FORSCHUNG: Der nüchterne Blick auf den mythischen Kaukasus (thueringen-reporter.de)

(thueringen-reporter.de) Mitarbeiter der Uni Jena präsentiert neues Buch über Kaukasus-Forschung in der Sowjetunion  

Der Blick auf den Kaukasus ist stark von Mythen und Vorurteilen verstellt. So geistert das Bild von den Inguschen als den noblen Wilden ebenso durch die Medien wie die Vorstellung vom unbändigen Freiheitswillen der Tschetschenen. Im Kontrast dazu wird das Bild von den „zivilisierten“ Kaukasiern auf die Georgier und Armenier projiziert.
 
Ein unverstellter Blick auf den Kaukasus sei die Ausnahme, konstatiert Dr. Florian Mühlfried. Der Ethnologe und Kaukasiologe von der Universität Jena hat gemeinsam mit seinem Moskauer Fachkollegen Sergey Sokolovskiy das Buch "Exploring the Edge of Empire: Soviet Era Anthropology in the Caucasus and Central Asia" herausgegeben. Versammelt sind in dem Werk Beiträge einer Konferenz des Max-Planck-Instituts für ethnologische Forschung in Halle/Saale, auf der 2009 sowjetische Forschungstraditionen zum Kaukasus und Zentralasien in den Blick genommen worden waren. "Unser Anliegen war es, einen Dialog der Kaukasusforscher anzustoßen", sagt Mühlfried. Seien doch die Vertreter der Kaukasiologie recht weit über den Globus verstreut, was den wissenschaftlichen Austausch schwierig mache.
 
Im Fokus des neuen Buches steht die Erforschung des Kaukasus und Zentralasiens in der Zeit der Sowjetunion. Die Großmacht habe sich bemüht, ein nationales Bewusstsein bei den Völkern Zentralasiens zu wecken, sagt Florian Mühlfried. "Im Kaukasus ging es Moskau vornehmlich darum, den Willen nach Unabhängigkeit zu brechen", so der Jenaer Kaukasiologe. Dabei sei es nicht zimperlich zugegangen: Diktator Josef Stalin, obwohl selbst Georgier, habe große Teile der intellektuellen und künstlerischen Elite des Landes eliminiert.
 
Die sowjetischen Kaukasus-Forscher nahmen zunächst die tiefgreifenden Umwälzungen in den Regionen in den Blick. So wurde die Kollektivierung erforscht, die starke Veränderung der Lebenswelten dokumentiert. Dazu kamen die traditionellen Themen der Ethnografen: Welche Trachten und Kostüme trugen die Einheimischen? Welche Traditionen wurden gepflegt? Mühlfried konstatiert einen starken Vergangenheitsbezug der sowjetischen Kaukasus-Forschung. In Zentralasien habe es etwas anders ausgesehen. Dort rückten der Prozess der Verstädterung und die Versuche, die Nomaden sesshaft zu machen, in den Blickpunkt der Forscher.
 
In den letzten Jahren ist das Interesse am Kaukasus auch bei uns größer geworden, sagt Dr. Mühlfried: "Die politischen Konflikte der jüngeren Vergangenheit haben den Blick wieder stark auf die Region gelenkt." Bemerkenswert sei das neue Interesse am ehemaligen "sowjetischen Orient" auch deshalb, weil es viel über unsere Wahrnehmung der Welt verrate.
Das Buch „Exploring the Edge of Empire: Soviet Era Anthropology in the Caucasus and Central Asia“ wird am Dienstag (31. Januar) beim Tag der Kaukasiologie (www.uni-jena.de/kaukasiologie50) an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert. Termin ist 13.15 Uhr im Hörsaal der Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek (Bibliotheksweg 2). Gäste sind herzlich willkommen, der Eintritt ist frei.
 
