Resisting Development through Heritage: Identities, Hydropower, and Wine in Lechkhumi, Georgia
This paper examines the role of wine heritage and ecologies in local resistance efforts against the building of the Namakhvani Hydropower Plant in Lechkhumi, Georgia. It details how the anti-dam movement in this region was underscored by localised winemaking practices, social variables that helped b...
Saved in:
| In: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/socrep, |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Language: | Anglais |
| Published: |
Sociétés & représentations
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Summary: | This paper examines the role of wine heritage and ecologies in local resistance efforts against the building of the Namakhvani Hydropower Plant in Lechkhumi, Georgia. It details how the anti-dam movement in this region was underscored by localised winemaking practices, social variables that helped bolster support for the eventual nation-wide protests. The work details how conflicting conceptions of heritage clash with understandings of territory, space, and place. These tensions are further emphasised through wine’s extensive industrialised history during the Soviet Union, as a stark opposition to contemporary natural wine movements using UNESCO-recognized intangible heritage of qvevri—amphorae-shaped clay vessels used for wine fermentation and storage. Through five years of ethnographic fieldwork by both authors, this paper examines the role that wine plays in grounding localised connections to the place. It situates conceptions of heritage in conversation with state and local hydro-politics. Thus, this work weaves together analyses of local political movements to obstruct the building of the Namakhvani Hydropower Plant with understandings of Georgia’s national heritage—wine. It illustrates how it is that wine and winemaking practices played a crucial role in the successful anti-dam movement that occurred in Lechkhumi. This work contributes to emphasising non-state-centric conceptualisations of place and heritage and illustrates how cultural heritage can successfully stand against homogeneous ideals of space and place, turning instead to the ways in which ecologies can help humans build transformative futures. |
|---|