Paper details

Paper authors	Marisa O. Ensor
In panel on	Transitory Spaces and Insurgent Citizenship Practices: Refugee and Migrant Activists as Humanitarian and Political Actors
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

The Southern Caucasus has become a locus of geographical and socio-political mobility for increasing numbers of displaced youth who, alone or with their families, are fleeing from conflict-affected Middle Eastern countries. As the influx of asylum seekers has intensified in the region, local attitudes towards Middle Eastern foreigners have hardened in Georgia, whose appeal as a country of transit and destination increased after its recent membership into the Schengen Zone. Facing a shrinking humanitarian space, and with no knowledge of Georgian or Russian, most refugees struggle to realise their basic citizenship rights. Security concerns heightened by the number of Caucasian fighters who have taken up jihad in Syria and Iraq, and the perception of essentialised young Middle Eastern males as intrinsically violent and at risk of becoming radicalised vectors of extremism, constitute additional barriers to local integration. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and policy analysis conducted in Georgia in 2017-18, this paper examines the humanitarian landscape that frames the lives of displaced Middle Eastern youth. I argue that, in spite of the fraught climate in which their ‘insurgent citizenship practices’ take place, young refugees strive to create positive opportunities for socio-political engagement and community activism on behalf of themselves and their compatriots.

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