Bibliographische Angaben:
Florian Mühlfried, Sergey Sokolovskiy (Hg.): "Exploring the Edge of Empire. Soviet Era Anthropology in the Caucasus and Central Asia", LIT Verlag, Berlin 2012, 344 Seiten, Preis: 29,90 Euro, ISBN 978-3-643-90177-4
 
Kontakt:
Dr. Florian Mühlfried
Bereich Kaukasusstudien der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Fürstengraben 27, 07743 Jena
Tel.: 03641 / 944887
E-Mail: Florian.Muehlfried@uni-jena.de

AmazonShop: Books, Maps, Videos, Music & Gifts About The Caucasus

WISSENSCHAFT: Bewilligungen / Grants 2012 für Georgien und Armien (volkswagenstiftung.de) ien

(volkswagenstiftung.de)

Zwischen Europa und Orient / Between Europe and the Orient

Bewilligungen / Grants 2012

Transformations of Sacred Spaces, Pilgrimages and Conceptions of Hybridity in the Post-Soviet Caucasus

Bewilligung: 18.06.2012 Laufzeit: 3 Jahre

Die Landschaft des Kaukasus ist geprägt durch Orte, die als "heilig" bezeichnet oder betrachtet werden und die sich sowohl in den christlich als auch in den muslimisch geprägten Regionen des Kaukasus befinden. Das transdisziplinär ausgerichtete Projekt, das neben der Ethnologie auch Ansätze aus der Philologie, Kunstgeschichte, Soziologie und Geschichtswissenschaft integriert, untersucht die Orte in ihrer Funktion als soziale Knotenpunkte bei der Konstruktion und Bewahrung sozialer Netzwerke. Gearbeitet wird in fünf Teams, die ihre Forschungen im Nordwest-Kaukasus, in Nord-Ossetien und Dagestan sowie in Armenien und Georgien durchführen.

Universität Jena

Philosophische Fakultät

Fachbereich Kaukasiologie

Prof. Dr. Kevin Tuite

Universität Jena

Philosophische Fakultät

Abteilung für Kaukasiologie

PD Dr. Florian Mühlfried

National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Yerevan

Institute of Archeology and Ethnography

Prof. Dr. Levon Abrahamian

ARMENIEN

Kuban State University, Krasnodar

Russian Federation

Center for Pontic and Caucasian Studies

Prof. Dr. Igor Kuznetsov

RUSSLAND

Ilia State University, Tbilisi

Prof. Dr. Paata Bukrashvili

GEORGIEN

Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow

Institute of Oriental Studies

Dr. Vladimir Bobrovnikov

RUSSLAND

Kontakt:

Universität Jena

Philosophische Fakultät

Fachbereich Kaukasiologie

Prof. Dr. Kevin Tuite

Fürstengraben 27

07743 Jena

Tel.: 03641 94 48 85

Fax: 03641 94 48 85

* * * *

Themenworkshop "Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment"

27.09.2012 - 01.10.2012 in Tbilisi/Georgien

Universität Gießen

Zentrum für Internationale Entwicklungs- und Umweltforschung (ZEU)

Professur für Landschaftsökologie und Landschaftsplanung

Prof. Dr. Dr. Annette Otte

Senckenbergstraße 3

35390 Gießen

Tel.: 0641 99 37160

Fax: 0641 99 37169

Universität Gießen

Zentrum für internationale Entwicklungs- und Umweltforschung (ZEU)

Geschäftsführer

Dr. Matthias Höher

Senckenbergstraße 3

35390 Gießen

Tel.: 0641 99 12700

Fax: 0641 99 12719

* * * *

Demokratieförderung in den Staaten des Südkaukasus und Mittelasiens durch die EU

Bewilligung: 29.03.2012 Laufzeit:

In enger Zusammenarbeit mit Wissenschaftlern vor Ort untersucht das Projekt die EU-Demokratieförderung im Südkaukasus und Mittelasien. Gefragt wird einerseits, welche Instrumente der Demokratieförderung zum Einsatz kommen und wie die Entscheidungen für ihre Anwendung zu erklären sind, sowie andererseits, welche Wirkungen die Instrumente auf die Demokratie-Entwicklung in den jeweiligen Staaten haben. Insgesamt sind 8 Wissenschaftler aus den Untersuchungsländern in das Projekt einbezogen.

