Doctoral Dissertation Research: Citizenship, Property, and Law in the Reintegration of Internally Displaced Persons

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Graduate student, Irina Levin, under the supervision Dr. Bruce Grant of New York University, will explore how law shapes the return process for deported minority populations. Focusing on a group of Meskhetian Turks in Georgia and Azerbaijan as its sample this research uses ethnographic methods including participant-observation, in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and archival and textual analysis to examine how internally displaced persons (IDPs) experience and interpret the process of return. The study's central questions are: (1) how returnees' efforts at reintegration are shaped by their entanglements with local, national, and international legal orders; (2) what their experiences suggest for other displaced and stateless peoples across the world. This research builds on anthropological and interdisciplinary research on law, the nature of citizenship, and the transformations of postsocialist property to offer novel anthropological insights to augment our understanding of refugees, repatriation, and reintegration throughout the world. This research addresses broad intellectual and logistical questions regarding displaced people. According to recent estimates from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, there are 15.4 million refugees and 27.5 million IDPs. As displacement has become an increasingly prevalent social, political, and logistical problem, it has also become an area of theoretical concern for anthropology and other social science disciplines. In terms both abstract and acutely practical, we are pressed to ask: Where do such persons belong? How can they and the countries they come to inhabit be made more secure? Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork this study sheds light on three domains that play a crucial role in the return process -- law, citizenship, and property. This study provides a timely examination of the issues that today's refugees and IDPs will encounter in the years to come. By focusing on the struggles of former deportees as they attempt to become citizens, property owners, and active participants in the legal and democratic processes in post-Soviet Georgia, this research will reveal the practical, political, and social challenges faced by IDPs and international organizations. As such, this research has the potential to inform our understanding in areas including democratization, anti-corruption, and the rule of law. Further, the study's location in two South Caucasus nations will augment our knowledge of this important but poorly-understood region. By focusing on legislation and its impact on a vulnerable population, this research seeks to highlight areas of concern for US and international governmental and non-governmental organizations engaged with work on all aspects of displacement and its long-term aftermaths, including return movements, repatriation legislation, and reintegration programs.