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Abstract
Over 200,000 people became internally displaced after several violent conflicts in the early 1990s in Georgia. For many internally displaced persons (IDPs), gender relations have been transformed significantly. This translates to many women taking on the role of breadwinner for their family, which often is accompanied by the process of demasculinization for men. In this article, we examine the construction of masculinities and analyze the gendered processes of displacement and living in post-displacement for Georgian IDPs from Abkhazia. We identify the formation of ‘traumatic masculinities’ as a result of the threats to, though not usurpation of, hegemonic masculinities. Drawing on interviews, we highlight how IDPs conceptualize gender norms and masculinities in Georgia. Despite the disruptions that displacement has brought about, with the subsequent challenges to IDPs' ideal masculine roles, the discourses of hegemonic masculinities still predominate amongst IDPs. We further illustrate this point by identifying two separate gendered discourses of legitimization that attempt to reconcile hegemonic masculinities with the current contexts and circumstances that IDPs face. These new traumatic masculinities do coexist with hegemonic masculinities, although the latter are reformed and redefined as a result of the new contexts and new places within which they are performed.
Más de 200.000 personas se convirtieron en desplazados internos luego de varios conflictos violentos a principios de los años 90 en Georgia. Para muchas personas desplazadas internamente (PDI), las relaciones de género se han visto transformadas significativamente. Esto se traduce a muchas mujeres tomando el rol de quienes sustentan a la familia, lo que a menudo es acompañado por el proceso de desmasculinización de los hombres. En este artículo estudiamos la construcción de las masculinidades y analizamos los procesos generizados de desplazamiento y de la vida post desplazamiento para las PDI georgianas de Abjasia. Identificamos la formación de “masculinidades traumáticas” como resultado de las amenazas a las masculinidades hegemónicas, aunque sin usurparlas. Basándonos en entrevistas, resaltamos cómo las PDI conceptualizan las normas de género y las masculinidades en Georgia. A pesar de las disrupciones que los desplazamientos han implicado, con los subsecuentes desafíos a los roles masculinos ideales de las PDI, los discursos de las masculinidades hegemónicas aun predominan entre las PDI. Luego ilustramos este punto identificando dos discursos generizados de legitimación que intentan reconciliar las masculinidades hegemónicas con los contextos y circunstancias actuales que enfrentan las PDI. Estas nuevas masculinidades traumáticas coexisten con las hegemónicas, aunque estas últimas son reformadas y redefinidas como resultado de los nuevos contextos y lugares dentro de los cuales son performadas.
990年代早期，乔治亚共和国内的几场暴力冲突，致使境内超过二十万人流离失所。对许多境内流离失所者（IDPs）而言，性别关系有了显著的转变。许多女性成为负担家庭生计者，而这通常伴随着男性的去男性气概化过程。我们在本文中检视男性气概的建构，并分析乔治亚共和国中，来自阿布卡西亚的流离失所者性别化的流徙过程与流徙后的生活。我们指出“创伤男性气概”的建构做为危及（尽管并非全面夺取）霸权男性气概的后果。我们运用访谈，突显乔治亚境内流离失所者如何概念化性别常规与男性气概。尽管流离失所带来了破坏且随之挑战了这些流离失所者理想的男性气概角色，但霸权式的男性气概论述仍盛行于其中。为阐述此一论点，我们进一步指认在境内流离失所者当前面临的脉络与状况中，用以调和霸权男性气概的两个正当化性别论述。此一崭新的创伤男性气概与霸权男性气概共存之，然而后者在其所施展的新脉络与新地方中受到了重构与重新定义。
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this research were presented at the 2009 Association for the Study of Nationalities Convention, at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, at the 2010 International Geographic Union Regional Conference, and at the 2011 Regional Policy Symposium on Gender Issues in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, sponsored by IREX and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Kennan Institute. We would like to thank Robyn Longhurst and the three anonymous reviewers who provided constructive suggestions which strengthened the article. The usual disclaimer applies. This research, entitled ‘Forced Migrants Living in Post-Conflict Situations: Social Networks and Livelihood Strategies,’ was funded by the National Science Foundation through the Human and Social Dynamics program (#0624230). We would also like to thank our Georgian collaborators, Nana Sumbadze and George Tarkhan-Mouravi, and the interviewers at the Institute for Policy Studies in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Notes
1. Only recently has attention been given to the lives of migrant men and boys (Donaldson et al. Citation2009) and forced migrant men and boys (Hart Citation2008; Jansen Citation2008; Jaji Citation2009).
2. In addition to displacement, Georgian IDPs have had to endure other drastic shifts that affect post-Soviet space, including Georgian nationalism and state building, political instability and violence, and the transitioning from a state socialist to capitalist economy.
