Promoting IDPs' and Women's Voices in Post-Conflict Georgia

willing to challenge authorities that provide them with essential income and services, thereforesupporting the current government through votes but otherwise exercising minimal efforts to promotetheir own needs and interests. 479Displacement also has enduring effects on IDPs’ ability to join networks that could help them accessemployment and gain greater economic stability. As an IDP from Abkhazia, noted, “In this country, a clanmentality remains and nobody gets hired from the street; it has to be some kind of connection…” 480IDPs’ living situations may also affect their access to networks. While IDPs living in collective centers maybe less integrated with the non-displaced community, they are often more closely connected to oneanother than are IDPs living in private accommodation simply because of proximity. Those living incollective centers may therefore be able to form new networks among themselves that may help themaccess resources. For example, IDPs in one center “might have a family connection with a community inanother collective center not far away. 481 These networks often remain insular, however, limiting IDPs’access to opportunities to participate in society among the broader population.At the same time, these stronger ties among IDPs in collective centers enable community engagement.A senior fellow from the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, states, “theytogether could really mobilize better themselves. For example, they could stop the traffic on the street iftheir electricity was not supplied or if their pensions were not raised.” He expresses concern at thegovernment’s effort to resettle IDPs in that it may adversely affect their opportunities to organizecollectively: “Now they are dispersed physically, this also weakens their potential to influence decisionmaking.”482 The resettlement policies may in fact work against any effort that IDPs had developed tomobilize their communities, serving as an additional factor influencing participation.On the other hand, IDPs living in private accommodations are more linked with the general populationand have the possibility to build networks that go beyond the displaced communities. Medea Turashvili,from the International Crisis Group observed that “once [IDPs] are settled in private accommodations,they are more active, more outspoken. I don't know why, maybe because integration is higher, they arenot stuck in this one building. 483Interviews with a number of displaced persons of a higher socioeconomic status supported this point ofview. Many of them had overcome significant barriers, living in collective centers and states of povertyfollowing their displacement. They have since taken advantage of economic and employmentopportunities to integrate into mainstream society, and some of them have also purchased their ownhomes. IDP identity plays a different role for these IDPs – some of them actively identify with this statusand have taken on this cause politically, while others find that it has become less relevant in their lives479 Nana Sumbadze, Personal Interview.480 IDP woman. Personal interview. 15 March 2012.481 Tina Gewis, Personal interview.482 Senior Fellow, Personal Interview.483 Turashvili, Medea (International Crisis Group). Personal interview. 13 March 2012.93