41 (4): 681–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carsten, Janet, and Hugh-Jones, Stephens. 1995. “Introduction.” In About the House: Lévi-Strauss and Beyond, edited by Carsten, Janet and Hugh-Jones, Stephens, 1–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Circassianworld. 2008. The Georgian Commander-in-Chief on TV Threatens the Abkhazian Nation with Genocide. Web video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzvtaZIMy98 (accessed August 22,2019).Google Scholar
Clogg, Rachel. 2008. “The Politics of Identity in Post-Soviet Abkhazia: Managing Diversity and Unresolved Conflict.” Nationalities Papers 36 (2): 305–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Stanley. 2001. States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Coleman, Peter T. 2014. “Intractable Conflict.” In The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, 3rd ed., edited by Coleman, Peter T., Deutsch, Morton, and Marcus, Eric C., 708–44. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Coppieters, Bruno. 2002. “In Defence of the Homeland: Intellectuals and the Georgian-Abkhazian Conflict.” In Secession, History and the Social Sciences, edited by Coppieters, Bruno and Huysseune, Michel, 89–116. Brussels: VUB Brussels University Press.Google Scholar
Coppieters, Bruno. 2004. “Chapter 5: The Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict.” In Europeanization and Conflict Resolution, edited by Coppieters, Bruno, 191–233. Gent: Academia Press.Google Scholar
Cortazzi, Martin. 2001. “Narrative Analysis in Ethnography.” In Handbook of Ethnography, edited by Atkinson, Paul, Coffey, Amanda, Delamont, Sara, Lofland, John, and Lofland, Lyn, 384–94. London: SAGE Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dale, Catherine. 1997. “The Dynamics and Challenges of Ethnic Cleansing: The Georgia-Abkhazia Case.” Refugee Survey Quarterly 16 (3): 77–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dbar, Sima A. 2000. Obychai i Obriady Detskogo Tsikla u Abkhazov [Customs and Rituals of the Children’s Cycle among the Abkhaz]. Sukhum: Alashara.Google Scholar
Garb, Paula. 1995. “The Return of Refugees Viewed through the Prism of Blood Revenge.” The Anthropology of East Europe Review 13 (2): 41–44.Google Scholar
Glebovski, Dmitri. 2019. “Abkhazia: ‘War Trophy’ Apartments – Will They Be Returned to Their Owners?” JAMnews, August 5, 2019. https://jam-news.net/abkhazia-war-trophy-apartments-will-they-be-returned-to-their-owners/ (accessed August 23, 2019).Google Scholar
Grono, Magdalena Frichova. 2011. Displacement in Georgia: IDP Attitudes to Conflict, Return and Justice. London: Conciliation Resources.Google Scholar
Gubrium, Jaber F., and Holstein, James A.. 2008. “Narrative Ethnography.” In Handbook of Emergent Methods, edited by Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy and Leavy, Patricia, 241–64. New York: The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, Michel. 2005. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hewitt, George. 2013. Discordant Neighbours: A Reassessment of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian Conflicts. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HRW. 1995. Georgia/Abkhazia: Violations of the Laws of War and Russia’s Role in the Conflict. Helsinki: Human Rights Watch Arms Project/Human Rights Watch.Google Scholar
ICG. 2007. Abkhazia: Ways Forward. Europe Report No. 179. Brussels: International Crisis Group.Google Scholar
Inal-Ipa, Shalva. 1960. Abkhazy: Istoriko-Etnograficheskiye Ocherki [Abkhazians: Historical-Ethnographic Essays]. Sukhumi: Abgosizdat.Google Scholar
Inal-Ipa, Shalva. 2010. Abkhazian Etiquette. Sukhum: Abkhazian State University.Google Scholar
Iskander, Fazil. 1983. Sandro of Chegem. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Kabachnik, Peter. 2012. “Wounds That Won’t Heal: Cartographic Anxieties and the Quest for Territorial Integrity in Georgia.” Central Asian Survey 31 (January 2015): 45–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kabachnik, Peter, Regulska, Joanna, and Mitchneck, Beth. 2010. “Where and When Is Home? The Double Displacement of Georgian IDPs from Abkhazia.” Journal of Refugee Studies 23 (3): 315–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kabachnik, Peter, Regulska, Joanna, and Mitchneck, Beth. 2012. “Displacing Blame: Georgian Internally Displaced Person Perspectives of the Georgia–Abkhazia Conflict.” Ethnopolitics 11 (2): 123–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaiser, Robert. 1994. The Geography of Nationalism in the USSR. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kaufman, Stuart J. 2001. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemoklidze, Nino. 2016. “Georgian-Abkhaz Relations in the Post-Stalin Era.” In Georgia After Stalin, edited by Blauvelt, Timothy K. and Smith, Jeremy, 129–45. