Meskhetian Turks Project *
ECMI PRACTICE-ORIENTED RESEARCH
"Between Integration and resettlement: The Meskhetians"
Background:
The Meskhetian population is the last among the national groups of the Soviet Union deported during Stalin in 1943-44, that yet has not been able to return to their native region (in southwest Georgia). Some 270-335,000 people today, the Meskhetians following pogroms and multiple displacements find themselves scattered throughout vast territories in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and the USA. In some of these countries, the Meskhetians face ethnic persecution and even expulsion, while independent Georgia effectively blocks resettlement to their native region. International actors seeking to address these problems encounter severe difficulties in finding solutions, inter alia, due to lack of consistent knowledge on Meskhetians' own perceptions of their displacement and their visions for future settlement.
Aims:
The project aims to produce a comprehensive and comparative cross-border study of today's Meskhetian communities and strives to develop an alternative discourse to the framework maintained by international actors addressing the problems of the Meskhetians, based on an a priori assumption that Meskhetian Turks desire to return to their region of origin. The project, through the conduct of multi-disciplinary research in the nine above countries seeks to grasp the complexity of the subject by obtaining a thorough understanding of Meskhetian identity, migration processes, concepts of 'home' and social organization, which can provide the basis for new approaches to find durable solutions to the problems of the Meskhetians.
Activities:
In the start-up phase, methodological and other research materials have been compiled and a first research workshop to refine the project structure and methodology was held in September 2004. Following the workshop, ethnographic fieldwork was carried out in the nine countries of Meskhetian settlement. Legal and thematic studies were conducted from June to November 2004. At a second workshop, the first draft of the research chapters were discussed in a cross-country perspective and revised (June 2005). Additional fieldwork was conducted followed by revisions of the research chapters (July-October 2005). The research will result in an authoritative research volume to be published by an international publishing house by late 2006. The project is generously funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.
Working Papers and Reports:
ECMI Working Paper #21
Pentikäinen, Oskari and Tom Trier. Between Integration and Resettlement: The Meskhetian Turks. August 2004, 54 pp., appendix.
http://www.ecmi.de/download/working_paper_21b.pdf
ECMI Report #56
Blacklock, Denika. Finding Durable Solutions for the Meskhetians. A Presentation of Preliminary Findings and a Roundtable Discussion with Government and Civil Society Actors in Georgia. Report on the Joint Conference organized by the ECMI and the State Minister of Georgia on Conflict Resolution Issues. August 2005, 20 pp., appendix.
http://www.ecmi.de/download/Report_56.pdf
For further information, please contact Denika Blacklock.
Research Projects
OMC Programme *
Meskhetian Turks Project *
Framework Convention *
Complex Power-Sharing *
Language Politics in Transition Countries *
Implementation of Minority Rights Standards *
Political Participation
Ethnic Democracy in Europe *
Evaluating Policy Measures for Minority Languages *
Support for Minority Languages in the European Union *
Educational Policy and Minorities: Pilot Project Ukraine *
Minority Governance Concepts *
