WiP: Uncertain Returns: Meskhetian and Ahiska Turks in Georgia and Azerbaijan (facebook.com)

(facebook.com) Mittwoch, 2. Juli, 18:15 - 19:30

Eurasia Partnership Foundation, Georgia
#3, Kavsadze Street, 0179 Tiflis 
facebook.com/Eurasia-Partnership-Foundation-Georgia

American Councils, CRRC and ARISC present the 20th talk in the Spring 2014 Works-in-Progress Series!

"Uncertain Returns: Meskhebi and Ahıska Türkleri in Georgia and Azerbaijan"

Irina Levin, New York University

The focus of Ms. Levin’s current project, which also encompasses field sites in Turkey and Azerbaijan, is issues of law, citizenship, and property in the daily lives of Ahiska Turks and Meskhetians. Deported from southwestern Georgia in 1944, this population has had a dedicated return movement since the 1950s. Today, this movement engages with local, national, and international human rights legal regimes in its efforts to give deportees and their descendants a way home. What do these efforts mean for regular Ahiska Turks and Meskhetians? Further, what do the everyday legal struggles of these regular people mean for the return movement? Broadly put, the aim of this study is to augment our understanding of long-term adaptation and return processes among a forcibly displaced population.

In this talk, Ms. Levin looks to reflect on some key ethnographic moments from her fieldwork so far in the context of current frameworks in legal anthropology and citizenship studies, as well as insights from the anthropology of post-socialism. She welcomes your questions, comments, and suggestions.

Irina Levin is a doctoral candidate in New York University's Department of Anthropology. She received her BA from Washington University in St. Louis and her MA from New York University. She has been a recipient of several prestigious fellowships, including the SSRC Eurasia Pre-Dissertation Grant and the Fulbright IIE Research Grant, and has conducted fieldwork in Georgia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. She is currently conducting her dissertation fieldwork in Samtskhe-Javakheti, Georgia, supported by grants from the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

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W-i-P is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the Eurasian Partnership Foundation at Kavsadze St. 3. It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.

The purpose of the W-i-P series is to provide support and productive criticism to those researching and developing academic projects pertaining the Caucasus region.

Would you like to present at one of the W-i-P sessions? Send an e-mail to natia@crrccenters.org.

WORKS: Henry Hale - Constitutional Design and Democracy in Tbilisi (crrccenters.org)

Wednesday , 19th June 2013 
 
18:15 bis 19:30 ISET/CRRC Georgia, Zandukeli St. 16

(crrccenters.org) American Councils, CRRC and ARISC are proud to present the 19th talk of the Spring/Summer 2013 season:

Henry E. Hale, George Washington University

“Constitutional Design and Democracy: Georgia in Comparative Perspective”
The speaker will present findings from a comparative analysis of how constitutions function in what he calls “patronalistic” countries, where ideology and the rule of law are weak and politics tends instead to revolve strongly around extended personal networks. In such conditions, characteristic of most of the former communist world, comparative experience shows that presidentialist constitutions tend almost always to “regime cycles”: periods of growing political closure that can be regularly interrupted by revolution. Pure parliamentarism has not proven much better. More promising, but also fraught with some danger, may be a “divided-executive” constitution such as Georgia’s new constitution. Other postcommunist cases of divided-executive constitutions will be discussed and the experience related to Georgia’s current situation.

Henry E. Hale (PhD, Political Science, Harvard 1998) is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He is the author of the books Why Not Parties in Russia? Democracy, Federalism and the State (Cambridge, 2006), a winner of the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Leon D. Epstein Outstanding Book Award for 2006-07, and The Foundations of Ethnic Politics: Separatism of States and Nations in Eurasia and Beyond (Cambridge, 2008). His current projects include a book manuscript in progress, Great Expectations: Patronal Politics and Regime Dynamics in Eurasia, as well as others books and articles on political party development, Russian politics, and ethnic politics. He co-directs the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia) and served as director of the Elliott School’s Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies during 2009-12.

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W-i-P is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the International School of Economics (ISET) building (16 Zandukeli Street). It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.

The purpose of the W-i-P series is to provide support and productive criticism to those researching and developing academic projects pertaining the Caucasus region.

Would you like to present at one of the W-i-P sessions? Send an e-mail to natia@crrccenters.org.

more: crrc-caucasus.blogspot.de 

RESEARCH: The 2012 Caucasus Barometer Is Now Available! (crrccenters.org)

(crrccenters.org) CRRC’s 2012 Caucasus Barometer (CB) regional dataset is now available on the CRRC website. The survey was conducted between October 26 and November 29, 2012 and consisted of a representative sample of 6,715 respondents in Armenia (2,384), Azerbaijan (1,829), and Georgia (2,502).

In addition to the CB’s annual questions about political, social and economic attitudes,  the 2012 survey asked new questions about opinions towards Stalin as part of a project with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace entitled, “The Stalin Puzzle: Deciphering Post-Soviet Public Opinion.” A presentation of the project’s publication, co-authored by Thomas de Waal, Lasha Bakradze, Lev Gudkov and Maria Lipman, was held in Washington DC on March 1, 2013. An English version of the publication is available at the link above and Russian and Georgian versions will soon be available online.

In addition, Dr. Robia Charles of CRRC gave a presentation of general CB 2012 results on February 22, 2013 at the Center for Black Sea-Caspian Studies at American University in Washington DC.  Local presentations of the CB 2012 in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan will be announced shortly.

To access the new dataset in SPSS, please visit the CRRC website here. The questionnaire in English and Georgian, as well as the show cards are available here.

Additionally, CB 2012 data will be available on CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool within the next few months.

WiP: Integrated Conservation: Heritage Management and Urban Planning in Tbilisi, Tbilisi, Georgia, November 28 – Angela Wheeler (ENG)

(crrccenters.org) CRRC, American Councils and ARISC are proud to present the 10th talk of the Works-in-Progress Series for the Fall 2012 Season!

Angela Wheeler

"Integrated Conservation: Heritage Management and Urban Planning in Tbilisi"

Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 6:15pm

ISET/CRRC Georgia, Zandukeli St. 16, Tbilisi, GEORGIA 

The future of Old Tbilisi's architectural heritage has become an increasingly contentious subject of public debate in recent years. While many residents lament the destruction of historic landmarks like the iconic Lermontov House, others argue that the dilapidated old buildings only hinder Tbilisi's economic growth. This presentation will examine how the rehabilitation of architectural heritage should be a key element in urban economic development, rather than an opponent of it. Angela will review international standards for architectural rehabilitation, the unique challenges presented by Tbilisi's architecture and social/political issues, and case studies of two recent programs in Tbilisi's historic districts: "New Life for Old Tbilisi" and "Betlemi Quarter Revitalization Programme." 

Angela Wheeler holds a BA in Cultural and Historic Preservation and a BA in International Relations from Salve Regina University ('12). After working on projects in Georgia in 2010 (historic cemeteries) and 2011 (Dmanisi Archaeological Field School), she currently works in Tbilisi as part of the Fulbright US Student Research program. Her host institution is ICOMOS Georgia (International Council on Monuments and Sites), one of three NGOs that advises UNESCO on cultural heritage management. The aim of her project is to promote the integration of architectural conservation into urban economic development plans. Angela hopes to continue her studies as a graduate student in the fields or urban planning or public policy.

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W-i-P is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the International School of Economics (ISET) building (16 Zandukeli Street). It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.

The purpose of the W-i-P series is to provide support and productive criticism to those researching and developing academic projects pertaining the Caucasus region.

Would you like to present at one of the W-i-P sessions? Send an e-mail to natia@crrccenters.org.

WORK IN PROCESS: Dr. Thomas Wier, Free University "Do 'Caucasian' languages really exist? Areal features (or the lack thereof) in the languages of the Caucasus" (linguistics.rice.edu)

(linguistics.rice.edu) ISET/CRRC Georgia, Zandukeli St. 16 

Wednesday, October 10, 2012 

6:15pm until 7:30pm 

more in: facebook.com
 

Since the Middle Ages, when Arab geographers would call it the 'Mountain of Languages', the Caucasus has always stood out for its linguistic peculiarities, but almost always in a negative sense: for what they were not, rather than for what they were for. In this talk, I would like to lay out the state of the art in area studies of the Caucasus and challenge the notion that any such thing as a 'Caucasian language' exists. We will frame the talk by juxtaposing two ends of the debate: Klimov (1965) and Chirikba (2008) on the one hand, who argue that as many as four dozen features identify the Caucasus as a linguistic area or Sprachbund; and Tuite (1999) on the other, who argues that the only feature that properly identifies the Caucasus as a Sprachbund is glottalized consonants.

Of course, both cannot be true. I will argue that, while the truth lies somewhere in between, in a larger sense, treating the Caucasus as a single, coherent unit reflects outdated 19th- and early 20th-century Orientalist attitudes towards the Caucasian languages and peoples, and prevents us from fully understanding the linguistic complexity of the region.

Thomas Wier has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Chicago and is Assistant Professor at the Free University in Tbilisi.

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W-i-P is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the International School of Economics (ISET) building (16 Zandukeli Street). It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.

The purpose of the W-i-P series is to provide support and productive criticism to those researching and developing academic projects pertaining the Caucasus region.

Would you like to present at one of the W-i-P sessions? Send an e-mail to wip@crrccenters.org