Technische Universität Darmstadt

Fachbereich 2: Gesellschafts- und Geschichtswissenschaften

Institut für Politikwissenschaft

Prof. Dr. Michèle Knodt

Residenzschloss

64283 Darmstadt

Tel.: 06151 16 2442

Fax: 06151 16 4602

Homepage: http://www.politikwissenschaft.tu-darmstadt.de/index.php?id=pw_knodt

Technische Universität Darmstadt

Institut für Politikwissenschaft

Dr. Sigita Urdze

Residenzschloß

64283 Darmstadt

Tel.: 06151 165243

Fax: 06151 164602

* * * *

The Global Food Crisis - Impact on Wheat Markets and Trade in the Caucasus and Central Asia and the Role of Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine

Bewilligung: 23.03.2012 Laufzeit:

The project investigates wheat markets in the Caucasus and Central Asia and the major supplier countries of this region, namely Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine (KRU) against the background of the ongoing global food crisis. Long-term rising prices and increasing price volatility on the world markets for agricultural raw materials have considerably affected the countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus. However, up until today there is nearly no empirical evidence on how wheat markets in this region work and how prices are formed. The present research project aims to close this research gap. Three different but closely connected working groups will carry out empirical analyses on price transmission and price volatility, structure of the wheat supply chains, and wheat trade patterns and relationships. The project consortium consists of 9 research institutions, most of them located in Central Asia and the Caucasus. A group of 6 PhD students coming predominantly from the countries under study is involved in the international research team.

Leibniz-Institut für Agrarentwicklung

in Mittel- und Osteuropa (IAMO), Halle (Saale)

Abteilung Agrarmärkte, Agrarvermarktung und Weltagrarhandel

Prof. Dr. Thomas Glauben

Theodor-Lieser-Str. 2

06120 Halle (Saale)

Tel.: 0345 29 28 200

Fax: 0345 29 28 299

Homepage: iamo.de

Leibniz-Institut für Agrarentwicklung

in Mittel- und Osteuropa (IAMO), Halle (Saale)

Dr. Ramona Teuber

Theodor-Lieser-Str. 2

06120 Halle (Saale)

Tel.: 0049 345 2928 200

Fax: 0049 345 2928 299

* * * *

Early pleistocene environmental changes in Southern Caucasus - reconstruction of climate and vegetation development in Armenia and Georgia at the time of early human expansion into Eurasia (extension)

Bewilligung: 10.01.2012 Laufzeit: 2 Jahre

This project aims to understand the Early Pleistocene local environments in Southern Caucasus as prerequisites for the first appearance of humans in this area. It focuses on vegetation and climate reconstructions based on plant fossils in an area and for a time span (2 to 1 Ma) known to be inhabited by early humans. Furthermore, GIS analyses will provide a spatial interpretation of the data. By comparing short-term vegetation changes at different climatic events and in different regions, it will be possible to understand the mechanisms of climatic influence on the local vegetation, to "translate" the global climatic signal to the local setting, and to extrapolate it into phases without fossil record. Therefore, three regions are chosen for comparison and correlation; southern Armenian highland, southern Georgian highland, and western Georgian lowland. By connecting the obtained vegetation and climate data (based on plant fossils) with other available environmental information (based on mammals, insects, geology, geography) to a comprehensive landscape reconstruction, this project aims to identify temporal and spatial corridors of landscape appropriate for early human presence during the Early Pleistocene in Southern Caucasus.

Senckenberg

Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum, Frankfurt a.M.

Dr. Angela A. Bruch

National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Yerevan

Institute of Botany

Dr. Ivan Gabrielyan

ARMENIEN

Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi

Institute of Palaeobiology

Dr. Eliso Kvavadze

GEORGIEN

Kontakt:

Senckenberg

Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum, Frankfurt a.M.

