Suchergebnisse

Misstrauen hat einen schlechten Ruf. Angeblich befördert es Populismus und die Erosion des Faktischen: In jeder Krise heisst es deshalb sofort, man müsse wieder Vertrauen entwickeln. Misstrauen hat jedoch auch ein kreatives und regulatives Potential. Kann sich dieses Potential nicht entfalten, verschärft sich Misstrauen und entwickelt sich zu einer Gefahr für Gesellschaft und Staat. Anstatt also in den gegenwärtigen Vertrauenskrisen reflexartig immer sofort Vertrauen in die Institutionen einzufordern, sollte das weltweit wachsende Misstrauen endlich ernstgenommen werden. (Verlagstext)

Scholars have long seen trust as a foundational social good. We therefore have ample studies on building trust in free markets, on cultivating trust in the state, and on rebuilding trust through civil society. The contributors to this volume, instead, take a step back. They ask: Can mistrust ever be more than the flip side of trust, more than the sign of an absence or failure? By looking ethnographically at what a variety of actors actually do when they express mistrust, this volume offers a richly empirical trove of the social life of mistrust across a range of settings.

Scholars have long seen trust as a foundational social good. We therefore have ample studies on building trust in free markets, on cultivating trust in the state, and on rebuilding trust through civil society. The contributors to this volume, instead, take a step back. They ask: Can mistrust ever be more than the flip side of trust, more than the sign of an absence or failure? By looking ethnographically at what a variety of actors actually do when they express mistrust, this volume offers a richly empirical trove of the social life of mistrust across a range of settings.

Introduction -- Of a mobile field -- Of hidden treasures in the mountains and a state that comes and goes -- Of reborn citizens in a post-Soviet landscape -- Of three ways to be a state -- Of triple winning and simple losing -- Conclusion -- Appendix.

Abstract
It seems a paradox that on the one hand, the communities of northeast highland Georgia have often been represented as somewhat egalitarian in respect to their political organisation while on the other hand, their religious worlds are highly hierarchical and ordered by the principles of feudality. One very probable explanation for this seeming paradox points to the compatibility of the feudal norms with the patriarchal and clan-based social organisation of these communities. This article is the attempt to introduce another interpretation, namely that the religious system in northeast highland Georgia reflects the pain of being governed by a coercive power that is associated with the hierarchical political system of the lowland. The political system, I argue, is constructed as a counter-image of the religious system, delegating coercive power to the realm of the exceptional and tabooing its usage in the organisation of political life. In this juxtaposition, coercive power becomes internalised, albeit as a negative pole. The politics of ungovernance, in this sense, aims towards the neutralisation of coercive power, a power that people know all too well through "religious" experiences. The latter argument contradicts the dictum that anti-state societies experience coercive power as exterior.

This article builds on ethnographic vignettes of mistrust, with the material stemming from the South Caucasus. Although mistrust has recently gained attention as a phenomenon sui generis, the impact of objects on the stirring of mistrust has been largely overlooked. The present article intends to fill this lacuna by investigating how certain objects are met with mistrust because their (material or discursive) surfaces and their contents seem inconsistent. The affective response to this perceived mismatch may be articulated in frustration or anger, but also in humor or longing. With respect to longing, I elaborate how this emotion stimulates searches for hidden truths that can be found in the realm of conspiracy theory.

An der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena wird aufgrund von Sparzwängen die Nicht-Wiederbesetzung des Lehrstuhls für Kaukasiologie diskutiert. Dies käme einer Abschaffung des Faches gleich. Damit würde nicht nur ein Alleinstellungsmerkmal eliminiert und die universitäre Internationalisierungsstrategie konterkariert, sondern eine Abschaffung der Kaukasiologie stünde auch in eklatantem Gegensatz zu den Empfehlungen des Wissenschaftsrates, der Hochschulrektorenkonferenz und des Thüringer Ministeriums für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur zur Stärkung Kleiner Fächer und zum Ausbau der Kaukasiologie. (Osteuropa (Berlin) / SWP)

This paper deals with the migration practices of a Georgian population called the Tushetians and their recent developments. After an outline of the Tushetians' traditional and contemporary migration patterns, details of migration to the Russian Federation, Spain and Greece are presented, followed by some reflections on the impact of these forms of migration on gender roles in the home villages. This leads to a more general discussion of the compatibility of Tushetian migration patterns with the European Union (EU) policy of circular migration, as well as the impact of the Eurozone crisis on migrants from post-socialist countries such as Georgia.