TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2019//
TI  - Carving out the nation with the enemy's kin: double strategy of boundary-making in Transnistria and Abkhazia
JO  - Nations and nationalism
A1  - Dembińska, Magdalena
SP  - 298
EP  - 317
VL  - 25
IS  - 1
N2  - The 1992-1993 civil wars in Moldova and in Georgia ended with a de facto separation of Transnistria and Abkhazia, respectively. These de facto states are both inhabited by the kin to the 'enemy' across the administrative border: Moldovans and Georgians/Mingrelians. How do the de facto authorities foster a collective identity in support of their claim for legitimacy and statehood? Engaging with Wimmer's taxonomy of boundary-making, this article argues that nation-building involves not only expansion but also, simultaneously, contraction. Transnistria constructs a higher-level identity category and co-opts and contracts the Moldovan category, separating it into 'our' and Bessarabian Moldovans in order to incorporate the former into the Transnistrian people. In Abkhazia, the nation-building project establishes the Abkhazs as the titular nation allowing, however, for the construction of an Abkhazian people that would include minorities, with Gal/i Georgians said to be Mingrelians, distinct from Georgians. These cases show that elites combine different ethnic boundary-making strategies in order to implement their favoured identity project and to legitimize the claimed statehood.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1354-5078
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nana.12386
ID  - ref1
ER  -