Dr. Angela A. Bruch

Senckenberganlage 25

60325 Frankfurt

Tel.: 069 97075 1604

Fax: 069 97075 1137

* * * *

CONFERENCE: Figure and Ornament. Aesthetics, Art and Architecture in the Caucasus Region, from 400 to 1700 (geschichte.hu-berlin.de)

Veranstalter: George Chubinashvili National Research Centre, Tbilisi; Kunsthistorisches Seminar, Universität Basel; Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut

Datum, Ort: 29.11.2011-01.10.2011, Tbilisi (Georgia), Georgian National Museum, 3, Rustaveli Ave, Tbilisi 0105 (Georgia)

+++

Figure and ornament have generally been considered as opposites. Figurative representations, however, can be ornamented or framed by ornaments, and ornaments are frequently formed by repeated figural motives, such as animals or plants. In fact, ornaments and figures are related in manifold ways and define or articulate pictorial or architectonic spaces, elaborating various aesthetic concepts. Traditionally, the distinction between figure and ornament has been understood as a consequence of specific religious belief systems and their attitude towards images. Whereas medieval Western and Byzantine Christian art has primarily been considered as figurative even if images have not always been uncontested, Islamic art, in turn, has often been perceived as iconophobic and mainly ornamental. Recent art historical research has strongly argued against such polarization, indeed the respective role of figure and ornament can no longer be seen as a basic difference between "Christian" and "Islamic" art. This opens a wide range of new questions especially for regions where Christians and Muslims were neighbours or have interacted over the centuries.

Under these premises, the conference will be dedicated to the various relationships between figure and ornament in the arts of the Caucasus from the Middle Ages until the early 17th century, in particular in Georgia, Armenia, Eastern Anatolia and Azerbaijan, also including Iran. While the current debates on the coexistence of and the cultural exchange between Christianity and Islam are mainly concentrated on the Mediterranean, the conference will take a closer look at the region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, which has hardly been considered from this perspective. From early times, the Caucasian area has been characterized by an encounter and conflict between the Greco-Roman and Persian or Central Asian worlds of the Middle Ages and by the formation of Georgian and Armenian Christianity relating to Byzantium on the one hand and various Islamic cultures on the other. However, religion represents just one major aspect for understanding the arts of the Caucasian area, and another no less important aspect concerns the competing or related models of kingship and monarchical representation, often transcending religious divisions.

The cultures the conference will discuss are not to be seen as given or static units but as having been formed and transformed in relation and interaction with each other. Thus, on the one hand, the conference examines the cultural transfer of phenomena beyond regions and borders, and on the other hand it aims to diagnose and compare the elaboration of different visual cultures in the Caucasus and their aesthetics regarding figure and ornament.

+++

29th September

10.00
Welcome
Marika Didebulidze (Tbilisi), Barbara Schellewald (Basel) and Gerhard Wolf (Florence)

10.30
Manuela DeGiorgi (Florence/Lecce) and Annette Hoffmann (Florence)
Figure and Ornament. Conceptual and Aesthetical Considerations for an Introduction

11.00 break

SPACES, FRAMES AND SURFACES
Chair: Marika Didebulidze (Tbilisi)

11.30
Nina Chichinadze (Tbilisi)
Framing the Sacred: Repoussé Revetments of Medieval Georgian Painted Icons

12.15
Ekaterina Gedevanishvili (Tbilisi)
Representation of the Saints Making the limitless Sacral Space

13.00 lunch

14.30
Margaret Graves (Glasgow)
Figural Necessity? Architecture as Ornament in the Secular Sphere

RELATIONSHIPS IN FORM AND CONTENT
Chair: Barbara Schellewald (Basel)

15.15
Barbara Schellewald (Basel)
Image versus Ornament or vice versa?

16.00
Kitty Machabeli (Tbilisi)
Ornament – Figure – Symbols (Early Medieval Georgian Reliefs)

16.45 break

17.15
Vera Beyer (Berlin)
Ornaments and Figures. Contextualising an Ornament within a Miniature in a Manuscript of Nizamis Iskandername (Topkapi H. 788 f.319r)

