by Professor Ariel Otruba, Adjunct Professor, Moravian University and ARISC Junior Research Fellowship awardee.
Keywords: Forced or involuntary migration; internally displaced people (IDPs); slow violence; displacement; Georgia.
Module Description: This module provides an overview of involuntary migration at multiple scales: local, national, and global, defining and differentiating forms of displacement and their causes. Using Georgia as a case study, the module provides students a glimpse into the lived experiences of forcibly and internally displaced Georgians resulting from border wars in post-Soviet Georgia. Invoking the notion of “slow violence,” Professor Otruba brings students into the dilapidated conditions of the “collective centers” that were once grand sanatoriums, with a focus on the residents of the abandoned Tskaltubo sanatoria.