Tbilisi has undergone spectacular changes which can be grasped by the concept of 'Multiple Transformations', characteristic of post-socialist cities. Along with the reform of legislative, ...institutional and social frameworks, an urban or spatial transformation took place. We distinguish different phases of Tbilisi's urban transformation, discuss the reasons and analyze the outcomes of the transitional process. We argue that the multiple transformations which occurred since the 90's jeopardized many collective goods essential to the quality of urban life, while that same multiplicity destroyed mechanisms of coordination in governance, mechanisms which would have been helpful in defining a new form of urban governance and urban planning. Transition thus created a need for collective strategy while rendering the formation and implementation of such strategy hard. The multiple transitions concept proved helpful not only in analyzing a particular instance of urban change but also in linking that change to contextualized options for future strategy. In the case of Tbilisi, the analysis highlighted the time needed to rebuild institutions, clarify false oppositions, find value in combining planning and market principles, and in the basic idea of coordinated action towards collective goals.
This article points out the need to talk about the political society, or the politics and resistances, of subaltern groups in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Existing literature frames diversity ...marginalized struggles as civil society struggles or decries the weakness of donor-driven, disembedded civil societies, reproducing the understanding of political life in the region in terms of absences, voids and deficiencies. Challenging this subsumption or dismissal of subaltern struggles, I advance two arguments. First, I argue against broadening the civil society concept to include various subaltern struggles as this approach risks overwriting differences between those groups that mobilize as rights-bearing citizens and the ones that are not recognized or treated as civil society. Instead, I propose acknowledging the historically and spatially contingent character of civil society and the defining role of the state and other actors in shaping which struggles fall within or beyond institutional and discursive frameworks of legality and legitimacy. Second, I argue that Patra Chatterjee's concept of 'political society' can serve better as a meta-vocabulary to account for a diversity of struggles shunted as backwards, premodern and uncivilized, and to refocus research from what is absent to what is present, towards understanding counter-hegemonic discourses and practices.
The article investigates graffiti of Tbilisi, Georgia, as a part of the linguistic landscape of the city. The research is carried out within the theoretical framework of linguistic landscape, based ...on the works by Landry and Bourhis (1997), Gorter (2006), Jaworski and Thurlow (2010), etc. The aspects of multimodality, multilingualism and sociality are focused on in the research. The graffiti analysed displays the features of multimodality where visual images are used alongside with written texts, thus, adding the element of complexity to the discourse investigated. It must be pointed out that the use of English language for graffiti making prevails. Regarding the social aspect of the linguistic landscape, Tbilisi graffiti shows the engagement of street artists in a socially-relevant discussion tackling both local and state-level problems. The display of Tbilisi graffiti demonstrates the fluidity of this type of narrative: older graffiti are covered with new ones in addition to being cleaned or covered with official or commercial signage.
This article examines the ten-line cable car network of Tbilisi, Georgia, constructed by the Soviet government between 1953 to 1988, then decommissioned in the 1990s after independence and partially ...reactivated since 2012. During the Soviet era, Tbilisi's cable cars played an important role in the city's mass mobility, particularly in areas of steep geography. They also functioned ideologically, supporting Soviet ambitions toward public transportation and access to recreational space for the working proletariat. We argue that today's aerial network reflects new state ideological goals where cable cars lure global capital and facilitate the tourism commodification of Tbilisi's historic Old City. Tbilisi's cable car network can, therefore, be understood as embodying changes in government stances toward labor, leisure, and the direction of future development, while further reflecting the mobility politics of the city. The article describes the various ideological shifts that took place, exploring how Tbilisi's cable car network now links to contemporary changes in government urban development priorities and tourism promotion. The findings are based on interviews, document analysis, transit ridership/City Hall data, as well as field observations that collectively provide an overview of Tbilisi's cable car network as it has transformed since the 1950s.
Seven species are given for Georgia Encyrtidae fauna. Two species Rhopus trjapitzini Myartseva, 1982 and Trichomasthus ortivus Sharkov, 1989 are new records for Georgia and five new species for ...science are also described: Anusia tornike Japoshvili sp.n., Aphycus sulamanidzei Japoshvili sp.n.; Copidosoma aptera Japoshvili sp.n., Leptomastix gigantum Japoshvili sp.n. and Metaphycus sandro Japoshvili sp.n.
