Some project results in Caucasus Analytical Digest No. 42

This issue of the Caucasus Analytical Digest (CAD )examines the role of traditional law in Georgia. Stéphane Voell argues that despite a new political environment created by the strengthening of the state administration and the work of law-enforcement agencies after the Rose Revolution, traditional law remains an important frame of reference for the Svan population. Lavrenti Janiashvili studies the practice of traditional law in Svaneti in Soviet times as an important part of Georgia’s legal history that sheds light on contemporary practices. Elke Kamm examines the practice of bride kidnapping in Tetritskaro, Georgia and explains that it was considered by Georgian ethnographers as an alternative form of marriage that allowed men to marry without going into debt and still occurs nowadays, though rarely. Natia Jabaladze studies the custom of blood feud among Svan migrants in the region of Kvemo-Kartli in Georgia and observes that this tradition remains more alive in self-representation among Svans than in practice.

Publication see here

Read Full Post »

Does traditional law has a historical continuity or is it a recent creation?

The frame of research of our research project encompasses four individual projects and six general questions. In the next posts in this blog we will provide some first answers. We will begin with the general questions.

2) Does traditional law has a historical continuity or is it a recent creation?

In the last centuries of Georgian history the highlands of Svaneti were not or only loosely integrated into the respective dominant political system. Even if this Svan autonomy is often mythologised, a territorial and political isolation supported the maintenance of traditional legal structures (which of course changed in time, too). But after 1921, the Soviet regime began to fight the so-called “harmful traditions”. For example, some special laws were put in force in which blood feud was explicitly mentioned. Feud was susceptible to be punished by execution by a firing squad (Criminal Code of Soviet Georgia). But interviews with Svans about the Soviet period show that Svan mediation courts continued to be popular in the Communist period. The population did not trust state institutions and tried to avoid its interference in legal relationships. The research team heard cases of individuals who did work in the Soviet state institutions, but remained faithful to – what they call – “the old traditions”.

Read Full Post »

Radio Interview with Project Members

Natia Jalabadze and Laverenti Janiashvili did present our research project on Radio 1 (102,4), a Georgian radio station in Tbilisi. The broadcast was about some Georgian-German research projects financed by the Volkswagen Foundation. See here.

Read Full Post »

First Working Papers published

In the last year the team members presented the project and first results in several workshops. We decided to publish these first accounts in order to inform about our ongoing research project (cf. “Working Paper” in the header).

Read Full Post »

Journal Ethnologie

Fortified towers (kulla) in Northern Albania near Reps (Foto: A. Hemming).

In the recent issue of the online magazine “Journal Ethnologie” Elke and Stéphane contributed to the topic “honour and shame”. Elke wrote on “Die Ehre der Frau – die Ehre des Mannes: Ehrvorstellungen in Georgien” which is basically her individual rearsearch project. Stéphane’s article asks if there is something like a “real honour” (Wahre Ehre?), to which often is refered to. There is none, as he discusses in relation to his research in Northern Albania.

Read Full Post »

First Presentation

Ruhepause auf einer Bank im Dorf Soti, Adscharien, 2003. Foto: E. Kamm

The official start of the project is near, on the 1st of January 2009. Our Georgian colleages will come in February or March to Marburg for the general planning of the research. On February, 5 Elke and myself will present the project in a new anthropological discussion forum called “AnthroLab”, which was initiated by the new head of the ethnological department in Marburg, Ernst Halbmayer.

Marburger AnthroLab

Das “Marburger AnthroLab” ist eine Vortrags- und Diskussionsreihe des Fachgebiets Völkerkunde der Philipps-Universität Marburg. Ziel ist es aktuelle Forschungsarbeiten, Projekte, Feldforschungserfahrungen und -ergebnisse sowohl KollegInnen, Studierenden wie der interessierten Öffentlichkeit zugänglich zu machen. Diese Veranstaltungsreihe soll ein Laboratorium für kreativen, innovativen aber auch kritischen Gedankenaustausch und angeregte Diskussionen sein. Die Vorträge in dieser Reihe wollen nicht nur untersuchte soziokulturelle Zusammenhänge präsentieren, sondern damit auch einen Einblick ins kultur- und sozialanthropologische Handwerk und in die unterschiedliche methodische und theoretische Ausstattung völkerkundlicher Werkstätten ermöglichen.

5. Februar 2009, 18 h

Die Revitialisierung von traditionellem Recht in Georgien: Vorstellung eines neuen Forschungsprojekts in der Marburger Völkerkunde

Traditionelles Recht gewinnt im postsozialistischen Georgien zunehmend an Bedeutung. Ehrvorstellungen und Clanstrukturen beeinflussen wirtschaftliche Aktivitäten. Blutrache tritt in verschiedenen Regionen Georgiens auf. Privatisierungen nach dem Ende des Sozialismus führen noch heute zu Landkonflikten, die verstärkt mit traditionellem Recht verhandelt werden. Viele Konflikte werden außergerichtlich nach traditionellen Vorgaben über Älteste und lokale Mediatoren gelöst. Dieses Wiedererwachen der Tradition im Recht ist Thema des Forschungsprojekts. Zwei Fragen stehen im Mittelpunkt der Forschung: Was sind die Rahmenbedingungen und Prozesse, die zu einer Revitalisierung von traditionellem Rechts führen? Wer greift wann und warum auf dieses Recht zurück?

Read Full Post »

First Papers published

Kinder aus dem Dorf Soti, Adscharien, 2003. Foto: E. Kamm

Our research project will start on January, 1 2009. But some articles by team members were already published in the German on-line journal Journal Ethnologie. The purpose of this journal edited by Ulrike Krasberg is to present anthropological research to a wider audience. Elke, Natia and myself wrote some introductory lines on the anthropology of Georgia.

• Natia Jalabadze: Christen oder Muslime? „Meskhetische Türken“ in der georgischen Samtredia-Region.
• Elke Kamm: Begegnungen im Kaukasus.
• Stéphane Voell: Georgien – eine Annäherung.

Read Full Post »