Mariam Shalvashvili and Dato Laghidze, PhD Students of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Ilia State University, received Heinrich Boell Foundation

Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung South Caucasus Scholarships for doctoral research.

Mariam Shalvashvili’s research is about the role of conspiracy theories and doubts in the formation of citizenship. On the one hand, research will look at how conspiracy theories and doubts are mobilized for consolidation of economic and political power, on the other hand, it will explore how rumors and unarticulated experiences reveal something about economic inequality and opaque politics in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia.
Dato Laghidze will look at Georgian airports in the context nation-building and immigration policies. The doctoral research will critically examine the political significance of airports and look at them as scenes of outflow of Georgian citizens. The research will focus on the double role of airports, on the one hand, as symbols of modernization and globalization, and on the other hand, as spaces of immigration control and border crossing.