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Drawing heavily on Georgian sources, the author offers readers a unique opportunity to appreciate why the Abkhazians and South Ossetians have seen no alternative to resisting the threats emanating from Tbilisi by refusing to join an independent Georgia.

Recent unrest and political upheaval in Iraq and Georgia have brought attention to the place of minority populations in both countries.Using Iraqi Kurds and the Abkhaz of Georgia as case studies, this book addresses how ethnic identities become politicized across boundaries by states and political entrepreneurs, leading to mobilization of ethnic.

This book, one of the first in English about everyday life in the Republic of Georgia, describes how people construct identity in a rapidly changing border region. Based on extensive ethnographic research, it illuminates the myriad ways residents of the Caucasus have rethought who they are since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through an exploration of three towns in the southwest corner of Georgia, all of which are situated close to the Turkish frontier, Mathijs Pelkmans shows how social and cultural boundaries took on greater importance in the years of transition, when such divisions were expected to vanish. By tracing the fears, longings, and disillusionment that border dwellers projected on the Iron Curtain, Pelkmans demonstrates how elements of culture formed along and in response to territorial divisions, and how these elements became crucial in attempts to rethink the border after its physical rigidities dissolved in the 1990s. The new boundary-drawing activities had the effect of grounding and reinforcing Soviet constructions of identity, even though they were part of the process of overcoming and dismissing the past. Ultimately, Pelkmans finds that the opening of the border paradoxically inspired a newfound appreciation for the previously despised Iron Curtain as something that had provided protection and was still worth defending.

The Geography of Ethnic Violenceis the first among numerous distinguished books on ethnic violence to clarify the vital role of territory in explaining such conflict. Monica Toft introduces and tests a theory of ethnic violence, one that provides a compelling general explanation of not only most ethnic violence, civil wars, and terrorism but many interstate wars as well. This understanding can foster new policy initiatives with real potential to make ethnic violence either less likely or less destructive. It can also guide policymakers to solutions that endure. The book offers a distinctively powerful synthesis of comparative politics and international relations theories, as well as a striking blend of statistical and historical case study methodologies. By skillfully combining a statistical analysis of a large number of ethnic conflicts with a focused comparison of historical cases of ethnic violence and nonviolence--including four major conflicts in the former Soviet Union--it achieves a rare balance of general applicability and deep insight. Toft concludes that only by understanding how legitimacy and power interact can we hope to learn why some ethnic conflicts turn violent while others do not. Concentrated groups defending a self-defined homeland often fight to the death, while dispersed or urbanized groups almost never risk violence to redress their grievances. Clearly written and rigorously documented, this book represents a major contribution to an ongoing debate that spans a range of disciplines including international relations, comparative politics, sociology, and history.

Winner of the Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies Co-winner of the Charles Taylor Book Award How do ordinary people navigate the intense uncertainty of the onset of war? Individuals mobilize in different ways—some flee, some pick up arms, and some support armed actors. Drawing on nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with participants and nonparticipants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992–1993, Mobilizing in Uncertainty explores Abkhaz mobilization decisions during that conflict. Anastasia Shesterinina uncovers that to make sense of the violence, Abkhaz leaders, local authority figures, and others relied on shared understandings of the conflict and their roles in it—collective conflict identities—that they had developed before the war. People consolidated mobilization decisions within small groups of family and friends and based their actions on whom they understood to be threatened and mobilized to protect. Their decisions shaped how the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict unfolded. Mobilizing in Uncertainty sheds light on broader processes of violence, which have lasting effects on societies marked by intergroup conflict.

How do ordinary people navigate the intense uncertainty of the onset of war? Different individuals mobilize in different ways-some flee, some pick up arms, and some support armed actors as civil war begins. Drawing on nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with participants and nonparticipants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-1993, Anastasia Shesterinina explores Abkhaz mobilization decisions during that conflict. Her fresh approach underscores the uncertain nature of the first days of the war when Georgian forces had a preponderance of manpower and arms. Mobilizing in Uncertainty demonstrates, in contrast to explanations that assume individuals know the risk involved in mobilization and make decisions based on that knowledge, that the Abkhaz anticipated risk in ways that were affected by their earlier experiences and by social networks at the time of mobilization. What Shesterinina uncovers is that to make sense of the violence, Abkhaz leaders, local authority figures, and others relied on shared understandings of the conflict and their roles in it-collective conflict identities-that they had developed before the war. As appeals traveled across society, people consolidated mobilization decisions within small groups of family and friends and based their actions on whom they understood to be threatened. Their decisions shaped how the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict unfolded and how people continued to mobilize during and after the war. Through this detailed analysis of Abkhaz mobilization from prewar to postwar, Mobilizing in Uncertainty sheds light on broader processes of violence, which have lasting effects on societies marked by intergroup conflict.

This book examines how national and ethnic identities are being reforged in the post-Soviet borderland states. The first chapter provides a conceptual and theoretical context for examining national identities, drawing in particular upon post-colonial theory. The rest of the book is divided into three parts. In Part I, the authors examine how national histories of the borderland states are being rewritten especially in relation to new nationalising historiographies, around myths of origin, homeland, and descent. Part II explores the ethnopolitics of group boundary construction and how such a politics has led to nationalising policies of both exclusion and inclusion. Part III examines the relationship between nation-building and language, especially with regard to how competing conceptions of national identity have informed the thinking of both political decision-takers and nationalising intellectuals, and the consequences for ethnic minorities. Such perspectives on nation-building are illustrated with substantive studies drawn from the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Belarus, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia.

\"Times Are Altered with Us\": American Indians from Contact to the New Republic offers a concise and engaging introduction to the turbulent 300-year-period of the history of Native Americans and their interactions with Europeans-and then Americans-from 1492 to 1800. Considers the interactions of American Indians at many points of \"First Contact\" across North America, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts Explores the early years of contact, trade, reciprocity, and colonization, from initial engagement of different Indian and European peoples-Spanish, French, Dutch, English, and Russian-up to the start of tenuous and stormy relations with the new American government Charts the rapid decline in American Indian populations due to factors including epidemic Old World diseases, genocide and warfare by explorers and colonists, tribal warfare, and the detrimental effects of resource ruination and displacement from traditional lands Features a completely up-to-date synthesis of the literature of the field Incorporates useful student features, including maps, illustrations, and a comprehensive and evaluative Bibliographical Essay Written in an engaging style by an expert in Native American history and designed for use in both the U.S. history survey as well as dedicated courses in Native American studies.