Discourses of collective identity in post-Soviet Abkhazia: an everyday approach

Andrea Peinhopf (UCL SSEES)

This presentation looks at the complex web of belonging and estrangement in post-Soviet Abkhazia, a former Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic subordinated to Soviet Georgia and famous holiday destination with close links to the communist centre in Moscow.

While internationally recognised as part of Georgia, Abkhazia has been de facto independent from Georgia since 1993 at the cost of increasing financial and military dependence on Russia. Against this background, this research takes a situational and relational approach to identification and, drawing on material from two months of ethnographic fieldwork, explores shifting expressions of 'us' and 'them' among ordinary residents of Abkhazia. 

Andrea Peinhopf is an MPhil/PhD candidate in Politics & Sociology at SSEES. Her project is jointly supervised by Jan Kubik and Richard Mole. 

A seminar hosted by the UCL SSEES Social Sciences Research Student  Seminars

Student Coordinators: Peter Braga and Liisa Tuhkanen