Verwandtschaft, Kultur, Religion

The present volume (in German) engages with central questions of Georgia's ethnography and culture in two parts. These texts by the social anthropologist and expert of Georgia Johanna Stigler (1962-2007) were edited by Andrea Strasser-Camagni and Stefan Krist. The first part critically discusses Soviet ethnographic concepts of kinship and Karthvelian kinship terminology. Johanna Stigler's comprehensive study "Gens, Clan and Patronymy: Soviet Concepts of Kinship and Karthvelian Kinship Terminology" provides a detailed ethnographic empirical analysis of Karthvelian kinship systems. In this way, it demonstrates that Soviet ethnographie concepts served as "instruments of ideology", which "cannot be appreciated as the results of academic corroboration". The second part of this publication focuses on Jewry from the Caucasus region. The author's text "Vienna as a home of choice: Jews from the Caucasus at the Mexico Square" features the results of her fieldwork among Jews from the Caucasus residing in Vienna. By its results on these migrants' identity constructions, the text also offers a rich contribution to the field of migration studies. The volume also includes the article "Between Segregation and Assimilation: Integration of Jews from the Caucasus region in their ethnic contexts," which presents a detailed historiography for these groups. In both fields, Johanna Stigler's works tend to attain unique significance. Their interdisciplinary relevance covers social and cultural anthropology, Kharthvelian and Caucasus studies, Jewish studies, the history of Eastern Europe, and migration studies