In 1975, the United Nations, under the auspices of its Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Environment Program (UNEP), established the International Environmental Education ...Program (IEEP). For two decades, IEEP aimed to accomplish goals ascribed to it by UNESCO member states and fostered communication across the international community through Connect, the UNESCO-UNEP environmental education newsletter. After reviewing UNESCO’s early involvement with the environment, this study examines IEEP’s development, beginning with its conceptual grounding in the 1968 UNESCO Biosphere Conference. It examines the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, moves on to the UNESCO-UNEP 1975 Belgrade Workshop, and continues with the world’s first intergovernmental conference dedicated to environmental education held in Tbilisi in 1977. The paper then uses Connect to trace changes in the form and content of environmental education. Across two decades, environmental education shifted from providing instruction about nature protection and natural resource conservation to fostering an environmental ethic through a problems-based, interdisciplinary study of the ecology of the total environment to adopting the concept of sustainable development. IEEP ultimately met with mixed success. Yet it was the primary United Nations program assigned the task of creating and implementing environmental education globally and thus offers a particularly useful lens through which to analyze changes in the international community’s understanding of the concept of the environment over time.
The article explores China’s growing presence and activities in Georgia and its present and potential geopolitical implications. Its aim is to contribute to the better understanding of China’s Belt ...and Road Initiative and its impact on the socio-political and economic security in Georgia as well as wider Caucasus region more generally. The article highlights Georgia’s role in the BRI as a land and maritime “bridge”. It examines in some depth the role of the Trans-Caspian route – the so-called Middle Corridor and its constituting Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway in the future development of the BRI and Georgia’s involvement in it as a “logistics hub” connecting Asia and Europe. The article also explores the prospects of the Deep-Water Port Project in the Black Sea town of Anaklia in Georgia and why it has not materialised yet. It touches upon the conflicting interests of Russia, Turkey and the US and how geopolitics influences economic calculations of the project. The article is largely based on a desk research conducted in summer and autumn 2020 and utilises both secondary and primary sources in its analysis. Online interviews and author’s communication with the Georgian government officials, Embassy representatives, experts in the field, Georgian exchange students in China and others connected to Chinese companies in Georgia have also been used in the analysis presented in the article. The article shows how despite increased Chinese involvement in Georgia more generally, China’s interest in the development of the economically, and possibly politically strategic for Georgia “Middle Corridor” route remains rather lukewarm. However, as the article tries to demonstrate, this should not prevent Georgia to pursue its ambitious plan of becoming a connecting land and maritime hub in the region. China is undoubtedly an important player in Asia and beyond, but it is not the only player.
Urban transformation in the postsocialist Global East was heavily determined by the mass privatization of state assets and by a dramatic increase in car ownership. Tbilisi, Georgia, has experienced ...these significant changes. The upsurge in private vehicle ownership was brought about by failing public transit, ineffective planning, suspended vehicle quality control and greater individualism. The problem has been exacerbated on two fronts in Tbilisi: new buildings built since the 1990s are now consuming former open spaces, while more people seek parking for their cars in the few crowded remaining areas leading to competition for parking space. Households of residential buildings are devising strategies for guarding nearby areas suitable for parking, while non-driving residents are at a loss to use these formerly open spaces for other purposes. Barriers are installed by the car-owning residents of apartment blocks to impose the primary function of parking to shared residential courtyards, an understudied communal space, turning them into part of the city's automobility system. The article relies on data from in-depth interviews with city officials and residents of affected areas, policy documents and field observations from the districts of Tbilisi most affected by such change. It argues that the changes started with the privatization of urban space and followed by an increase in the dominance of the automobile in Tbilisi have led to the rapid modification and deterioration of collective areas of multistory apartment blocks and created factors that are transforming courtyards from leisure space into the part of Tbilisi's automobility system.
Since the 1960s, both mega-events and special economic zones have gained global prominence as agents of urban development. Often relying on extra-legal measures for their realization, these two ...initiatives further create areas of spatial exclusion in cities. This paper examines their coming together in Tbilisi, Georgia, where costs for the city's hosting of the 2015 European Youth Olympic Festival were defrayed by the company Hualing Group in exchange for government approval of a 420-hectare special economic zone. Using a qualitative mixed-methods approach, the research shows that combining mega-events with special economic zones poses significant threats to the democratic processes tied to urban planning at both the local and national level. It further demonstrates how the coinciding of such projects promotes sprawl and privately-enclaved urban development patterns. In relation to urban theory, the paper contributes to a growing body of literature examining exceptionality in cities, and looking at how mega-events serve as legitimizing devices for even wider practices of long-term spatial and legal exception, such as special economic zones.
Arrival of managerialism, call for accountability, efficiency and effectiveness marked a new era in higher education. With the growing demand for evidence-based and data-driven analysis of higher ...education institutions' performance from internal and external stakeholders, universities are looking for ways to successfully implement performance indicator and benchmarks in management and quality assurance. Quality assurance is becoming more evidence-based, outcome-driven and focused on effectiveness. The article presents an analytical framework developed at Tbilisi State University that is based on indicators, software tool and metrics, intended to meet individual needs of the institution. The article adds to the debate about using indicators as the tool for evaluating university performance at different levels. Although many fear that it can lead to oversimplified quantitative evaluation, the article argues that indicators, best reflecting what should be measured, and how, can serve as the basis for the continuous quality enhancement at the university.
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