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Georgian Hospitality After the Rose Revolution (2003-2012)

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Georgian Hospitality After the Rose Revolution (2003-2012) From Tradition to Civility: Georgian Hospitality after the Rose Revolution (2003-2012) Costanza Curro UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1 2 Declaration I, Costanza Curro, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. -------------------- -------------------- Date Signature 3 4 Abstract This thesis explores the relation between hospitality and civil values. I focus on articulations and performances of hospitality in Georgia after the Rose Revolution (2003-2012). Drawing upon data collected through participant observation and follow-up interviews, the thesis analyses hospitality practices which rest on the blurred boundaries between the public and the private. My argument challenges the negative view of unofficial practices grounded in local contexts as being detrimental to democratisation. I highlight the ambivalence of hospitality practices and maintain that their embeddedness in local civic traditions of solidarity and reciprocity is a potential source of democratic values vis-à-vis the social fragmentation generated by the modernisation project implemented by the post-revolutionary political leadership. On the one hand, political elites stereotyped hospitality as a national specific, used to promote the country to outsiders. On the other hand, everyday hospitality was regarded as a backward practice associated with grey zones of informality which hindered the country’s modernisation. Focusing on the ambivalence emerging from people’s articulations and performances, I investigate the tension between hospitality traditions and modernisation narratives across three dimensions: increasing social inequalities predicated upon images of otherness, the negotiation of ascribed identities (notably gender and generational) amid individual and collective change, and the transformation of urban public space. My analysis shows that the political leadership’s obliviousness to the ambivalent effects which hospitality has on people’s everyday lives divided society deeply, while at the same time undermining the legitimacy of institutions. Highlighting dramatic inconsistencies at the heart of modernisation narratives, I explore the potential of hospitality practices as the basis for enacting social justice and democratic participation. 5 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 10 INTRODUCTION HOSPITALITY PRACTICES: A DEVICE TO ORGANISE SOCIETY .................... 13 Perspectives and methods ............................................................................................... 20 Structure of the thesis ...................................................................................................... 26 1 THE GEORGIAN TRADITION OF HOSPITALITY: BLURRED BOUNDARIES BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND THE PRIVATE .................................................................................................... 31 1.1 Public tradition or private strategy? Beyond clear-cut dichotomies ......................... 31 1.1.1 Public norms, private feelings ............................................................................. 31 1.1.2 The public tradition of supra and tamadoba ...................................................... 33 1.1.3 Supra and tamadoba: Public religion vs. private religiosity ................................ 37 1.1.4 Paradox or ambivalence? .................................................................................... 40 1.1.5 How to research ambivalence: Two conceptual tools ........................................ 43 1.2 Crossing thresholds between private space and public display................................. 47 1.2.1 The house as a contested realm of hospitality ................................................... 47 1.2.2 Intrusiveness or solidarity? Everyday relationships in the domestic space ........ 50 1.2.2 Welcoming or hostility? Shaping public reputation through hospitality ............ 53 1.3 Grey zones of hospitality: Between the official system and personal connections .. 55 1.3.1 Hospitality norms vs. official rules ...................................................................... 55 1.3.2 From the Soviet era to the 1990s: Ambivalent ties of hospitality ...................... 59 1.3.3 Grey zones of hospitality: An undesired legacy? ................................................ 62 2 FROM BACKWARDNESS TO MODERNITY: HOSPITALITY GOES WEST .............................. 66 2.1 Clearing grey zones: Moral politics in modern Georgia ............................................. 66 2.1.1 A narrative of clear-cut oppositions .................................................................... 66 2.1.2 Where the public ends and the private begins: Endorsing dichotomies as a sign of modernity ................................................................................................................. 69 2.2 “No time to spend at supra”: Past ambivalence vs. future transparency .................. 71 2.2.1 National identity or backwardness? .................................................................... 71 2.2.2 Tackling the ambivalence of hospitality ties ....................................................... 74 2.3 Modern hospitality: Redrawing lines between the public and the private ............... 76 2.3.1 From architecture to politics: The public face of hospitality .............................. 76 2.3.2 When the public and the private encroach upon one another: The inconsistencies of modernisation narratives ............................................................... 80 2.4 From hospitality practices to civil society .................................................................. 84 2.4.1 An expression or a rival of civil society? .............................................................. 84 7 2.4.2 Does hospitality compensate for the failures of civil society? An introduction to hospitality as civility ..................................................................................................... 88 3 STRANGERS BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE: HOSPITALITY IN A FRAGMENTED SOCIETY . 93 3.1 Who is a stranger in the context of hospitality? ........................................................ 93 3.2 Georgians as “public strangers”? National distinctiveness in the Soviet system ...... 98 3.2.1 Between stigmatisation and irony: Soviet representations of Georgian hospitality..................................................................................................................... 98 3.2.2 Affirming national identity or endangering the system? .................................. 101 3.3 From sociability to ostentation: Hospitality as a mark of socio-economic differences ..................................................................................................................... 103 3.3.1 Reciprocal support or onerous obligation? The dilemma of hospitality amid poverty ....................................................................................................................... 103 3.3.2 Ostentatious hosts: Hospitality as lack of culturedness ................................... 107 3.4 Hospitality as a tool to counteract guests’ hostility? ............................................... 110 3.4.1 An intrusive neighbour: Rejecting or welcoming the Russian “guest”? ........... 110 3.4.2 Neither Russians nor Westerners: Overturning power relations through hospitality................................................................................................................... 112 3.5 From public exchange to private commodity: Tensions of modern hospitality ...... 116 3.5.1 Irrational spending or reciprocal solidarity? ..................................................... 116 3.5.2 Western-style hospitality: Purchasing modernity through private wealth ...... 119 4 NEGOTIATING EXCLUSION: HOSPITALITY OF WOMEN AND YOUTH ............................. 124 4.1 “Supra is not for women”: Gender and social change through patterns of hospitality ...................................................................................................................... 124 4.1.1 Gender identity at the Georgian table .............................................................. 124 4.1.2 Internalisation vs. exposure .............................................................................. 126 4.1.3 Private reproduction vs. public reappropriation .............................................. 130 4.1.4 Past vs. future women: Hospitality as a lens on gendered social cleavages .... 133 4.2 “Akhalgazrdebi gaumarjos!”(“To the young!”): Hospitality as a source of tension between change and continuity across generations ..................................................... 136 4.2.1 A mirror of generational divides? ..................................................................... 136 4.2.2 Youth vs. traditional hospitality: rupture... ....................................................... 139 4.2.3 ...or preservation? ............................................................................................. 142 4.2.4 Between “Westernisation” and “Georgianness”: Young people’s reception of modernisation narratives ........................................................................................... 148 5 HOSPITALITY VS. HOSPITABILITY: THE CONTESTED PUBLIC SPACE ...............................
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