Peter Kabachnik | College of Staten Island (original) (raw)

Papers by Peter Kabachnik

Teaching in Higher Education, 2023

This Point for Departure highlights why higher education institutions (HEIs) should integrate Ind... more This Point for Departure highlights why higher education institutions (HEIs) should integrate Indigenous perspectives in their course offerings, campus management, and scholarly production. Much of HEI's sustainability focus today disproportionately focuses on climate change, which we argue is because its purported solutions actually serve to reinforce, business-as-usual industrial growth. The alternative paradigm to long-term sustainability we propose that HEIs should work to implement is to restructure their curriculum and pedagogy to incorporate what we refer to as Indigenous sustainabilities. In short, we call for academics to integrate Indigenous perspectives and place-based knowledges into their courses, research agenda, and service work in lieu of, or at least in addition to, the current Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) paradigms that often narrowly focus on how HEI are reducing their carbon emissions via so-called ‘clean’ energy, at the expense of addressing other equally, if not more, concerning threats to a healthy biosphere.

Geografiska Annaler Series B-human Geography, Jan 11, 2023

International Journal of Sociology, 2019

Recently there has been a renewed focus on analyzing post-communist memory, including the revital... more Recently there has been a renewed focus on analyzing post-communist memory, including the revitalization of debate on contemporary public perceptions of Josef Stalin. How do Russians and Georgians judge Stalin in the post-Soviet present? What individual characteristics are the best indicators of how someone evaluates Stalin? Scholars have offered various insights into the apparent resurgence of appreciation for the late Soviet leader, including nostalgia for the Soviet period, socio-spatial variables, and political attitudes, but no comparative research on attitudes and their explanations has been attempted. Using nationally representative survey data, this study compares the perceptions of Stalin in contemporary Russia and contrasts it with how people view the Soviet dictator in Georgia, his home country. We conclude that Stalin is alive in the minds of many, both in Georgia and Russia, although for different reasons. If in Georgia the admiration of Stalin is largely explained by socio-demographic and socio-spatial variables, in Russia it is more closely related to ideological and political context.

Problems of Post-Communism, 2020

The article uses mixed methods to explore the politics of memory surrounding the Stalin monument ... more The article uses mixed methods to explore the politics of memory surrounding the Stalin
monument in Gori, Georgia, which was removed by the government in 2010. We employ
bivariate and multivariate statistics to analyze people’s preferences in Georgia concerning
the monument’s fate using socio-demographic, socio-economic, spatial, and political variables, identifying six factors as offering explanatory power: gender, age, place, socialization, education, and attitudes toward Vladimir Putin. We identify three main narratives in the qualitative data analysis: the desire to continue displaying the monument somewhere; the futility of monument battles; and the appeal to democratic principles in deciding these cases.

Central Asian Survey, 2018

This article explores the hybridity of commemoration by analyzing people’s attitudes to three typ... more This article explores the hybridity of commemoration by analyzing people’s attitudes to three types of contested Soviet symbols in post-Soviet Georgia. I draw on 62 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted in 2012-2013 with Georgians in Tbilisi, Georgia. These interviews focused on what people thought about places of memory, Soviet symbols in public space, and memory politics and policies in contemporary Georgia. I examine their opinions towards three different types of reminders of the Soviet past in public space: general Soviet symbols; street names; and the Stalin monument in Gori. This analysis reveals their diverse understandings of place and highlights the hybridity of their responses towards the different elements of Soviet symbolism. This not only prevents one from creating ideal typologies when considering places of memory, but also highlights the impact of the form and location of the symbol. I also identify two ways that people conceptualize place, one that recognises the power of place, and the other that perceives place as powerless.

