Since the mid-2000s, a new generation of young leftists has emerged in the countries of the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia), characterised by a heterogeneity of political ideologies (such as Marxism, social democracy, liberalism-critical feminism, anarchism and anti-capitalist ecologism) and social, political and cultural practices. The representatives of the new left stand up against material and immaterial inequalities and try, through political and subversive symbolic activism, to bring their leftist identities to bear in national and international societies.

The new left, and in particular left-wing youth in the South Caucasus, offers a laboratory of conceptual, ideological and affective diversity. The Soviet past and the reference to the value worlds of older generations function as an ideological starting or demarcation point or are partially ignored, depending on the self-image of the individuals and collectives in question. Conflictual nexuses within these societies, such as male-dominated structures and memories and experiences of violence and loss in war and everyday life, also have an impact on the actors.

The concepts of justice, solidarity and hope are key not only to understanding the self-image of the actors, but also to theorising the empirical reality. Based on selected case studies from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, this project illustrates forms of ideological self-positioning by various left-wing individuals and collectives and their understandings of these three concepts.

A total of three case studies and one comparative study will be conducted as part of this cumulative PhD project. Based on dialogic epistemology, it deals with a diverse range of theoretical approaches (critical theory, post-structuralism and phenomenology) and methods (such as interviews, focus groups, surveys and participatory observations). The project is framed by a comparative contribution (written together with Félix Krawatzek), which compares the discursive landscape of youth across the three countries.

The PhD project is supervised by Dr Félix Krawatzek (ZOiS) and Professor Diana Forker (Institute for Caucasus Studies, Friedrich Schiller University Jena).

• Designing and conducting (semi-)structured and biographical interviews with left-wing youths and (young) adults in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan
• Sociological case studies and observations in the field; informal discussions with activists and visitors in left-wing locales and other public spaces.
• Focus groups
• Evaluation of third party-generated survey data
• Comparative analysis

• Which socio-political discourses are characteristic of the new left youth in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan?

• What understandings of justice are foundational for the left generation of the 1990s in Georgia?

• How do young left women in Armenia affectively negotiate the conflict between autonomy and solidarity?

• How are disappointment and hope expressed among the young left in Azerbaijan?