Conflict and Co-Existence: War, Displacement and the Changing Dynamics of Inter- and Intra-Ethnic Relations in Abkhazia

This thesis traces the process of ethnic mixing and un-mixing in Abkhazia, a contested state in the South Caucasus that became de facto independent from Georgia after a war in the early 1990s. In particular, it focuses on the role of violence and its impact on people’s relations and identities on the ground, a phenomenon which has received limited attention in the study of ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union. It departs from the widely accepted view that violence and protracted conflict are largely a result of antagonistic identities, rather than its source, and instead shifts attention to the endogenous dynamics of violence. Adopting an approach that is sensitive to identity as lived experience and drawing extensively on data obtained through ethnographic fieldwork, it argues that although there were tensions, a cross-ethnic, “inter-national” community nevertheless existed in Abkhazia. While society became increasingly polarised along ethnic lines from the late 1980s onwards, large-scale violence was ultimately provoked by the elite-level decision to send military troops into Abkhazia. However, once unleashed, atrocities triggered a process of antagonistic collective categorisation that paved the way for the mass displacement of the Georgian population. But looking beyond the event of war, the thesis also illustrates the challenges that a community faces once war is over and the conflicting parties have become separated, a period, in which an external enemy continues to unite people – especially as the conflict remains unresolved – but, due to physical and temporal distance, has also become distant. The thesis thus argues that it is not just the experience of violence that shapes post-conflict relations, but also the experience of post-war changes. Although the language of ethnic difference remains powerful in Abkhazia, more than two decades on, people’s concerns have shifted towards the new power dynamics within which their post-war lives have unfolded