Görünmez Devlet, Görünmez Bilgi: Abhazya ve Uluslararası İlişkilerdeki Sessizlik

Abstract

Bu makale, Abhazya’nın Uluslararası İlişkiler (Uİ) disiplini içindeki epistemik görünmezliğini incelemekte ve bölgenin marjinalleşmesinin yalnızca jeopolitik değil aynı zamanda epistemolojik bir olgu olduğunu savunmaktadır. 1990’ların başından bu yana fiili bir devlet yapısına sahip olmasına rağmen Abhazya hâlâ ana akım Uİ literatüründe yeterince temsil edilmemektedir. Disiplinin tanınmış devletlere, güç politikalarına ve Batı merkezli çerçevelere öncelik vermesi bu görünmezliği güçlendirmektedir. Epistemik adaletsizlik (Fricker 2007) ve çevresel bilgi üretimi (Connell 2007) kavramlarından hareketle çalışma, bilgi hiyerarşilerinin hangi gerçekliklerin “uluslararası” kabul edildiğini nasıl tanımladığını araştırır. Abhazya’nın “donmuş çatışma”, “vekil bölge” veya “ayrılıkçı yapı” olarak çerçevelenme biçimlerini inceleyerek Kafkasya’dan gelen alternatif bilgi seslerini bastıran disipliner mekanizmaları ortaya koyar. Ayrıca dilsel, kurumsal ve jeopolitik engellerin Abhaz araştırmacıların küresel akademik ağlara katılımını nasıl sınırladığını tartışır. Mevcut literatürün ve sessizliklerinin meta-analitik bir okuması yoluyla çalışma, Kafkasya araştırmalarında daha kapsayıcı, çoğulcu ve sömürgesizleştirilmiş bir bilgi üretimi yaklaşımına çağrıda bulunur. Bu bağlamda Abhazya, dünya siyasetinde bir yokluk değil, disiplinin sınırlarının ve önyargılarının eleştirel biçimde yeniden değerlendirilebileceği bir epistemik alan olarak tanımlanır.

Keywords

• Abhazya
• epistemik adaletsizlik
• bilgi üretimi
• uluslararası ilişkiler
• çevre-merkez
• Kafkasya çalışmaları.

Invisible States, Invisible Knowledge: Abkhazia and the Silence of International Relations

Abstract

This article examines the epistemic invisibility of Abkhazia within the discipline of International Relations (IR) and argues that the region’s marginalization is not only geopolitical but also epistemological. Although Abkhazia has maintained a de facto statehood since the early 1990s, it remains largely underrepresented in mainstream IR literature, which tends to prioritize recognized states, power politics, and Western-centric frameworks. Drawing on the concepts of epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007) and peripheral knowledge production (Connell 2007), the study explores how hierarchies of knowledge define what counts as legitimate international reality. By tracing the ways in which Abkhazia is framed as a “frozen conflict,” a “proxy territory,” or a “breakaway region,” the article reveals the disciplinary mechanisms that silence alternative epistemic voices from the Caucasus. It also examines how linguistic, institutional, and geopolitical barriers contribute to the exclusion of Abkhaz-authored scholarship from global academic networks. Through a meta-analytical reading of existing literature and its silences, the article calls for a more inclusive, plural, and decolonized approach to knowledge production in Caucasus studies. In this sense, Abkhazia is not an absence in world politics but an epistemic site through which the boundaries and biases of the discipline itself can be critically re-examined.

Keywords

• Abkhazia
• epistemic injustice
• knowledge production
• International Relations
• periphery
• Caucasus studies.