3. For example, a director of a local NGO in Zugdidi explained how some husbands prevented their wives from attending driving or computer courses.
4. When the discussion of men does arise, it is often through the analysis of women. As Jansen comments, in his research conducted on the displaced from the former Yugoslavia, most work focuses solely on women, indirectly inferring about the experiences of men (2008, 182). This holds true for work on the displaced in Georgia, as not only has there been no consideration of the construction of masculinities but there has been a noticeable dearth of research on displaced men from a scholarly perspective.
5. Following Hyndman and de Alwis (Citation2004), we recognize that hegemonic masculinities within Georgia, and any other gendered identities, cannot be understood or separated from Georgian ethnic or national identities, or class, or the wide variety of identities that intersect and interrelate with one another.
6. Many men in Georgia in general are not engaged in income-generating activity; high rates of out-migration attest to international migration as a livelihood strategy for the entire population. The IDP male population is different in that they have experienced violent trauma, territorial displacement, and often living isolated from other people alongside economic hardship.
7. The sample was stratified only by IDP status, gender, working age, location, and dwelling type.
8. Out of 180 respondents, 38 were missing diary data (refused to answer, did not provide enough information on time and place, etc.)
9. See the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre Report: http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/(httpCountries)/F62BE07C33DE4D19802570A7004C84A3?opendocument&count = 10000.
10. In certain cases, collective centers still operate according to their previous function, e.g. some collective centers are half-kindergarten, half-IDP shelter, or half-hospital and half-IDP shelter.
11. The respondent quotes will be followed with several pieces of information: Gender (M or F); Location (T for Tbilisi, K for Kutaisi, Z for Zugdidi, and TS for Tskhaltubo); Dwelling Type (CC for collective center, P for private accommodation, and L for local population); and Age. All quotes are from IDPs unless a L (for local population) is listed. All names given for the interview respondents are pseudonyms.
12. The normative ideal of the male breadwinner is consistently found in a variety of places and contexts (for instance, see Donaldson et al. Citation2009; for the Georgian case, see Arjevanidze Citation2009).
13. The notion of a collapse of the model of a male family member as a breadwinner (even if women assume that role to some degree) was also supported by other responses. Respondents from the local population were more likely to have someone in their family receive income from employment (88.7–63.6%) and entrepreneurial activities (40.3–17.8%) than IDPs, while IDPs were more likely to have someone in their family receive income from government assistance (93.3–54.8%). The local population, on average, also has more family members regularly employed (1.41–0.99), while IDPs have more family members who take part in temporary work (0.54–0.38) and receive social assistance (2.76–0.12).
14. Although at that point we did not have our empirical data to confirm this observation.
15. For the vast majority of IDPs that do not engage in income-generating activity, our data are clear that women's spaces are the indoor home spaces while men colonize the outdoor spaces. This is not in contradiction to women being the breadwinner as many IDP women bring work into the home, such as laundry and sewing businesses. This is further supported by research on the displaced in other countries. Franz (Citation2003), in her examination of Bosnian refugees in New York and Vienna, documents how male refugees are integrated to a greater degree into the refugee community, while women have more networks with non-refugees. Our data indicate this very same pattern, with IDP men having more IDPs in their social networks than IDP women and men's networks being in close geographic proximity to their place of residence, while women's networks spread over greater distances.
16. This process, at first, may seem to bypass IDPs living in private accommodation, as they would not have the opportunity to have such dense networks of men around them, nor common public spaces to gather. However, as we argue elsewhere (Kabachnik, Regulska, and Mitchneck Citation2010), IDPs in private accommodation have more new (e.g. IDPs they did not know prior to displacement) IDPs in their networks, meaning they are still spending a lot of their time around other IDPs, recounting memories, waxing nostalgic, etc. They also may visit friends and family at collective centers.
17. Similarly, for Bosnian refugees, focusing on the past was a strategy to recapture their lost status (Jansen Citation2008). Jansen shows how Bosnian men living in displacement are nostalgic about their former towns as places where they were important and where they had status. Since these Bosnian refugees had been unable to reproduce this aspect of their masculinity in their new places, recounting stories and remembering the previous times were the practices they used to recapture the missing aspects of their masculinity.
18. For instance see Whyte (Citation1993). Others have documented how virtual spaces are serving similar functions (e.g. Kendall Citation2002).
19. Similar patterns have been identified in other parts of post-Soviet space (Szczepanikova Citation2010).
20. It is important to identify programs that explicitly look to include men. For both analysis as well as a comprehensive list of programs in partnership with men to end violence against women, see UNESCAP (Citation2003). See also the UNDP's (Citation2002) Capacities and Vulnerabilities Framework.