Remembering Homeland In Exile: Recollections of IDPs from the Abkhazia Region of Georgia
Publisher: Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe Volume: 23 pages, pdf Description: The Georgian-Abkhazian conflict (1992–1993) resulted in the displacement of thousands of ethnic Georgians from the Abkhazia region of Georgia. IDPs as a “mnemonic community” have a shared experience of hardship from civil wars and forced migration that somehow serves as common source of their memories of homeland. To illustrate the recollections of IDPs, the author interviewed 20 IDPs (in January 2014) living in collective centers in Tbilisi and nine IDP historians (in September 2014) affiliated with Sokhumi State University (in exile). He proposes to analyze all gathered accounts within the theoretical framework that is a useful research strategy to reflect on nostalgic idealization of pre-war Georgian–Abkhazian relationships, reconstruction of supposed reasons for the conflict, and imagining the future of reconciliation with Abkhazians.