18.00
Simon Rettig (Berlin)
Tricky Images? Analysing the Presence of Figurative Elements in Persian Ornamental Illuminations

30th September

BETWEEN FIGURE AND ORNAMENT
Chair: Manuela DeGiorgi (Florence/Lecce)

9.30
Dionysios Mourelatos (Athens)
Interpretation of motifs in royal panels. The case of a panel at Sinai

10.15
Maria Raffaella Menna (Viterbo)
Paintings of Ishkhani Cathedral (Tao-Klarjeti) (1032): Between Figure and Ornament

11.00 break

11.30
Joachim Gierlichs (Berlin)
Figur und Ornament an mittelalterlichen Bauten im Kaukasus und in Anatolien

12.15
Antony Eastmond (London)
Between Figure and Ornament: the Functions of Text on Georgian Icons

13.00 lunch

PATTERNS AND FUNCTIONS
Chair: Nino Kavtaria (Tbilisi)

14.30
Bärbel Dümler (Tübingen)
Meaning and Function of Geometrical and Vegetable Ornamentation within the Iconographic Program of Armenian Khachkars

15.15
Sophia Vassilopoulou (Berlin)
Secular or mystical? - The image of a “couple around a tree” on Persian lustre tiles

16.00 break

16.30
Leila Khuskivadze (Tbilisi)
The Issue of Cultural Correlation (In the Ornamental Repoussé Art)

17.15
David Khoshtaria (Tbilisi) and Marcus Bogisch (Copenhagen)
Palmettes with Concentric Ribs. Study of an Ornament in Medieval Georgian Art and Beyond

18.00
Nino Kavtaria (Tbilisi)
Canon Tables Types, Ornamental Decorations and Aesthetics of the XI-XIII Century Georgian and Armenian Book Art

1st October

MIGRATIONS
Chair: Gerhard Wolf (Florence)

10.00 Eka Quatshatadze (Tbilisi)
Seljuk Ornament in Georgian and Armenian Architectural Sculpture

10.45
Alexander Saminski (Moscow)
The Canon Tables in the Program of Illumination of the Mokvy Gospels

11.30 break

12.00 Iván Szántó (Vienna)
Figures on Canvas, Ornaments on Silk: the Caucasian Element in the Art of Early-Modern Eurasia

12.45
Tamar Khundadze and Ana Shanshiashvili (Tbilisi)
Figures and Ornament Confirming Georgian Diplomatic and Missionary Activities in the North Caucasus

13.30 lunch

ENCOUNTERS
Chair: David Khoshtaria (Tbilisi)

15.00
Irine Giviashvili (Tbilisi)
Meeting of Two Traditions: Sculptures of the Georgian Church in Armenian Ani

15.45
Sarah Laporte-Eftekharian (Paris)
Figure and Ornament – the Case of Bethlehem Church in New Julfa

16.30 break

17.00
Christiane Esche-Ramshorn (Cambridge)
Western Image and Armenian Ornament: The Dominican Monasteries at the Ararat and in Nachitschevan/Azerbaijan and their Arts

17.45
Gerhard Wolf (Florence)
Figure/Ornament and the Question of Caucasian Aesthetics. Concluding remarks

18.30
FINAL DISCUSSION
with Marika Didebulidze, Barbara Schellewald and Gerhard Wolf

POSTER SECTION
Marina Kevkhishvili (Florence/Berlin)
Medien der Heiligenverehrung in Svanetien – Bild, Text, Ritual

+++

Kontakt: Marina Kevkhishvili
E-mail: kevkhishvili@khi.fi.it

Natia Natsvlishvili
E-mail: natsvlishvili@gch-centre.ge

URL: Further information

URL zur Zitation dieses Beitrages
http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=17231

Copyright (c) 2011 by H-Net and Clio-online, all rights reserved. This work may be copied and redistributed for non-commercial, educational use if proper credit is given to the author and to the list. For other permission, please contact H-SOZ-U-KULT@H-NET.MSU.EDU .

