NO PATH HOME NO PATH HOME Humanitarian Camps and the Grief of Displacement Elizabeth Cullen Dunn CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON “The Airplane Dance,” from Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems, by Nichita Sta˘nescu. Copyright © 2012 by Nichita Sta˘nescu. Reprinted with the permission of Archipelago Books. All photographs by Hannah Mintek. Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2017 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Dunn, Elizabeth C., 1968– author. Title: No path home : humanitarian camps and the grief of displacement / Elizabeth Cullen Dunn. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017026508 (print) | LCCN 2017027518 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501712500 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501712517 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501709661 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501712302 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Internally displaced persons—Georgia (Republic) | Refugee camps—Georgia (Republic) | Humanitarian assistance—Georgia (Republic) | South Ossetia War, 2008—Refugees. Classification: LCC HV640.4.G28 (ebook) | LCC HV640.4.G28 D86 2017 (print) | DDC 362.87/83094758—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026508 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cover design: Richanna Patrick Cover photograph: A settlement for internally displaced people near Prezeti, Republic of Georgia. Photograph by Hannah Mintek. To Aaron Theodore Cullen Dunn My son, companion, and teacher and To the memory of Tamuna Robakidze THE AIRPLANE DANCE The dance moved in circles, with airplanes: some golden some silver. They went like this: a half circle on the left side, going up then down, over the roofs . . . then up, on the right golden, silver How they spun as they fell golden, silver . . . After that a neighbor’s house was gone and the house on the corner and the house next door And I was amazed and shook my head: look, there’s no house! . . . look, there’s no house! . . . look, there’s no house! . . . — Nichita Sta˘nescu, Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems Contents Note on Place Names in the South Caucasus ix 1. The Camp and the Camp 1 2. War 26 Intertext 1: The Normal Situation 52 3. Chaos 64 4. Nothing 91 Intertext 2: Void 113 5. Pressure 119 6. The Devil and the Authoritarian State 142 Intertext 3: The State and the state 169 7. Death 176 Intertext 4: Bright Objects 198 8. All That Remains 203 A cknowledgments 215 Notes 217 References 225 Index 247 Note on Place Names in the South Caucasus The issue of place names in the Caucasus is extremely contentious, and the form of the toponym generally indicates one’s political sympathies. Thus to refer to South Ossetia as Samachablo, a toponym that refers to the territory as the prop- erty of the Georgian Princes Machabeli, indicates a Georgian nationalist perspec- tive, to refer to it as the Tskhinvali Autonomous Region indicates sympathy with the Saakashvili government, and to call it Ossetia indicates sympathy with Osse- tian ethnic separatism. Likewise, to refer to the capital of that region as Tskhinval indexes Ossetian sympathies, but to call it Tskhinvali, with the Georgian nomina- tive case ending, indexes Georgian partisanship. In this book, rather than try to appear neutral while balancing a host of confusing toponyms, I have generally chosen the names used by the English-language press: South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, Disevi, and so on. The choice of names is expedient, not political: I use the names that English-language readers are most likely to be familiar with. ix