This edited volume explores the everyday struggles and challenges of women living in the South Caucasus. The primary aim of the collection is to shift the pre-occupation with geopolitical analysis in the region and to share new empirical research on women and social change. The contributors discuss a broad range of topics, each relating to women's everyday challenges during periods (past and present) of turbulent transformation and conflict, thus helping make sense of these transformations as well as adding new empirical insights to larger questions on life in the South Caucasus. Part I begins the discussion of women and social change in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan by examining the contradictions between traditional gender roles and emancipation and how they continue to dictate women's lives. Part II focuses on women's experiences of war and conflict in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Nagorny Karabakh, as well as displacement from Abkhazia and Azerbaijan. Part III examines the challenges faced by sexual minorities in Georgia and feminist activism in Azerbaijan.

Women's Everyday Lives in War and Peace in the South Caucasus will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, politics, gender studies and history.

Autorentext

Ulrike Ziemer is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Winchester, UK.

Inhalt

Part I: Women, Tradition and Social Change.- 1. Women as Bearers of Modernity and Tradition; Melanie Krebs.- 2. 'Supra is not for women': Hospitality Practices as a Lens on Gender and Social change; Costanza Curro.- 3. Women against Authoritarianism and Patriarchy: Agency and Political Protest in Armenia; Ulrike Ziemer.- Part II: Experiencing War and Displacement.- 4. Between Love, Pain and Identity: Armenian Women after World War I; Anna Aleksanyan.- 5. 'We are strangers among our own people': Displaced Armenian Women; Shushanik Ghazaryan.- 6. Vulnerability and Resilience: Women's Narratives of Forced Displacement from Abkhazia; Nargiza Arjevanidze.- 7. The Politics of Widowhood in Nagorny Karabakh; Nona Shahnazarian and Ulrike Ziemer.- 8. Invisible Battlefield: How the Politicization of LGBT Issues Affects the Visibility of LBT Women in Georgia; Natia Gvianishvili.- 9. Exploring Two Generations of Women Activists in Azerbaijan: Between Feminism and a Post-Soviet Locality; Yuliya Aliyeva Gureyeva.- 10. Feminism in Azerbaijan: Gender, Community and Nation-Building; Sinead Walsh.