'Non-Existent': Violence, Document- Production and Syrian War-Time Migration in Abkhazia
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American University in Cairo AUC Knowledge Fountain Theses and Dissertations 2-1-2017 On becoming citizens of the 'non-existent': violence, document- production and Syrian war-time migration in Abkhazia Jihad Abaza Follow this and additional works at: https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds Recommended Citation APA Citation Abaza, J. (2017).On becoming citizens of the 'non-existent': violence, document-production and Syrian war-time migration in Abkhazia [Master’s thesis, the American University in Cairo]. AUC Knowledge Fountain. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/633 MLA Citation Abaza, Jihad. On becoming citizens of the 'non-existent': violence, document-production and Syrian war- time migration in Abkhazia. 2017. American University in Cairo, Master's thesis. AUC Knowledge Fountain. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/633 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by AUC Knowledge Fountain. 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The American University in Cairo School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS) On becoming citizens of the 'non-existent': violence, document-production and Syrian war-time migration in Abkhazia A Thesis Submitted to The Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Egyptology In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology-Anthropology By Jihad Abaza Under the supervision of Dr. Hakem Al-Rustom May 2016 “As long as man is affected by the image of thing, he will regard the thing as present even though it may not exist.” – Baruch Spinoza 2 (Source: Wikipedia) (Screenshot from my phone) 3 Acknowledgments The coincidental coming together of the ethnographic process that resulted from this MA, was for me, a blessing that I could not have imagined unfolding in any better way. There are so many people I have to thank, for it because of the encounters, conversations, and support from them that this work ultimately came together. I am thankful for the air of inspiration and support that has come from my professors. There is no way to express enough gratitude to you for introducing me to anthropology, and to ideas that have come to shape both my character and my everyday perceptions of this world that we inhabit. Thank you, Professor Hakem Rustom for supervising this thesis. I still remember the first class I took with you, fieldwork methods; all that I have learned in this class lives on in my head. Thank you for your constant encouragement. Thank you for telling me that you wished my project for the Fieldwork Methods class was an MA thesis. Thank you for all of the classes I took with you during my undergraduate years, and thank you for helping me with the move to continue studying for a Master's degree. Thank you for the thesis writing class, the doses of Benjamin, and all of the food metaphors you make to facilitate the way we think about our thesis writing. My very first class in anthropology, an introductory Cultural Anthropology course in undergrad, left an instant mark on me, mostly because of the beautiful professor who taught it: Professor Hanan Sabea. I still remember when I asked you if an article I had written after spending the day with a few microbus drivers can be considered anthropological. I appreciate all the times you reminded me of this incident in the years after were in and of themselves motivation to continue. Your enthusiastic responses were, as they always are, much needed energy boosts. The next course I took with you, during my MA, was also amazing, timely, and a pathway towards this thesis. Every conversation with you feeds me with new thoughts and questions. It only makes sense in our current context that one’s mind would turn towards questions of violence and how to make sense of it. For this, and for many more reasons, I am thankful to have come across Professor Munira Khayyat. Your class, the readings it introduced me to, and your poetic ways of teaching have inspired both this thesis, and many other thoughts that would be the seeds of more work to come. Thank you for your encouragement, and thank you for the knowledge and the questions you have passed along. For my parents, any means of expressing thankfulness are short of satisfactory. My mother: May Gadallah, thank you for having big thoughts and dreams about what I can do and for constantly reminding me of them, and encouraging me to keep going. Thank you for listening to my constant, repetitive whining and for keeping me from falling apart. Thank you for being wonderful. My father: Mohamed Abaza, who made the trip with me to Abkhazia and who has been a role model in his passion for language and history, also deserves a lot of gratitude. Thank you for taking risks, for being interesting, and for supporting every member of this family in inexplicable ways. Thank you both for teaching me to believe in possibilities of resistance, and I am sorry if at moments, these lessons have backfired on you. Shaza and 4 Mariam, my sisters, your mere existence is enough to be forever grateful for; it brightens my life even if I am unable to express it because I am stuck in my room writing this thesis. I want to thank the Syrian people that I have met and befriended in 6th of October city, Egypt. It was they who had first noticed my last name and told me about Abkhazia in my undergrad years when I was thinking of writing about the Egyptian state's post- 2013 repression of Syrians. Abu Mahmoud wondered why I don't do a study on Circassians. There are so many Circassians here in this neighborhood, Abu Mahmoud and Madame Nari always told me. I never understood. I never took the prospect of a country called Abkhazia, where my last name "Abaza" would grant me access to a citizenship, seriously. It was only recently that I began to understand the references that Abu Mahmoud and Madame Nari had made and I am ever more grateful for them. In Abkhazia, it didn't take long for people to open their welcoming doors and hearts to me. I want to thank everyone that has befriended, supported, or took care of me there. Both those whose languages I understood and those whose languages I did not. I am forever thankful for the countless cups of coffee that people had invited me, by the sea, in cafes by the promenade, in people's houses, by the mountains during picnics. I am forever thankful for all the conversations that took place over those cups of coffee. While I wish it was possible to name each person in Abkhazia that has added to this ethnography, I am held back by the necessity to keep them anonymous. The overwhelming processes of writing, thinking, and functioning – sometimes barely– were facilitated by the support of friends and colleagues. Sarrah, Huda, Habiba, Salma, Heba K., Mena, Adham, Mina, Mahmoud, and the entire Anthropology gang at AUC. Thank you for all of your constant reassurances and talks. 5 Table of Contents Chapter Summaries ......................................................................................................................... 8 Displaced, Emplaced, and Replaced: Problematizing “Refugee-ness” ........................................ 10 Yaūm al ḥūzn: Remembering the Circassian genocide and forced deportation .................... 12 Historicizing the Genocide .................................................................................................... 14 Images of displaced resettlement ........................................................................................... 16 The figure of the “Syrian Refugee” ....................................................................................... 18 Forced Migration and the“Refugee” in the Middle East ....................................................... 23 Refusing the category ............................................................................................................ 25 On “refugee” stories .............................................................................................................. 29 ‘Neyalek Serty Abkhazeyeh’: Placement and Reflections ........................................................... 32 Naroda Abaza: The Abaza People ......................................................................................... 34 Methodology and Methods .................................................................................................... 39 Narratives and Stories ............................................................................................................ 43 A Multi-Sited Field of Multiple Realities .............................................................................. 45 Challenging projects of homogeneity .................................................................................... 47 Ethical Considerations and (In)-Sensitivity ........................................................................... 49 Visualizing Snippets of Life in Abkhazia ..................................................................................... 51 Make-Believe Statehood ............................................................................................................... 77 The Permanent Limbo and the Make-Believe ....................................................................... 82 States and Nations – Imagining and Institutionalizing Ethnicity .......................................... 85 The state in and of our minds ...............................................................................................