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Gotfredsen, Katrine BendtsenORCID iD iconorcid.org/0009-0006-1396-8741
Publications (10 of 11) Show all publications
Gotfredsen, K. B. (2024). Ancestors out of place: the undoing of good afterlives in occupied South Ossetia. In: : . Paper presented at 18th EASA Biennial Conference, Barcelona 23 July- 26 July, 2024. European Association of Social Anthropologists
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Ancestors out of place: the undoing of good afterlives in occupied South Ossetia
2024 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This paper explores how the Russian occupation of the Georgian territory of South Ossetia disrupts local practices pertaining to death, burial and good afterlives.

The 2008 Russo-Georgian war and its aftermath caused the long-term displacement of thousands of ethnic Georgians from South Ossetia as well as highly precarious living conditions in the borderlands between Russian and Georgian controlled areas. Over the past decade, the construction of a hard, militarised “border” between the territories restricts movement and hinders displaced families and local village communities from accessing native places and people. This is not only so in terms of the concrete territories and contemporaries of “this world”, but also pertains to the territories and beings in “the other world”.

The paper will show how Russian rule is undoing the social and spatial connections between the world of the living and the world of the dead, by leaving ancestors and dead kin uncomfortably out of place: Families are prevented from visiting family graves, pay their respect, and fulfil obligations to their deceased kin. The dead must be buried in the wrong soil away from where they would naturally belong. Close relatives are prevented from reunification in the afterlife, etc.

By preventing proper relations between the world of the living and the world of the dead, the dominance exercised by occupation extends itself to the afterlife and threatens to undo senses of social continuity. However, it also fosters resistance and creative attempts at re-making it.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
European Association of Social Anthropologists, 2024
National Category
Social Anthropology
Research subject
Global politics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-71278 (URN)
Conference
18th EASA Biennial Conference, Barcelona 23 July- 26 July, 2024
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2020-01101
Available from: 2024-09-19 Created: 2024-09-19 Last updated: 2024-10-09Bibliographically approved
Gotfredsen, K. B. (2024). “We are like human shields”: Dilemmas of Mobility, Kinship and Place in Georgian Borderland Villages. Caucasus survey
Open this publication in new window or tab >>“We are like human shields”: Dilemmas of Mobility, Kinship and Place in Georgian Borderland Villages
2024 (English)In: Caucasus survey, ISSN 2376-1199, E-ISSN 2376-1202Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