ART HISTORY: Figure and Ornament: Aesthetics, Art and Architecture in the Caucasus region, from 400 to 1650 - in Tbilisi (geschichte.hu-berlin.de)

Veranstalter: George Chubinashvili National Research Centre, Tbilisi, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut, and the University of Basel Tbilisi
Datum, Ort: 29.09.2011-01.10.2011, George Chubinashvili National Research Centre (Tbilisi)
Deadline: 15.01.2011

Druckversion /// Beitrag versenden

+++

Figure and ornament have generally been considered as opposites. Figurative representations, however, can be ornamented or framed by ornaments, and ornaments are frequently formed by repeated figural motives, such as animals or plants. In fact, ornaments and figures are related in manifold ways and define or articulate pictorial or architectonic spaces, elaborating various aesthetic concepts. Traditionally, the distinction between figure and ornament has been understood as a consequence of specific religious belief systems and their attitude towards images. Whereas medieval Western and Byzantine Christian art has primarily been considered as figurative even if images have not always been uncontested, Islamic art, in turn, has often been perceived as iconophobic and mainly ornamental. Recent art historical research has strongly argued against such polarization, indeed the respective role of figure and ornament can no longer be seen as a basic difference between “Christian” and “Islamic” art. This opens a wide range of new questions especially for regions where Christians and Muslims were neighbours or have interacted over the centuries.

Under these premises, the conference will be dedicated to the various relationships between figure and ornament in the arts of the Caucasus from the Middle Ages until the early 17th century, in particular in Georgia, Armenia, Eastern Anatolia and Azerbaijan, also including Iran. While the current debates on the coexistence of and the cultural exchange between Christianity and Islam are mainly concentrated on the Mediterranean, the conference will take a closer look at the region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, which has hardly been considered from this perspective. From early times, the Caucasian area has been characterized by an encounter and conflict between the Greco-Roman and Persian or Central Asian worlds of the Middle Ages and by the formation of Georgian and Armenian Christianity relating to Byzantium on the one hand and various Islamic cultures on the other. However, religion represents just one major aspect for understanding the arts of the Caucasian area, and another no less important aspect concerns the competing or related models of kingship and monarchical representation, often transcending religious divisions.

The cultures the conference will discuss are not to be seen as given or static units but as having been formed and transformed in relation and interaction with each other. Thus, on the one hand, the conference examines the cultural transfer of phenomena beyond regions and borders, and on the other hand it aims to diagnose and compare the elaboration of different visual cultures in the Caucasus and their aesthetics regarding figure and ornament. The main questions that could be addressed in the conference sessions are: how can relationships between figure and ornament be described and analyzed, how do they contribute to create and define spaces, and what is their function and meaning? How do figures and ornaments activate, penetrate or dissolve surfaces? What role do different media play, for example in terms of materiality and its aesthetical implications? Can we observe forms of hierarchization and artistic classification between figures and ornaments and how are they related to religious, political and social contexts? Where can we speak of joint formal patterns and of migration and adaption, and how can we trace shifts in form and meaning from one region or historical moment to another? How do historical (vertical) references interact with transcultural (horizontal) ones, to which past or present do they refer and do we encounter “free” formal solutions of aesthetic problems? How are political and religious concerns negotiated by figure and ornament? How could a collaborative research agenda for the history of art in the Caucasus region be built up beyond historical and present religious and political divisions?

Proposals (ca 2500 characters) should be sent together with a CurriculumVitae (max 3 pages) by 15 January 2011 to both following addresses:

Marina Kevkhishvili kevkhishvili@khi.fi.it

Natia Natsvlishvili natsvlishvili@gch-centre.ge

+++

Kontakt: Marina Kevkhishvili
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz
0039-055-2491169
0039-055-2491166
kevkhishvili@khi.fi.it

URL zur Zitation dieses Beitrages hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de

SIENCE: First DNA sequences from Asian cave bear fossils reveal deep divergences and complex phylogeographic patterns.

Knapp M, Rohland N, Weinstock J, Baryshnikov G, Sher A, Nagel D, Rabeder G, Pinhasi R, Schmidt HA, Hofreiter M.

