No path home: humanitarian camps and the grief of displacement

268 Pages·2017·9.093 MB·English

by  Dunn, Elizabeth C

NO PATH HOME

NO PATH HOME
Humanitarian Camps and the
Grief of Displacement
Elizabeth Cullen Dunn
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON
“The Airplane Dance,” from Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems,
by Nichita Sta˘nescu. Copyright © 2012 by Nichita Sta˘nescu. Reprinted with
the permission of Archipelago Books.
All photographs by Hannah Mintek.
Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from
the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House,
512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2017 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dunn, Elizabeth C., 1968– author.
Title: No path home : humanitarian camps and the grief of displacement /
Elizabeth Cullen Dunn.
Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017026508 (print) | LCCN 2017027518 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501712500 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501712517 (pdf) |
ISBN 9781501709661 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501712302
(pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Internally displaced persons—Georgia (Republic) | Refugee
camps—Georgia (Republic) | Humanitarian assistance—Georgia (Republic) |
South Ossetia War, 2008—Refugees.
Classification: LCC HV640.4.G28 (ebook) | LCC HV640.4.G28 D86 2017 (print) |
DDC 362.87/83094758—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026508

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Cover design: Richanna Patrick
Cover photograph: A settlement for internally displaced people near Prezeti,
Republic of Georgia. Photograph by Hannah Mintek.
To Aaron Theodore Cullen Dunn
My son, companion, and teacher
and
To the memory of Tamuna Robakidze
THE AIRPLANE DANCE
The dance moved in circles, with airplanes:
some golden
some silver.
They went like this: a half circle
on the left side, going up
then down, over the roofs
. . . then up, on the right
golden, silver
How they spun as they fell
golden, silver . . .
After that a neighbor’s house was gone
and the house on the corner
and the house next door
And I was amazed
and shook my head:
look, there’s no house! . . .
look, there’s no house! . . .
look, there’s no house! . . .
— Nichita Sta˘nescu, Wheel with a Single
Spoke and Other Poems
Contents
Note on Place Names in the South Caucasus ix
1. The Camp and the Camp 1
2. War 26
Intertext 1: The Normal Situation 52
3. Chaos 64
4. Nothing 91
Intertext 2: Void 113
5. Pressure 119
6. The Devil and the Authoritarian State 142
Intertext 3: The State and the state 169
7. Death 176
Intertext 4: Bright Objects 198
8. All That Remains 203
A cknowledgments 215
Notes 217
References 225
Index 247

Note on Place Names in the South Caucasus
The issue of place names in the Caucasus is extremely contentious, and the form
of the toponym generally indicates one’s political sympathies. Thus to refer to
South Ossetia as Samachablo, a toponym that refers to the territory as the prop-
erty of the Georgian Princes Machabeli, indicates a Georgian nationalist perspec-
tive, to refer to it as the Tskhinvali Autonomous Region indicates sympathy with
the Saakashvili government, and to call it Ossetia indicates sympathy with Osse-
tian ethnic separatism. Likewise, to refer to the capital of that region as Tskhinval
indexes Ossetian sympathies, but to call it Tskhinvali, with the Georgian nomina-
tive case ending, indexes Georgian partisanship. In this book, rather than try to
appear neutral while balancing a host of confusing toponyms, I have generally
chosen the names used by the English-language press: South Ossetia, Tskhinvali,
Disevi, and so on. The choice of names is expedient, not political: I use the names
that English-language readers are most likely to be familiar with.
ix