Tarki-karaman: mechanism of a social conflict over land in Dagestan

Abstract

This article describes the results of a sociological research that aims to explain social conflict over a landholding in Dagestan, Russia. In-depth interviews, group discussions and observations in the communities of the conflict participants were carried out on the conflict territory. The article shows how the conflict mechanism is triggered when different social layers starts interacting with each other. In a depressed settlement separated from Makhachkala socially, symbolically and spatially there is a community that was once deported and now initiates discourse dealing with the land seizure. This leads to the formation of a social movement which carries out landholding being at the crossroads of different interests. The peak of the conflict is after the resident of the settlement start to collect payment to get access to the beach. The author concludes that the basic factors of social movement were the double deportation experienced by the residents of Tarki-Karaman, community`s reticence, its apartness and a tradition according to which the return of the land is a solution to any problem