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany.

Abstract Until recently, cave bears were believed to have only inhabited Europe. However, recent morphological evidence suggests that cave bears' geographic range extended as far east as Transbaikalia, Eastern Siberia. These Asian cave bears were morphologically distinct from European cave bears. However, how they related to European lineages remains unclear, stressing the need to assess the phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationship between Asian cave bears and their European relatives. In this work, we address this issue using a 227 base-pair fragment of the mitochondrial control region obtained from nine fossil bone samples from eight sites from the Urals, Caucasus, Altai Mountains, Ukraine and Yana River region in Eastern Siberia. Results of the phylogenetic analyses indicate that (i) the cave bear from the Yana River is most closely related to cave bears from the Caucasus region; (ii) the Caucasus/Yana group of bears is genetically very distinct from both European cave bears and brown bears, suggesting that these bears could represent an independent species; and (iii) the Western European cave bear lineage reached at least temporarily to the Altai Mountains, 7000 km east of their known centre of distribution. These results suggest that the diversity of cave bears was greater than previously believed, and that they could survive in a much wider range of ecological conditions than previously assumed. They also agree with recent studies on other extinct and extant species, such as wolves, hyenas and steppe bison, which have also revealed higher genetic and ecological diversity in Pleistocene populations than previously known.

full document >>>

RESEARCH:

Citizenship and Labour Migration in Georgia

Teona Mataradze
C.V.
Publications
Current Project Caucasian Boundaries and Citizenship from Below

This project is devoted to the investigation, documentation, and analysis of citizenship and labour migration in Georgia from a social anthropological perspective. During the 1990s the Georgian Republic experienced an economic depression, which resulted in part from the collapse of trade relations with the other Soviet republics and in part from the inadequate domestic and foreign policy of the newly elected leaders. This process has severely affected the agriculture and industry of the country. Furthermore, the ethnic conflicts in the early 1990s resulted in the closure of the borders to the north and made the export of agricultural products to Russia and other post-Soviet republics impossible. Members of collective farms became private owners, at least formally. But people had no means of using their new private property, either because it was difficult to become businessmen, farmers and shareholders in a short period of time or because they did not have sufficient technical, financial and material resources to commit themselves to production. There was a high risk of failure due to the lack of information about the market economy and prices. Some people were able to exploit their resources; others rented, sold or just left them behind and tried to find new ways of earning a living. Because there were few economic opportunities, the most common practice was migration either out of the country or to the capital for petty trading.

Full Text >>>

Source: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

SCIENCE: Caucasian Boundaries and Citizenship from Below (eth.mpg.de)

Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
Department II - Socialist and Postsocialist Eurasia

Dr. Lale Yalçın-Heckmann Head of Research Group
Markets and Citizenship in Azerbaijan
Milena Baghdasaryan Ph.D. Candidate
Social Implications of Armenian Citizenship for Refugees from Azerbaijan
Teona Mataradze Ph.D. Candidate
Citizenship and Labour Migration in Georgia
Dr. Florian Mühlfried Research Fellow
Citizenship in Motion: The Politics of Belonging in Post-Soviet Georgia
Prof. Neşe Özgen Associate
Property and Citizenship in an Eastern Anatolian Border Region

The project is led by Dr. Lale Yalçın-Heckmann, who has been working in Azerbaijan and who will continue research with a new field site there. She is working with two PhD students, Milena Baghdasaryan to work in Armenia and Teona Mataradze for the research in Georgia, as well as Dr. Florian Mühlfried with a post-doc position to complement the research in Georgia. The associate project of Prof. Neşe Özgen is located in eastern Turkey at the borders with Georgia and Armenia. The project commenced in October 2003 and the group to start research has been recruited from February 2006 onwards.

