Doctoral Dissertation Research: Citizenship, Property, and Law in the Reintegration of Internally Displaced Persons

研究生，伊琳娜莱文，在纽约大学的布鲁斯格兰特博士的监督下，将探讨法律如何塑造被驱逐的少数民族人口的返回过程。本研究以格鲁吉亚和阿塞拜疆的一群梅斯赫特土耳其人为样本，采用民族志方法，包括参与者观察、深入、半结构化访谈、档案和文本分析，探讨国内流离失所者（IDPs）如何经历和解释回归过程。该研究的中心问题是：（1）返回者与地方、国家和国际法律的秩序的纠葛如何影响他们重新融入社会的努力;（2）他们的经历对世界各地其他流离失所者和无国籍人有何启示。本研究建立在人类学和跨学科研究的法律，公民身份的性质，和后社会主义财产的转变，提供新的人类学的见解，以增加我们的难民，遣返和重新融入世界各地的理解。本研究解决有关流离失所者广泛的智力和后勤问题。根据联合国难民事务高级专员最近的估计，目前有1540万难民和2750万境内流离失所者。随着流离失所成为一个日益普遍的社会、政治和后勤问题，它也成为人类学和其他社会科学学科的理论关注领域。从抽象和尖锐的实际角度来看，我们不得不问：这些人属于哪里？如何才能使他们和他们所居住的国家更加安全？通过长期的民族志实地考察，本研究揭示了在返回过程中发挥关键作用的三个领域-法律，公民身份和财产。这项研究及时审查了今天的难民和国内流离失所者在今后几年中将遇到的问题。通过关注前被驱逐者的斗争，因为他们试图成为公民，财产所有者，并在后苏联格鲁吉亚的法律的和民主进程的积极参与者，这项研究将揭示国内流离失所者和国际组织所面临的实际，政治和社会挑战。因此，这项研究有可能为我们在民主化、反腐败和法治等领域的理解提供信息。此外，这项研究在两个南高加索国家的位置将增加我们对这一重要但知之甚少的地区的了解。通过关注立法及其对弱势群体的影响，这项研究旨在突出美国和国际政府和非政府组织关注的领域，这些组织从事流离失所及其长期后果的各个方面的工作，包括返回运动，遣返立法和重返社会方案。

Graduate student, Irina Levin, under the supervision Dr. Bruce Grant of New York University, will explore how law shapes the return process for deported minority populations. Focusing on a group of Meskhetian Turks in Georgia and Azerbaijan as its sample this research uses ethnographic methods including participant-observation, in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and archival and textual analysis to examine how internally displaced persons (IDPs) experience and interpret the process of return. The study's central questions are: (1) how returnees' efforts at reintegration are shaped by their entanglements with local, national, and international legal orders; (2) what their experiences suggest for other displaced and stateless peoples across the world. This research builds on anthropological and interdisciplinary research on law, the nature of citizenship, and the transformations of postsocialist property to offer novel anthropological insights to augment our understanding of refugees, repatriation, and reintegration throughout the world.This research addresses broad intellectual and logistical questions regarding displaced people. According to recent estimates from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, there are 15.4 million refugees and 27.5 million IDPs. As displacement has become an increasingly prevalent social, political, and logistical problem, it has also become an area of theoretical concern for anthropology and other social science disciplines. In terms both abstract and acutely practical, we are pressed to ask: Where do such persons belong? How can they and the countries they come to inhabit be made more secure? Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork this study sheds light on three domains that play a crucial role in the return process -- law, citizenship, and property. This study provides a timely examination of the issues that today's refugees and IDPs will encounter in the years to come. By focusing on the struggles of former deportees as they attempt to become citizens, property owners, and active participants in the legal and democratic processes in post-Soviet Georgia, this research will reveal the practical, political, and social challenges faced by IDPs and international organizations. As such, this research has the potential to inform our understanding in areas including democratization, anti-corruption, and the rule of law. Further, the study's location in two South Caucasus nations will augment our knowledge of this important but poorly-understood region. By focusing on legislation and its impact on a vulnerable population, this research seeks to highlight areas of concern for US and international governmental and non-governmental organizations engaged with work on all aspects of displacement and its long-term aftermaths, including return movements, repatriation legislation, and reintegration programs.