The World of Georgian NGOs: Struggles of Cultural Capital, Social Change and Geopolitics

Like elsewhere in post-socialist states, Georgia's NGO sector owes its existence to Western democratisation assistance, which envisioned it as an important contributor to the transition to democracy and capitalism. Despite being praised as active and vibrant, the sector has remained donor-dependent, non-participatory, and rather detached from the wider population. This thesis aims to problematise the NGO-population mismatch by going beyond the "weak civil society" argument and contextualise it in global and local hierarchical processes instead, that have been embedded in the post-socialist transformations. Guided by Bourdieusian sociology, the study revolves around individuals inhabiting the sector: it situates them in relation to the wider population and in the light of the above hierarchies, looks at their symbolic distinction, the ways they are responded to by different segments of the laypeople, and the rethinking that goes on inside the sector itself.

Concerned with participants' own experiences and perspectives, the study draws on qualitative in-depth interviews with 34 NGO representatives, 39 laypeople and 8 donor organisation representatives in Georgia. The NGO representatives make the primary sample for the thesis, complemented by the data from two other target groups. One chapter is entirely dedicated to the laypeople's perceptions, while interviews with the donor representatives help to make sense of the context in which the NGOs function.

The thesis borrows from the adaptation of Bourdieusian theory to Central and Eastern Europe, where on one hand, local divisions reflect geopolitical dependencies, and on the other hand, non-economic resources (cultural, social) acquire a significant role in social stratification. Putting emphasis on unequally distributed Western-marked forms of cultural capital, which is also embodied as a habitus, the study positions the NGO representatives closer to a young urban middle class - further shaped by and shaping the NGO environment. The research also reveals how they tend to construct the "othering" classifications in context of Georgia's development, typically imagined as a symbolic journey from the East to the West, and how these classifications are embraced, rejected, dismissed, or responded to in an ambivalent manner by different segments of the population. The study additionally sheds light on the internal struggles in the sector between liberal and left-leaning camps, which cannot entirely escape geopolitical constraints either. Finally, while I approach the problem from the perspective of struggles for symbolic profit, I do not imply disregarding the participants' agency, reflexivity and dedication to changing things for the better, examples of which are further highlighted in the study.