Nationalities Papers, 2017

The politics of memory plays an important role in the ways certain figures are evaluated and reme... more The politics of memory plays an important role in the ways certain figures are evaluated and remembered, as they can be rehabilitated or vilified, or both, as these processes are contested. We explore these issues using a transition society, Georgia, as a case study. Who are the heroes and villains in Georgian collective memory? What factors influence who is seen as hero or villain and why? How do these selections correlate with Georgian national identity? We attempt to answer these research questions using a newly generated dataset on contemporary Georgian perspectives on the recent history. Our survey results show that according to the representative sample of the Georgian population from the beginning of the 20th century the main heroes include Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Ilia Chavchavadze, and the Patriarch Ilia II; Eduard Shevardnadze, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, and Vladimir Putin represent main villains; and those that appear on both lists are Mikheil Saakashvili and Joseph Stalin. We highlight two clusters of attitudes that are indicative of how people think about Georgian national identity, mirroring civic and ethnic conceptions of nationalism. How Georgians understand national identity impacts not only who they choose as heroes or villains, but whether they provide an answer at all.

Displacement in Georgia is highly politicized. By invoking inflated numbers of IDPs, failing to i... more Displacement in Georgia is highly politicized. By invoking inflated numbers of IDPs, failing to integrate them, or trying to discourage spontaneous return, the Georgian government's actions at times point to their use of IDPs as a political weapon. We examine the discourses and policies surrounding IDPs, including laws designed to deal with them, institutions that manage them, and political statements about IDPs, as forms of governmentality and geopower. We critically assess Georgian IDP policies and discourses, documenting the shift from solely prioritizing return to, after 2007, allowing room, alongside the rhetoric of return, for a specific understanding of integration. Our analysis highlights how, for the Georgian government, the meaning of integration is constructed in a narrow fashion, primarily understood as the provision of housing.

In this article we explore the spatial variation of support for former Soviet leader Joseph Stali... more In this article we explore the spatial variation of support for former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, in his home country, Georgia. This research contributes to the literature on reputational politics by highlighting the role of spatial, rather than only social, factors in the construction of public opinion about Stalin. We illustrate how geographic factors impact Georgians’ perceptions of the Soviet dictator by examining various aspects of place at various scales -- including distance to Gori, Stalin’s birthplace, the history of urbanization, and economic and political indices. To this end we map attitudes toward the Soviet dictator and use a multilevel spatial regression technique to explain variance in support for Stalin across 47 districts of Georgia. This enables us to explore the impact of place on people's attitudes by examining (1) whether there are local and regional hotspots of Stalin admiration, and, if so, (2) what are the contextual explanations of these attitudes.

Recently, in post-Soviet space, new Stalin statues have been created, and old ones have reappeare... more Recently, in post-Soviet space, new Stalin statues have been created, and old ones have reappeared. These battles, both symbolic and material, over monuments. This article highlights the disparate meanings of three historical Stalin monuments that served as focal points for three major cases of mass demonstrations during Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign: Tbilisi, Budapest, and Prague. Next, drawing on newly found materials from Tbilisi’s Central Committee Archive of the Communist Party of Georgia, this article discusses Bogdan Muradovich Kirakosian’s never-realized project to build a massive Stalin monument that would have overlooked Tbilisi. Last is the analysis of survey data that captures individuals’ attitudes towards Stalin for those born in Georgia before 1945 in order to surmise how such a grand monument to Stalin would have been received at the time.

This article explores the impact of spatial location – place – on people's attitudes by examining... more This article explores the impact of spatial location – place – on people's attitudes by examining whether support for Stalin is concentrated in his birthplace: Gori, Georgia. Using a variety of multivariate statistical methods, including propensity score-matching, we examine a recent survey indicating high levels of admiration for Stalin in his home country. We explore two main questions: First, is there a “hometown effect” – do people in Gori love Stalin unconditionally because they came from the same place? Second, is Gori so exceptional from the rest of Georgia? We conclude that there is indeed a stronger level of support for Stalin in Gori, but when shifting scales and looking within the category, we find that the highest admiration stems from the town's rural outskirts.

