Women's Views on the Legal Order of "Thieves-in-law" in Postsoviet Georgia
Competing with State Laws, between Partisan Morality and Legal Formalism
Abstract
As the power and influence of the “thieves-in-law” in Georgia weakened in an offensive against them that began in 2006, their parallel legal system lost some of its legitimacy in the face of the state legal system. This article, based on an ethnographic fieldwork conducted with women linked to the “world of thieves”, explores their discourses and rhetorical strategies concerning the “law” of “thieves”. It shows that beyond the partisan feelings of belonging that are expressed through claims of personal moral and qualities, their frames of reference reveal proper legal conceptions that interact and compete with the laws of the state.
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Carey, Matthew. 2022. « Se Jurer Complice ». Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines 77 : 30–47. https://doi.org/10.4000/terrain.23764.
Curro, Costanza. 2017. “A Critical Assessment of Informal Practices as Resistance: The Case of birzha in Georgia”. Caucasus Survey 5 (1): 65–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2017.1280949.
Di Puppo, Lili. 2019. Policing As Spectacle in Georgia: The Creation of Boundaries in a Post-Revolutionary Country. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3321084.
Ferry, Maroussia. 2023. « ‹ Elles triment, ils flambent ›. Crise et valeur improductive de l’argent féminin en Géorgie postsoviétique ». Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines 78 : 70–89. https://doi.org/10.4000/terrain.25061.
Ferry, Maroussia. 2021. « Le ‹ voleur dans la loi › comme horizon. Itinéraire d’une figure morale en Géorgie postsoviétique ». Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines 74 : 22–41. https://doi.org/10.4000/terrain.21073.
Ferry, Maroussia. 2015. « Exil temporel chez les migrants de retour en Géorgie post-soviétique ». Temporalités. Revue de sciences sociales et humaines 22. https://temporalites.revues.org/3212.
Follorou, Jacques. 2021, « Géorgie. Le retour des ‹ Voleurs dans la loi › ». Le Monde, 9 août 2021.
Frederiksen, Martin. 2015. “The Last Honest Bandit – Transparency and Spectres of Illegality in the Republic of Georgia”. In Ethnographies of Grey Zones in Eastern Europe – Borders, Relations and Invisibilities, edited by Martin D. Frederiksen, and I. Harboe Knudsen, 157–70. London: Anthem Press.
Jones, Stephen F. 2015. Georgia: A Political History since Independence. London: Tauris.
Lambek, Michael. 2010. “Toward an Ethics of the Act.” In Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action, édité par Michael Lambek, 39–63. New York: Fordham University Press.
Massé, Raymond. 2009. « Anthropologie des moralités et de l’éthique : essai de définitions ». Anthropologie et Sociétés 33 (3) : 21–42. https://doi.org/10.7202/039679ar.
Mühlfried, Florian. 2018. “Don’t Trust, Don’t Fear, Don’t Beg”. In Mistrust: ethnographic approximations, édité par Florian Mühlfried, 179–99. Bielefeld : Transcript, Kultur und soziale Praxis.
Nordin, Virginia D., et Georgi Glonti. 2006. “Thieves of the Law and the Rule of Law in Georgia”. Caucasian Review of International Affairs 1 (1): 49–64.
Rawls, John. 2009 [1971]. Théorie de la justice. Traduit par Catherine Audard. Points. Essais 354. Paris: Seuil.
Slade, Gavin. 2013. Reorganizing crime: Mafia and anti-Mafia in post-Soviet Georgia. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
Slade, Gavin, and Alexander Kupatadze. 2017. “Popular Punitiveness? Punishment and Attitudes to Law in Post-Soviet Georgia.” Europe-Asia Studies 69 (6): 879–896. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2017.1357165.
Thibaut, John, and Laurens Walker. 1975. Procedural Justice: A Psychological Analysis. N. J., Lawrence Elbaum Associates. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Thompson, Edward P. 1978. The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Varese, Federico. 1998. “The Society of the vory-v-zakone, 1930s–1950s”. Cahiers Du Monde Russe 39 : 515–38. https://doi.org/10.3406/cmr.1998.2538.
Zakharova, Evgenia. 2015. “The Tbilisi ‘Street’ as a Legal and Political Phenomenon in Georgia”. In State and Legal Practice in the Caucasus: Anthropological Perspectives on Law and Politics, édité par Stéphane Voell, and Iwona Kaliszewska, 69–82. London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Published
2024-01-03
How to Cite
Ferry, Maroussia. 2024. “Women’s Views on the Legal Order of ‘Thieves-in-Law’ in Postsoviet Georgia: Competing With State Laws, Between Partisan Morality and Legal Formalism”. Swiss Journal of Sociocultural Anthropology 29 (1):38-54. https://doi.org/10.36950/sjsca.2023.29.8952.
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