The data for Dudwick (2003)’s work were collected in 1996. As of 1995, there were approximately 250,000 IDPs in Georgia (an additional estimated 100,000 refugees had also fled from Georgia to Russia), due to the civil conflicts of the 1990s (as described in Chapter 4). Approximately half of the 250,000 within Georgia lived in collective centres
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including kindergartens, hostels, hospitals, and other public buildings in unhygienic and overcrowded conditions. The humanitarian assistance they received in some cases caused resentment among the (non-displaced) local populations, who saw their own circumstances just as worthy of intervention. The local population also viewed IDPs as unwanted competition for local resources, including job opportunities.
Despite the desperate situations of many Georgians in the years after independence, Dudwick (2003) argues that IDPs are a group particularly vulnerable to poverty. Amongst those areas with high numbers of IDPs (resulting from the civil wars of the 1990s, as discussed in Chapter 4), loss of homes and property was explained as leading to poverty. As such, the loss of property suffered by IDPs compounded the losses experienced by many Georgians. Though many suffered financial losses with the end of the Soviet era, internally displaced Georgians suffered further through displacement off their land which could have provided at least subsistence farming opportunities.
Throughout the 1990s, IDPs and other poor Georgians coped with economic hardship through subsistence farming, reducing expenditure (including expenditure on health care, transportation, home repair, and basic utilities such as heating), forgoing social and recreational activities, and selling assets, such as personal property (jewellery, clothing), furniture, cars, and homes. Borrowing in order to invest in entrepreneurial endeavours and cover daily expenses was also common. Poor families also engaged in gardening to grow as much food as they could, selling any excess. In South Ossetia, people who could not work their land leased it to others, in exchange for some money and a share in the harvest (Dudwick, 2003). Finally, many families sent members abroad for work, surviving on remittances sent home. This practice was notably prevalent in South Ossetia, where high unemployment even before the dissolution of the Soviet Union caused approximately half of the population to relocate to North Ossetia in Russia. This large- scale migration facilitated trade between North and South Ossetia, as residents of the latter could depend on family and friends in North Ossetia to accommodate them and assist in other ways.
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Dudwick (2003) found that many IDPs from Abkhazia had worked as professionals prior to displacement. After becoming displaced, they found themselves even more cut off from professional opportunities than the local ‘host’ population, who were also struggling to obtain and maintain employment. IDPs who fled without any possessions were unable to sell property for profit. Their only means of subsistence in the immediate post-war period came in the form of humanitarian relief distributed by the United Nations or international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The Government of Georgia also provided modest relief to IDPs. IDPs within South Ossetia suffered from overcrowding, not only due to buildings damaged by war but also to buildings damaged by the 1991 earthquake.
Poor mental health was commonly reported by Georgian IDPs in the 1990s (Dudwick, 2003). Those who had settled in urban areas lacked access to land, and so were unable to grow their own food. Many turned to beggars, which they found humiliating. Many respondents in Dudwick (2003) reported a deep sense of insecurity about the future, along with isolation from their host populations.
The literature discussed above represent a significant body of work which assists in understanding how persons experience loss and cope within post-Soviet contexts, including Georgia. This thesis aims to contribute to coping typologies and loss frameworks which may have a wider applicability, thereby contributing to these areas of research. Therefore, in later empirical chapters I draw upon the Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) along with a coping typology developed by Skinner, Edge, Altman, and Sherwood (2003) to organize and interpret loss patterns and coping responses respectively reported by the internally displaced Georgian women included as participants in this thesis.
Chapter 2 encompasses a thorough discussion and rationale for selecting the loss and coping frameworks, the effects of conflict and displacement on mental health, theories of coping in the face of exposure to stress, and the overall aim and objectives of the thesis. Chapter 3 presents a systematic review on coping strategies among conflict-affected persons. This is followed by Chapter 4 describing the research context framing the thesis, which is followed by Chapter 5 providing the methodology of the field research used for the thesis. The methodology Chapter is followed by three empirical findings Chapters (6-
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8). Chapter 6 explores the resource losses faced by IDP women in Georgia, and Chapter 7 focuses on their coping strategies. The final empirical finding Chapter focuses on Georgian IDP women’s understandings of how men’s and women’s roles have changed during displacement. Chapter 9 discusses the findings presented in Chapters 6, 7, and 8. The final Chapter also provides a number of recommendations based on the findings, as well as the limitations and contributions of the thesis.