Recently, there has been a renewed focus on analyzing post-Soviet memory, including the rekindlin... more Recently, there has been a renewed focus on analyzing post-Soviet memory, including the rekindling of debate on contemporary perspectives of Josef Stalin. Most notably, the publication of The Stalin Puzzle has helped bring attention to the persistence of positive accounts and admiration, along with ambivalent and contested images, of the former dictator of the Soviet Union. Using survey data and multivariate statistical methods, we test five broad hypotheses – socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender – to ascertain what factors might shape people's attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia. Our analysis reveals that elderly, poor men from rural areas have the most positive associations of Stalin, whereas young, wealthier women from cities, those who are open to privatization, and perceive Russia as Georgia's biggest threat judge Stalin negatively. Counterintuitively, non-Georgian minorities show higher esteem for Stalin than Georgians. We envision that the effects of cohort replacement, economic development, and urbanization will decrease positive perceptions of Stalin in years to come.

The multiple geographies approach, which combines the spatial-analytic and sociospatial perspecti... more The multiple geographies approach, which combines the spatial-analytic and sociospatial perspectives, highlights the lack of homogenous experience for internally displaced persons across places. After laying out the significance of the multiple
geographies approach, we show how geographical perspectives on the economic, material, and social circumstances of internally displaced persons in Georgia cast a different light on creating visibility for their experiences, possibilities for amelioration of circumstances, and the creation of spaces of displacement. We argue that data presentation in a categorical manner is useful for highlighting the forced migrant experience but that adding the sociospatial lens provides deeper insight into human security and people’s lived experiences. We do this through a discussion of the material and social life of internally displaced persons in collective centres as compared to those
in private accommodation, by gender, and in different locations in Georgia. We argue that we are ultimately able to improve human security by refining our knowledge of the internally displaced persons’ experiences by highlighting spatial processes.

For the past few centuries, anti-nomadic legislation has attempted to settle nomads who traveled ... more For the past few centuries, anti-nomadic legislation has attempted to settle nomads who traveled throughout England and elsewhere in Europe, as their mobilities challenged the sedentarist goals of modern nation states. As recently as 1994, the nomadic way of life was effectively criminalized in England and Wales, revealing the unbalanced power relations between Gypsies and Travelers and the state. This article will examine and highlight the agency and spatialities of resistance of nomadic Gypsy and Traveler groups in England who are struggling for the recognition of their right to legally inhabit caravan sites in areas such as Green Belt land. The selection of places in the Green Belt for their homes offers another contested landscape that runs counter to the typical understanding of Gypsies and Travelers residing in marginalized places due to discrimination or wanting to remain unnoticed. By drawing from Gypsies and Travelers' own narratives, this article documents how they navigate through policies designed to constrain them.

Over 200,000 people became internally displaced after several violent conflicts in the early 1990... more Over 200,000 people became internally displaced after several violent conflicts in the early 1990s in Georgia. For many internally displaced persons (IDPs), gender relations have been transformed significantly. This translates to many women taking on the role of breadwinner for their family, which often is accompanied by the process of demasculinization for men. In this article, we examine the construction of masculinities and analyze the gendered processes of displacement and living in post-displacement for Georgian IDPs from Abkhazia. We identify the formation of 'traumatic masculinities' as a result of the threats to, though not usurpation of, hegemonic masculinities. Drawing on interviews, we highlight how IDPs conceptualize gender norms and masculinities in Georgia. Despite the disruptions that displacement has brought about, with the subsequent challenges to IDPs' ideal masculine roles, the discourses of hegemonic masculinities still predominate amongst IDPs. We further illustrate this point by identifying two separate gendered discourses of legitimization that attempt to reconcile hegemonic masculinities with the current contexts and circumstances that IDPs face. These new traumatic masculinities do coexist with hegemonic masculinities, although the latter are reformed and redefined as a result of the new contexts and new places within which they are performed.