Since the Russia – Georgia war in August 2008, once a fictional administrative boundary of occupied Region, began to transform into a barriered “international border”. Except settlements that appeared behind the occupation line, 33 villages already had been split by heavily guarded fences. The process of “borderization” remains ongoing and restricts residents’ access to each other and to their homes, water, farming lands, or village cemeteries.
While much of the perimeter stays uncertain and unmarked, frequently locals are detained by the Russian/South Ossetian militants, what creates constant psychological pressure and insecure living environment. According to the interviews in some cases „border” demarcations serve to create security through their supposed clarity. At the same time, they produce uncertainties for other actors and in other places.
Based on interviews conducted during summer-autumn 2019, my project aims to show how locals experience the complex process of borderisation of the boundary around the occupied territory what creates ambiguities, complicate clarity, and thus generate further un/certainties that must be dealt with – analytically as much as practically.

A full-length study is available here.