This article explores local experiences and consequences of Russian “borderization” and “creeping occupation” along the administrative boundary line (ABL) between occupied South Ossetia and Georgian-controlled territory. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in borderland villages, the focus moves beyond the immediate physical manifestations and geopolitical consequences and draws attention to the social effects produced by these practices. By examining the relationship between the specific political situation affecting livelihoods along the ABL and local notions of kinship and place as foundations of good lives and social continuity, the article unpacks the ways in which fundamental ambiguities and uncertainties characterizing the borderlands extend beyond the physical terrain and into intimate social relationships and practices. I conclude by arguing that in this context otherwise mundane notions of individual mobility, kinship obligations and ancestral place are infused with a sense of urgency, which takes on both existential and political significance.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Brill Academic Publishers, 2024
Keywords
Georgia – borderization – occupation – borderlands – mobility – kinship – place
National Category
Social Anthropology
Research subject
Global politics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-71276 (URN)10.30965/23761202-bja10040 (DOI)2-s2.0-85204733785 (Scopus ID)
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2020-01101
Available from: 2024-09-19 Created: 2024-09-19 Last updated: 2024-10-11Bibliographically approved
Berglund, C., Gotfredsen, K. B., Hudson, J. & Petersson, B. (Eds.). (2021). Language and Society in the Caucasus: Understanding the Past, Navigating the Present. Lund: Universus Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Language and Society in the Caucasus: Understanding the Past, Navigating the Present
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2021 (English)Collection (editor) (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This book brings together a strong and international team of linguists, historians, and social and political scientists renowned for their expertise on North and South Caucasus. Their contributions paint a compelling picture of the region’s contested past and highlight some of the enduring challenges still confronting it. Taken together, the ten chapters of the book enhance our understanding of the region’s ancient languages, shed light on historical events of crucial significance, and uncover mechanisms behind political conflict and cooperation in the tinderbox that is the Caucasus.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Lund: Universus Press, 2021. p. 248
Keywords
Caucasus, Languages, Societies
National Category
Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Research subject
Global politics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-42311 (URN)978-91-87439-67-4 (ISBN)
Available from: 2021-05-25 Created: 2021-05-25 Last updated: 2024-10-09Bibliographically approved
Gotfredsen, K. B. (2021). Soviet, national, local?: Representations and perceptions of Joseph Stalin as a political and cultural figure in Gori. In: Hubertus Jahn (Ed.), Identities and Representations in Georgia from the 19th Century to the Present: (pp. 17-28). Oldenbourg: Walter de Gruyter
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Soviet, national, local?: Representations and perceptions of Joseph Stalin as a political and cultural figure in Gori
2021 (English)In: Identities and Representations in Georgia from the 19th Century to the Present / [ed] Hubertus Jahn, Oldenbourg: Walter de Gruyter, 2021, p. 17-28Chapter in book (Refereed)
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oldenbourg: Walter de Gruyter, 2021
Series
Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, ISSN 2190-1392, E-ISSN 2190-1406 ; 103
National Category
Social Anthropology Cultural Studies
Research subject
Global politics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-37397 (URN)10.1515/9783110663600-003 (DOI)2-s2.0-85108342719 (Scopus ID)978-3-11-065927-6 (ISBN)978-3-11-065955-9 (ISBN)
Available from: 2020-12-08 Created: 2020-12-08 Last updated: 2024-10-09Bibliographically approved
Gotfredsen, K. B. (2020). A Museum of a Museum?: Fused and parallel historical narratives in the Joseph Stalin State Museum. In: Stephen Norris (Ed.), Museums of Communism: New Memory Sites in Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 375-399). Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>A Museum of a Museum?: Fused and parallel historical narratives in the Joseph Stalin State Museum
2020 (English)In: Museums of Communism: New Memory Sites in Central and Eastern Europe / [ed] Stephen Norris, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020, p. 375-399Chapter in book (Refereed)
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020
National Category
Social Anthropology Cultural Studies History
Research subject
Global politics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-37396 (URN)978-0-253-05032-8 (ISBN)978-0-253-05031-1 (ISBN)
Available from: 2020-12-08 Created: 2020-12-08 Last updated: 2024-10-09Bibliographically approved
Gotfredsen, K. B. (2019). Gender in Georgia: Feminist Perspectives on Culture, Nation, and History in the South Caucasus. Ed. Maia Barkaia and Alisse Waterston. New York: Berghahn Books, 2018. xii, 238 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Figures. Photographs. $120.00, hard bound (ed.) [Review]. Slavic Review: American quarterly of Russian, Eurasian and East European studies, 78(1), 257-258
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Gender in Georgia: Feminist Perspectives on Culture, Nation, and History in the South Caucasus. Ed. Maia Barkaia and Alisse Waterston. New York: Berghahn Books, 2018. xii, 238 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Figures. Photographs. $120.00, hard bound
2019 (English)In: Slavic Review: American quarterly of Russian, Eurasian and East European studies, ISSN 0037-6779, E-ISSN 2325-7784, Vol. 78, no 1, p. 257-258Article, book review (Other academic) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cambridge University Press, 2019
Keywords
Area Studies, Humanities, Multidisciplinary
National Category
Humanities and the Arts
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-630 (URN)10.1017/slr.2019.52 (DOI)000466849800042 ()29458 (Local ID)29458 (Archive number)29458 (OAI)
Available from: 2020-02-27 Created: 2020-02-27 Last updated: 2024-10-09Bibliographically approved
Gotfredsen, K. B. (2018). Boundaries of Displacement: Belonging and Return among Forcibly Displaced Young Georgians from Abkhazia (ed.) [Review]. Nordisk Østforum, 32, 117-119
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Boundaries of Displacement: Belonging and Return among Forcibly Displaced Young Georgians from Abkhazia
2018 (English)In: Nordisk Østforum, ISSN 0801-7220, E-ISSN 1891-1773, Vol. 32, p. 117-119Article, book review (Other academic) Published
Abstract [en]

Bok review: Boundaries of Displacement: Belonging and Return among Forcibly Displaced Young Georgians from Abkhazia Minna Lundgren Östersund: Mittuniversitetet 2016, 168 sider. ISBN 9789188025807