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lakoba, Stanislav. 1999. “History: 18th Century-1917.” In The Abkhazians: A Handbook, edited by Hewitt, George, 67–88. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Lundgren, Minna. 2015. “Crossing the Border – An Intergenerational Study of Belonging and Temporary Return among IDPs from Abkhazia.” In Security, Democracy and Development in the Southern Caucasus and the Black Sea Region, edited by Nodia, Ghia and Steefes, Christoph H., 229–48. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Malkki, Liisa H. 1995. Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Navaro-Yashin, Yael. 2012. The Make-Believe Space: Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noor, Masi, Shnabel, Nurit, Halabi, Samer, and Nadler, Arie. 2012. “When Suffering Begets Suffering: The Psychology of Competitive Victimhood Between Adversarial Groups in Violent Conflicts.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 16 (4): 351–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pelkmans, Mathijs. 2013. “Outline for an Ethnography of Doubt.” In Ethnographies of Doubt: Faith and Uncertainty in Contemporary Societies, edited by Pelkmans, Mathijs. London: I.B Tauris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. 2015a. “The Political Economy of a de Facto State: The Importance of Local Stakeholders in the Case of Abkhazia.” Caucasus Survey 3 (3): 291–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prelz Oltramonti, Giulia. 2015b. “War Economies and Protracted Conflicts: The Cases of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.” In Security, Democracy and Development in the Southern Caucasus and the Black Sea Region, edited by Nodia, Ghia and Steefes, Christoph H., 205–27. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Ries, Nancy. 1997. Russian Talk: Culture and Conversation during Perestroika. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Schatz, Edward. 2009. “Introduction: Ethnographic Immersion and the Study of Politics.” In Politcal Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power, edited by Schatz, Edward, 1–22. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shesterinina, Anastasia. 2014. “Mobilization in Civil War: Latent Norms, Social Relations, and Inter-Group Violence in Abkhazia.” PhD diss., York University.Google Scholar
Shnirelman, Victor. 2001. The Value of the Past: Myths, Identity and Politics in Transcaucasia. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.Google Scholar
Straus, Scott. 2006. The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, and Turner, John C.. 1986. “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behaviour.” In Psychology of Intergroup Relations, edited by Austin, William G. and Worchel, Stephen, 7–24. Chicago: Nelson Hall.Google Scholar
Tarba, Sima Z. 2008. “Magiia i Magicheskie Obriady Abkhazov [Magic and Magical Rituals of the Abkhaz].” Acadamy of Science of Abkhazia, D. Gulia Institute for Research and the Study of Humanities.Google Scholar
Ther, Philipp. 2012. “Ethnic Cleansing.” In The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History, edited by Stone, Dan, 1–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Toal, Gerard, and Dahlman, Carl T.. 2011. Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and Its Reversal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toal, Gerard, and Grono, Magdalena Frichova. 2011. “After Ethnic Violence in the Caucasus: Attitudes of Local Abkhazians and Displaced Georgians in 2010.” Eurasian Geography and Economics 52 (5): 655–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toria, Malkhaz, Pirtskhalava, Nino, Kekelia, Elene, and Ladaria, Konstantine. 2019. “Trapped in the Past: Memories of Georgian Internally Displaced Persons on the Margins of Society.” Nationalities Papers 47 (3): 429–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trier, Tom, Lohm, Hedvig, and Szakonyi, David. 2010. Under Siege: Inter-Ethnic Relations in Abkhazia. London: Hurst & Company.Google Scholar
United Nations. 1993. Report of the Secretary-General’s Fact-Finding Mission to Investigate Human Rights Violations in Abkhazia, Republic of Georgia. S/26795.Google Scholar
Vakhtang, . 2017. Mistika v Trofeinom Dome [Supernatural Phenomena in the Trophy House]. Web video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drfPpmy4jI (accessed 23 August,2019).Google Scholar
Vollhardt, Johanna Ray. 2012. “Collective Victimization.” In The Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict, edited by Linda R. Tropp, 1–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zürcher, Christoph. 2007. The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar