South Caucasus: Spaces. Histories. People.

This volume contains a collection of papers presenting the individual research of young social scientists from Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. The projects were carried out in 2005, within the framework of a scholarship programme run by the South Caucasus Regional Office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation.

The authors have taken interdisciplinary approaches to subjects that are of fundamental importance for the understanding of social and political processes in the societies of the South Caucasus, but which are hardly touched upon in public debate, or even fall into the realm of taboo to some extent. And yet anyone who attempts to foster social modernization and democratization in this region has to take a critical look at these very themes at some point.

The articles in the first section of the book – ‘One’s own people’ and ‘strangers’: history, ethnicity, and present-day life’ – deal historically and sociologically with the changes in concepts of religious, ethnic, and national identity in the societies of the South Caucasus that took place during the 20th century. They investigate the shifts in the meaning of ethnic identity, the function and operation of stereotypes, the development of subcultures, the roles the various religions play in the state and the society, as well as the significance that historiography and literature have for the construction of identities and nationalistic discourse in the region’s post-Soviet societies.

The second section – ‘Informal practices within the bodies of power’ – deals with the forms of the informal exercise of power and with the informal regulation of access to power. These informal patterns are often far more potent than officially proclaimed and legalized forms of power. Informal networks, informal communication, and the admission or exclusion of women to or from certain positions of power all play an important role in this respect.

The papers in the third section – ‘Gender research’ – look at the history and the development of the women’s movement, socio-political involvement of women in presentday rural communities, as well as the transformation of gender roles in the context of changing power distribution within the family.

The papers in the fourth section– ‘Urban studies and planning’ – are devoted primarily to practical questions concerning the sustainable, environmentally sound development of various South Caucasian cities. They deal with concrete environmental and infrastructure problems affecting urban centres and with the historical and cultural development potentials of cities and resort areas. Hopefully, these papers will contribute to raising the profile of a discipline that is still very little known in the region: urban studies, the scientific study of the highly complex phenomenon of the city.

The Heinrich Boll Foundation’s Regional Scholarship Programme for the South Caucasus has two major objectives:

• It hopes to encourage young researchers to take on interdisciplinary, individual research projects and to contribute to the renewal of the social sciences in the region through the use of innovative research methods.
• It seeks to construct a cross-border network of young, highly qualified specialists that can serve as a framework within which cross-border projects in the field of sociopolitical education and social science research can be carried out.

The editors hope that this volume, which is already the second, will provide interesting information not just to a specialized public, but to anyone interested in the political and social developments in the South Caucasus or involved in civil society initiatives. We also hope that this publication will create doorways to the international scientific ‘community’ for these young scientists and, by doing so, encourage the process of opening up South Caucasian societies to the international exchange of ideas and opinions.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all of the experts in and outside of the South Caucasus who are guiding and supporting our scholarship programme with their scientific expertise and personal commitment.

Tbilisi, July 2006
South Caucasus Regional Office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation
Walter Kaufmann, Director
Nino Lejava, Scholarship Programme Coordinator