'A Stretched-Out Hand between Europe and Asia'. Logistical Infrastructure and National Imaginations in Contemporary Georgia.

该项目考察了后苏联格鲁吉亚正在进行的基础设施重建，重点关注新兴港口城市阿纳克利亚。阿纳克利亚是雄心勃勃的国内和外国投资的中心，旨在将这个曾经的边缘沿海村庄变成一个具有全球影响力的贸易和交通枢纽。我认为，自19世纪早期发展民族主义运动以来，基础设施一直是形成格鲁吉亚身份认同话语的核心。著名作家伊利亚·查查瓦泽（Ilia Chavchavadze）被认为是格鲁吉亚民族的奠基人，民族学家亚历山大·卡兹贝吉（Alexander Kazbegi）围绕和反对俄罗斯帝国的殖民基础设施，如格鲁吉亚军事道路（Manning 2012），构建了他们的叙事。同样，在苏联解体后，最近的基础设施投资一直是阐述对这个国家的新理解的核心。然而，最近关于这个国家的学术研究——除了少数例外（German 2008; Barry 2013； Charaia和Papava 2014）——都忽略了首都以外的基础设施项目，忽视了它们作为物质和话语发展的双重意义。通过阿纳克利亚港的民族志和围绕它的叙述，该项目提出评估民族文化被基础设施网络塑造、竞争和转变的多种方式。这个项目在两个方面是原创的。首先，通过关注超越国界的基础设施的一个关键点，该项目将弥合经济生活的民族志研究与宏观经济现象分析之间的差距。其次，通过关注基础设施，该项目为在高加索研究中关注种族和国际冲突的倾向提供了非常需要的纠正。这个项目回应了Megoran对“重新人民政治地理”的邀请（2006:625）。正如库普曼所建议的那样，行动者可以在整个社会中找到，包括行业专业人士、官员、活动家和工人，他们的实践实现了一种地缘政治形式，这种形式通过一种单独的话语方法来监督（2011）。因此，通过一段时间的实地研究，我打算追踪与阿纳克利亚的发展有关的竞争性叙事，以及产生和挑战它们的不同参与者（cf Reeves 2014）。我的研究将依赖于不同的定性方法。这些方法包括：亲自和在线的参与性观察、访谈（结构化和半结构化）以及对报告和网站的文本分析。在为期10个月的实地调查中，我将在阿纳克利亚和第比利斯之间往返。这将使我能够追踪港口建设中不同形式的抵抗和想象之间的相互作用。在第比利斯，我的目标是采访Anaklia发展联盟公司的经理，鉴于他们的地位和获得访问的难度，结构化访谈将是我的主要数据来源。与此同时，我将与激进组织一起进行参与性观察，比如绿拳组织（Green Fist），这是一个总部位于第比利斯的集体组织，目前在关键的物流场所组织工人。在此期间，我将参加会议和政治行动。为了补充我的观察，我将对小组成员进行个人和集体的半结构化访谈。在阿纳克利亚，我将采访在财团管理的建筑工地工作的工人，并在夏季采访在酒店业工作的工人。这两个站点的第一手数据收集将通过对不同利益相关者及其在线互动产生的材料的文本分析加以补充。最后，通过分析当前和过去的新闻文章、商业小册子、有关在阿纳克利亚投资的档案材料、机构和独立报告，我可以对阿纳克利亚的发展进行谱系描述。

This project examines the on-going infrastructural reconstruction of post-soviet Georgia, focusing on the emerging port town of Anaklia. Anaklia is at the centre of ambitious national and foreign investment aimed at turning this once peripheral coastal village into a trade and transport hub with a global reach. Infrastructures, I contend, have been central to the formulation of discourses on Georgian identity since the early development nationalist movements in the 19th century. Prominent writers such as Ilia Chavchavadze, considered the founder of Georgian nation, and ethnographers like Alexander Kazbegi have constructed their narratives around and against the colonial infrastructures of the Russian empire such a s the Georgian Military Road (Manning 2012). Similarly, recent infrastructural investments have been central to the elaboration of new understanding of the nation after Soviet collapse. However, recent scholarship on the country - with a few exceptions (German 2008; Barry 2013; Charaia and Papava 2014) - has ignored infrastructural projects taking place outside of the capital, overseeing their double significance as material and discursive development. Through an ethnography of the port of Anaklia and the narratives that surround it, this project proposes to assess the multiple ways in which national culture is shaped, contested and transformed by infrastructural networks. This project is original in two ways. First, by focusing on a critical point of an infrastructure that exceed national boundaries the project will bridge the gap between the ethnographic study of economic life and the analysis of macro economic phenomena. Second, by focusing on infrastructure, the project offers a much need corrective to a tendency to focus on ethnic and international conflict in studies of the Caucasus. This project responds to Megoran's invitation to 're-people political geography' (2006: 625). Actors, as Koopman suggests, are to be found across society, including industry professionals, officials, activists, and workers whose practices materialise a form of geopolitics which is overseen through a solely discursive approach (2011). Through a period of field research, therefore, I intend to trace the competing narratives that arise in relation to Anaklia's development and the different actors that produce and contest them (cf Reeves 2014). My research will rely on different qualitative methodologies. These are: participant observation in person and online, interviews (structured and semi-structured) and textual analysis of reports and websites. During a 10- month field research I will divide my time between Anaklia and Tbilisi. This will allow me to trace the interplay between different forms of resistance and imagination in the port's construction. In Tbilisi, I aim to interview the managers of the companies of the Anaklia Development Consortium, given their status and difficulty to gain access, structured interviews will be my main source of data. In parallel, I will perform periods of participant observation alongside activist groups, such as Green Fist, a Tbilisi-based collective currently organising workers in key logistics sites. During these periods, I will participate in meetings and political actions. To complement my observations, I will perform individual and collective semi-structured interviews with the group members. In Anaklia, I will interview workers employed in the construction sites managed by the Consortium and, in the summer, those employed in the hospitality sector. The first hand data collection in both sites will be complemented by the textual analysis of the material produced by different stakeholders and their online interactions. Finally, analysis of current and past news articles, business brochures, archival material regarding the investment in Anaklia, institutional and independent reports will allow me to develop a genealogical account of the narratives around Anaklia's development.