Mid Sweden University

In this presentation I will draw on several years of explorative research into everyday lives in Abkhazia. While the vast majority of research on the de facto states is focused on the frozen conflicts and their resolution, their juridical status as well as both internal and external political relations; examples of scholarly studies analyzing micro level aspects of everyday life inside these areas are few. We can imagine that living in a de facto state has its specific characteristics related to consequences deriving from as well unresolved conflict as economic and political isolation. Knowledge about everyday life in Abkhazia originates mainly from online news media and NGO reports. In the latter, economic hardship, the lack of personal security and arbitrary treatment by local authorities is stressed as the most common threats to human wellbeing. Furthermore, these reports often focus on human rights, an important but in effect not particularly analytical approach.  

This presentation therefore aims to offer a critical alternative to news and NGO reporting by exploring how unrecognition and unresolved conflict are embodied in the everyday life experiences of Abkhazian residents. The empirical material derives from fieldwork in Gagra, Gal(i) and Sukhum(i) in 2014, 2015 and 2017 and includes interviews with respondents from the major ethnic groups in Abkhazia. I suggest that through the use of intersectional risk theory we can discern how lingering tensions and structural inequalities between different groups result in, among other things, differing patterns of mobility and unequal life chances. Moreover this presentation addresses the very conditions for doing research that involves ordinary residents inside Abkhazia and that also implies both ethical and methodological challenges, along with difficulties of access.