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Mistrusting the Obvious

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Mistrust

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Abstract

This chapter consists of ethnographic vignettes of mistrust, with the material mainly stemming from Abkhazia, a breakaway self-declared republic in the Caucasus. The largely absent international recognition of Abkhazia makes mistrust almost endemic and a crucial part of daily life. Mistrust materialises in the assumption that something is hidden behind the surface, for example a secret agenda. This assumption paves the way for conspiracy theories, but also makes it possible to get along with distrusted others who cannot be avoided. Contrasting vignettes from Georgia show that mistrust towards facades may also entail the opposite assumption: that there is nothing behind the facades.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In accordance with the policy of the media portal OC Media that reports on the entire region of the Caucasus, I do not use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’ or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions within Abkhazia for reasons of readability. In the same vein, the simultaneous usage of the designations ‘Abkhazia’ and ‘Georgia’ does not imply a position on the political status of Abkhazia, but rather follows the pragmatic goal of being able to contrast situations and developments in Abkhazia and (the rest of) Georgia without straining the readability of the text with inserted brackets.

  2. 2.

    See West and Sanders (2003) for the social workings of conspiracy theories.

  3. 3.

    Many thanks to Sascha Roth for raising this argument.

  4. 4.

    Timur Kodori is probably a pseudonym.

  5. 5.

    Source: https://www.usaid.gov/georgia/working-crises-and-conflict (date accessed 14 January 2019); however, later on, this entry also disappeared.

  6. 6.

    Again, my gratitude goes to Sascha Roth for bringing this to my attention.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Social Anthropology Programme, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

    Florian Mühlfried

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  1. Florian Mühlfried
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Mühlfried, F. (2019). Mistrusting the Obvious. In: Mistrust. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11470-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11470-1_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11469-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11470-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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