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2018
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-602 (URN)10.23865/noros.v32.1391 (DOI)26920 (Local ID)26920 (Archive number)26920 (OAI)
Available from: 2020-02-27 Created: 2020-02-27 Last updated: 2024-10-09Bibliographically approved
Gotfredsen, K. B. & Frederiksen, M. D. (2017). Georgian Portraits: Essays on the Afterlives of a Revolution (ed.). : Zero Books
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Georgian Portraits: Essays on the Afterlives of a Revolution
2017 (English)Book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Georgian Portraits chronicles everyday life in the Republic of Georgia in the decade that followed the Rose Revolution of 2003. Recent anthropological developments argue for the use of “afterlives” as an analytical notion through which to understand processes of socio-political change. Based on a series of portraits, Martin Demant Frederiksen and Katrine Bendtsen Gotfredsen employ the theory of social afterlives to examine the role of revolution in the formation of a modern Georgia. The book contributes to a deeper understanding of life in the aftermath of political reform, depicting the hopefulness of the Georgian population, but also the subsequent return to political disillusionment which lead them to a revolution in the first place.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Zero Books, 2017
Keywords
Republic of Georgia, Former Soviet Republics, Anthropology, Revolution, Social afterlives
National Category
Humanities and the Arts
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-7930 (URN)23888 (Local ID)978-1-78535-362-8 (ISBN)978-1-78535-363-5 (ISBN)23888 (Archive number)23888 (OAI)
Available from: 2020-02-28 Created: 2020-02-28 Last updated: 2024-10-09Bibliographically approved
Gotfredsen, K. B. (2016). Enemies of the people: Theorizing dispossession and mirroring conspiracy in the Republic of Georgia (ed.). Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology (74), 42-53
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Enemies of the people: Theorizing dispossession and mirroring conspiracy in the Republic of Georgia
2016 (English)In: Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology, ISSN 0920-1297, E-ISSN 1558-5263, no 74, p. 42-53Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This article connects a specific generational experience of having been dispossessed of former social status and political influence to suspicious theories of conspiracies and hidden connections. Th rough ethnographic cases from Georgia I argue that while acting as an explanatory framework for the personal experience of being economically and politically dispossessed, conspiracy theorizing may also work as an everyday means of reappropriating a morally meaningful social identity through the mirroring of a general form of political rhetoric and power. The theories analyzed in the article draw on socially and culturally recognizable registers and tap into a general atmosphere of suspicion and opacity in which mistrust of official accounts and rhetoric is reasonable and appealing. They thus work as a means of repacking generational and economical marginality into a broader framework that is of concern to the wider community and may be seen to represent an effort of reclaiming a moral high ground and being reinscribed into wider social and national domains.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Universiteit Nijmegen, 2016
Keywords
conspiracy theory, dispossession, morality, power, Republic of Georgia
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-1666 (URN)10.3167/fcl.2016.740104 (DOI)000378676900004 ()2-s2.0-84970956215 (Scopus ID)27198 (Local ID)27198 (Archive number)27198 (OAI)
Available from: 2020-02-27 Created: 2020-02-27 Last updated: 2024-10-09Bibliographically approved
Gotfredsen, K. B. (2015). Invisible Connections: On Uncertainty and the (Re)production of Opaque Politics in the Republic of Georgia (ed.). In: Ida Knudsen Harboe, Martin Fredriksen Demant (Ed.), Ida Knudsen Harboe, Martin Fredriksen Demant (Ed.), Ethnographies of grey zones in Eastern Europe: Borders, relations, and invisibilities in Eastern Europe (pp. 125-139). : Anthem Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Invisible Connections: On Uncertainty and the (Re)production of Opaque Politics in the Republic of Georgia
2015 (English)In: Ethnographies of grey zones in Eastern Europe: Borders, relations, and invisibilities in Eastern Europe / [ed] Ida Knudsen Harboe, Martin Fredriksen Demant, Anthem Press, 2015, p. 125-139Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The chapter explores the formative relationship between perceptions of macro-politics and everyday micro-politics in the Republic of Georgia. “Politics” in the Georgian context, I suggest, may be understood as a grey zone that is simultaneously, in emic terms, considered highly uncertain, immoral, and external to ordinary life and yet, analytically speaking, formative of everyday concerns and micro-political interactions. I discuss different aspects of perceptions of politics as opaque and inaccessible and the consequences this bear for people’s engagement and disengagement with their socio-political surroundings. I argue that due to a profound lack of trust in public institutions and political personae everyday social and economic security is pursued ‘invisibly’ through personal networks, connections and informal transactions. ‘Invisibly’, in the sense that these connections are often known only to the people involved – at least as characterized by the perceived outsider. Finally, I propose that everyday responses to political opacity and uncertainty, in the end, contribute to their reproduction in perception and experience. That is, the idea of public macro-politics as being opaque and uncertain, and the ways in which citizens appropriate and act towards this idea, in the end, produces and reproduces political practice as such. Micro-politics – maintaining and relying on informal networks and connections – is simultaneously a response to an uncertain macro-political reality and the continuing production and confirmation of this reality across socio-political scale.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Anthem Press, 2015
Series
Anthem Series on Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-9407 (URN)20082 (Local ID)9781783084128 (ISBN)20082 (Archive number)20082 (OAI)
Available from: 2020-02-28 Created: 2020-02-28 Last updated: 2024-10-09Bibliographically approved
Projects
Occupied Intimacies: Borderization in Palestine, Georgia and Western Sahara; Publications
Gotfredsen, K. B. (2024). Ancestors out of place: the undoing of good afterlives in occupied South Ossetia. In: : . Paper presented at 18th EASA Biennial Conference, Barcelona 23 July- 26 July, 2024. European Association of Social AnthropologistsGotfredsen, K. B. (2024). “We are like human shields”: Dilemmas of Mobility, Kinship and Place in Georgian Borderland Villages. Caucasus surveyGotfredsen, K. B. (2023). Dilemmas of community, land and kinship in Georgian borderland villages. In: : . Paper presented at SANT, Annual Conference of the Swedish Anthropological Association, Etnografiska muséet, Stockholm den 27-29 April, 2023. Sveriges Antropologförbund
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0009-0006-1396-8741

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