This new research group will focus on the notion of citizenship, which has been changing in the postsocialist context. The former Soviet republics of the Caucasus were quick to declare their independence from the dissolving Soviet Union , but over the last fourteen years they have been seeking to re-establish old alliances and to forge new ones. War, political tensions, conflicts and economic crises have closed some borders, but opened up others. Throughout the transition years, the new republics from the former socialist bloc have been subject to transnational processes of democratisation and privatisation, which have been accompanied by nationalising politics and the re- and de-territorialisation of borders and, hence, also of citizenship, belonging and property (Verdery 1998).

By employing the concept of citizenship “from below,”the members of the project group intend to explore how social citizenship is articulated in the South Caucasian republics. The notion of social citizenship includes not only citizens’ economic, social and political entitlements vis-à-vis the welfare state but also state practices resulting in the inclusion and exclusion of individuals as citizens (legal citizenship rights) and the civic commitments that are expected of citizens (duties). To what degree do the claims and duties of citizens correspond to state policies and practices regarding citizenship? When they do not correspond, do citizens organise and act as agents shaping new notions of citizenship and belonging? If so, how?

Paying special attention to citizenship “from below,” the members of the research group seek answers to the following questions: How do people negotiate their units of belonging? How do they use economic, religious and other kinds of networks to increase their bargaining power? Do they retain and renew their old passports, and, if so, how do they use them? Do they choose out-migration or life in the diaspora? Or do they remain active in regional networks in order to secure economic and political survival?

Labor migration and trade , both of which involve temporary movement across borders, are a major phenomenon in the South Caucasus , and, therefore, they will be a first important axis of research on new notions of belonging and citizenship. For instance, the Armenian and Azerbaijani Republics suspended warfare in 1994 and still have no common peace agreement. Nevertheless, traders from both countries meet in Georgia to buy, sell, or barter their goods. Ethnic Azeris have been unofficially expelled from Georgia , but they still go there to trade and maintain their networks. Nakhichevan is formally cut off from Azerbaijan and survives economically through trade and labour migration to and from Turkey . All these movements of people and goods for economic or political reasons are bound to shape and be shaped by notions and practices of citizenship, in short citizenship regimes.

Citizenship laws and regulations seldom reflect the dynamics of social action or their economic and political implications. In the case of the Caucasus republics, the maintenance of “old” Soviet passports or their replacement with new documents from the new states has important consequences. It is estimated that millions of Azerbaijani citizens living in formerly Soviet countries, especially in the Russian Federation , still have these old passports, which they often keep in order to avoid having to apply for visas and residence permits. Therefore, legal notions of citizenship must be investigated in wider social contexts, which frame the second axis of research in this project, namely, the more diffuse ideas of political belonging and group identity in Transcaucasia . For example, Turkey has become a “western” country in the eyes of its former communist neighbours, especially because of its economic opportunities. Turkish traders have been remarkably entrepreneurial in almost all former socialist countries. Turkish goods as well as Turkish businessmen and officials (technical experts, bureaucrats, military staff and the politicians) are agents who help shape new forms of cultural and political belonging and who encourage the development of new notions and practices of citizenship. Simultaneously, Turks utilize their new links to the former Soviet countries as resources in negotiating their identities as “harbingers of modernisation” and in renegotiating their ethnic and political allegiances: Are the Azerbaijanis really their ethnic brothers? Are the Georgians fundamentally different because of their religion? To what degree do the Armenians in Armenia differ from their ethnic brothers in Turkey , if at all? The answers to such questions are dynamic, as are all comparable notions of political and economic inclusions and exclusion; and they are subject to change, depending on the experiences that people have made in the last fifteen years and are continuing to make.

Within this thematic focus, research will be carried out in the former Soviet countries of the Caucasus and also in Turkey . Fieldwork will reveal how, through links across new borders and through the effects of regional interests and global processes, new notions of citizenship are being created from below.

Keywords: citizenship; identities; boundaries; trade; local politics; religion; ethnicity

Reference
Verdery, Katherine (1998) “Transnationalism, Nationalism, Citizenship, and Property: Eastern Europe since 1989” in: American Ethnologist, 25, 291-306.

Quelle: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Member of the Max Planck Society