RAPID: Forced Displacement and Violence among Chechen Migrants

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This research asks what relationship extremist ideologies and militarization have to protracted displacement. This project has chosen a Chechen exile community in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan as the research site within which it will explore this question. The research comes in the wake of the violent acts committed by Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev, the "Boston Marathon bombers," who were ethnic Chechens born and raised in Tokmok. There has been widespread speculation about their motivations that reflect the larger debate among social scientists about the root causes of extremism. This research explores the role of protracted displacement in ethnonationalism and potential extremism.More than a million people from the Caucasus region displaced since 1944. Yet, little is known about how protracted displacement in the Caucasus is related to nationalism and extremist ideologies. This project investigates three hypotheses: (1) that displaced Chechens in Kyrgyzstan are socially isolated from the Kyrgyz and Russian communities; (2) that social isolation, unemployment and uncertainty resulting from dislocation lead to a pervasive sense of waiting, stasis and "nothingness" in the present rather than a sense of development and progress; and (3) that the experience of exile leads to a historical narrative that frames current dispossession and precarity in terms of future control over disputed territory. To conduct the research, the PI will travel to Kyrgyzstan to accomplish four tasks: (1) interviewing the Chechen community about the history of forced migration and conditions of protracted displacement in Kyrgyzstan; (2) Conducting path analysis to determine how isolated the Chechen community is in Kyrgyzstan; (3) interviewing Chechens, particularly young men, about daily activities, including participation in street corner gatherings where young men discuss politics, religion, and violence. This research will shed light on the experiences of the Chechen community, now seen as the major source of political conflict in the former USSR. More importantly, it will create a framework for understanding why forced displacement so often gives rise to violent political movements.