Eurasian Borderlands: Transforming Religious, Ethnic and Socio-Economic Relationships

This project studies changing and emerging borders in the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The existing scholarship on borders borderlands and often take the border as a given, and studies social life in borderlands. In this project we ask: how do territorial borders come into being? In order to answer this question, we suggest that ethnographic case studies of people?s everyday practices and understanding of borders which pay attention to both the spatial and the temporal aspects of a range of different post-Soviet borders will help us answer this question. This means looking at how borders emerge and are shaped over time and how they define space and belonging, that is, how they define where and how and with whom people can move and interact. The two main individual projects, a postdoc and a PhD project, summarized below, are representative of the range and types of borders and borderlands which have developed since the break-up of the Soviet Union; from the militarized and fenced border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan separating families and land in Elina Troscenko?s study, to the symbolic marking of a an ethno-social and developing territorial border between two administrative districts within Russia in Hege Toje?s study. In studying the emergence or transformations of borderlands in the aftermath of state collapse, we have gained a better understanding of new state formations, how they re-align centers and peripheries and national and ethnic minorities and majorities, and re-define citizenship and ownership to territories, and in the process form not only new borders but also new social categories and new social and cultural boundaries. But we have also found that in some cases territorial borders contribute to strengthening already existing social and cultural boundaries, also those that a state?s policies attempt to weaken. In her project, researcher Hege Toje, investigates a regional border dynamics in the northwestern Caucasus. During Soviet times Adygea had status as an autonomous region subordinated Krasnodar krai. As a result of ethno-political mobilization of the Adyghe, who consider themselves the indigenous inhabitants, Adygea obtained new territorial status as a republic within the Russian Federation. This implies a kind of proto-state status with presidency, constitution, flag and anthem. Since the territorial border is an internal, administrative border, it is not marked by policed border posts. By collecting life and family histories, conducting interviews with leaders of school, local administration, cultural institutions and business, and by observing socio-cultural practices related to border crossings and the use of space, Toje developed the concept ?border effects?. The concept is meant to capture a core mechanism of the policed border, the sorting of social and ethnic categories on to designated territories. In order to understand how a similar sorting may take place in absence of a policed border she explores different forms of social and administrative practices which produce border effects (among others language policies, ethnic dominance in the state apparatus, historical narratives of the region, official and the use of symbols and memorials) ?tradition?. The research identified highly active forms of border markings in the absence of visible border posts. These border effects were paradoxically enabled through Russian state practices colored by ethno-political projects that define and actively uphold symbolic forms of territorial ownership. In her part of the project, PhD student, Elina Troscenko studied the lives of stateless women in Kyrgyzstan?s borderlands with Uzbekistan. The project attempts to uncover the causes and effects of statelessness, and how various changes in borders and border regimes since 1991 have shaped life situation of these women and their families. It looks at how those who have kinship and other social ties stretching across the border, but as stateless and non-citizens do now have the required identity paper needed to cross the border legally, manoeuver across and around the militarized border with Uzbekistan. The research exposed how the physical aspects of the closed border regime are creating new types of cross-border sociality as the physical elements of the border become incorporated into people?s everyday interactions. These findings are of particular importance in today?s world where borders are increasingly being marked by physical barriers. The project has also made an important contribution in developing a theoretical framework for the study of statelessness, a subject that has been a neglected and under-theorized in Social Anthropology. It suggests a new way of approaching statelessness, in addition to a juridical and human rights approach, which looks at statelessness through alternative forms of belonging that are challenging the nation state-territoriality nexus.

The dismantling of the former Soviet Union entailed in many places a loosening of border regimes that enabled access on both sides to markets, education, work and social networks that formerly had been closed. But as some former border regimes were relaxe d new borderlines were and are still being drawn as new nation states emerge from the post-Soviet fragmentation. Our group of researchers aims to investigate the patterns of this fragmentation and diversification with a comparative focus on borders and Eu rasian borderland populations and with a historical perspective on state formation, mobilities and socio-economic, political, legal and cultural boundaries. The project aims to study how border changes have affected inter-ethnic relations and economic dev elopments, as well as political and religious practises on both sides of the border. Moreover, this project is historical in its orientation, and we are interested in how borderlands across the Eurasian continent have been established, operated and dissol ved over time. The project includes case studies that stretch from borderlands of the Caucasus to Central Asia and includes Georgia/Abkhazia, Krasnodar Territory/Adygea, Tajikistan/China, Uzbekistan/Kyrgystan, Georgia/Ajara. Key research questions: 1)H ow do borders influence religious, ethnic and national identity formations and interrelationships? 2)In what ways do regulatory regimes of the borders controlling flows of goods, information and people affect the development of markets and social differe nces in opportunities of employment and entrepreneurship? 3)What effects do borders have on religious organisation, practises and spiritual geography on both sides of the border? 4)How do border experiences shape cultural imaginaries of territory, nation and the state?