References

1. Acharya, Amitav. 2014. “Global International Relations (GIR) and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Studies.” International Studies Quarterly 58 (4): 647–659. https://doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12171.
2. Broers, Laurence. 2019. Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
3. Caspersen, Nina. 2012. Unrecognized States: The Struggle for Sovereignty in the Modern International System. Cambridge: Polity Press.
4. Centre for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Abkhazia (CSI). 2024. Deizolyatsiya Abkhazii kak vazhnyy faktor gosudarstvennogo razvitiya [De-isolation of Abkhazia as an Important Factor of State Development]. Sukhum: CSI. https://www.csi.apsny.land/ru/analitika/item/401-deizolyatsiya-abkhazii-kak-vazhnyj-faktor-gosudarstvennogo-razvitiya.
5. Connell, Raewyn. 2007. Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science. Cambridge: Polity Press.
6. Cornell, Svante E. 2001. Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Richmond: Curzon Press.
7. Damenia, Oleg N. 2011. “Абхазия на рубеже веков (опыт понятийного анализа) [Abkhazia at the Turn of the Century: Conceptual Reflections].” Sukhum: Abkhaz State University. https://apsnyteka.org.
8. Dotson, Kristie. 2011. “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.” Hypatia 26 (2): 236–257. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2011.01177.x.

9. Frear, Thomas. 2014. “The Foreign Policy Options of a Small Unrecognised State: The Case of Abkhazia.” Caucasus Survey 1 (2): 83–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2014.11417293.
10. Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
11. Government of Abkhazia. 2020. Strategiya sotsial’no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya Respubliki Abkhaziya do 2025 goda [Strategy for the Socio-Economic Development of the Republic of Abkhazia up to 2025]. Sukhum: Government of the Republic of Abkhazia. https://www.csi.apsny.land/images/pdf/Strategia-Abkhazia-2025.pdf.
12. Gruffydd Jones, Branwen. 2006. Decolonizing International Relations. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
13. Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575–599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066.
14. Hobson, John M. 2012. The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760–2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
15. Jaeggi, Rahel. 2014. Alienation. New York: Columbia University Press.
16. Khashba, A. Sh. 2023. “Анализ демографической ситуации в Абхазии [Analysis of the Demographic Situation in Abkhazia].” Sukhum: Apsny.land. https://csi.apsny.land/ru/analitika/item/374-analiz-demograficheskoj-situatsii-v-abkhazii-khashba-a-sh.
17. Kopeček, Vincenc, Tomáš Hoch, and Vladimír Baar. 2016. “De Facto States and Democracy: The Case of Abkhazia.” Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series 32 (32): 85–104. https://doi.org/10.1515/bog-2016-0017.
18. Lynch, Dov. 2004. Engaging Eurasia’s Separatist States: Unresolved Conflicts and De Facto States. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.
19. Mbembe, Achille. 2017. Critique of Black Reason. Durham: Duke University Press. Medina, José. 2013. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199929022.001.0001.
20. Mignolo, Walter D. 2011. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham: Duke University Press.
21. O’Loughlin, John, Vladimir Kolossov, and Gerard Toal. 2011. “Inside Abkhazia: A Survey of Attitudes in a De Facto State.” Post-Soviet Affairs 27 (1): 1–36.
22. Pacher, Andreas. 2019. “The Diplomacy of Post-Soviet De Facto States: Ontological Security under Stigma.” International Relations 33 (4): 563–585. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117819856397.
23. Popescu, Nicolae. 2007. “Outsourcing De Facto Statehood: Russia and the Secessionist Entities in Georgia and Moldova.” CEPS Policy Brief 109: 1–24.
24. Quijano, Aníbal. 2000. “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America.” International Sociology 15 (2): 215–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580900015002005.
25. Sabaratnam, Meera. 2017. Decolonising Intervention: International Statebuilding in Mozambique. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
26. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2018. The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South. Durham: Duke University Press.
27. Smith, Mary Elizabeth. 2018. “De Facto State Foreign Policy ‘Social Moves’ in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.” Iran and the Caucasus 22 (2): 181–205. https://doi.org/10.1163/1573384X-20180208.
28. Tuana, Nancy. 2006. “The Epistemology of Ignorance.” Hypatia 21 (3): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2006.tb01110.x.