Mariam Shalvashvili, a doctoral student in the Social and Cultural Anthropology doctoral program at Ilia State University, has published an article in the Routledge International Handbook of Queer Death Studies.

The article titled “LIVING WITH THE DEAD: Grief Politics and Discourses on Nationalism and Modernity in Georgia” discusses mourning practices in Samegrelo, Georgia. Through the discussion of mourning practices, the author questions the modern, medicalized understanding of grief and death, and rigid and normative binaries such as dead/alive, passive/active, absence/presence, past/present, and material/spectral. The article also delves into the gendered expectations of mourning. Furthermore, the paper shows that discussions of grief practices in Samegrelo reveal various anxieties about Georgian nationalism and modernity, how Megrelians fit into this imaginary, and the contemporary aspirations of the Georgian nation.

For further information, please view https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-International-Handbook-of-Queer-Death-Studies/Lykke-Mehrabi-Radomska/p/book/9781032504384