CRRC, ARISC and American Councils present the 2nd talk of the Spring 2016 Works-in-Progress season:

“Nomen est omen: Renaming of places in the minority inhabited areas of Georgia”
By Maria Diego Gordon, ECMI

Wednesday, January 27, 2016 at 6:30pm
CRRC-Georgia, 5 Chkhikvadze Str. (Former 5 Chavchavadze Ave.)
Tbilisi, Georgia

The talk will be presented at CRRC Georgia's new office, 5 Chkhikvadze Str. (Former 5 Chavchavadze Ave.), I floor.

The changes of the names of ethnic minority villages have been for a long time raised as issue which was accompanying process of nation-state building in Georgia since its independence. This presentation analyzes the relation between the naming and re-naming of places and the changing political attitudes towards ethnic minorities since 1918 in Georgia. To accomplish this, the research focused on six of the municipalities of the Kvemo Kartli and Samkhtse Javakheti, specifically the ones where ethnic minorities make up more than the 50% of the population.

Maria Diego Gordon is a researcher at the ECMI Caucasus. She holds a bachelor degree in Journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid and spent a year in Sciences Po - Paris, where she got the chance to deepen her knowledge in international relations. She specializes in nationalism, minority and identity issues, and their interaction with the ruling elites of a country, as well as their impact in its symbolic landscape, especially in Eurasian and Caucasus regions.

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W-i-P is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the Eurasian Partnership Foundation at Kavsadze St. 3. It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.

The purpose of the W-i-P series is to provide support and productive criticism to those researching and developing academic projects pertaining the Caucasus region.

Would you like to present at one of the W-i-P sessions? Send an e-mail to natia@crrccenters.org.