ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the production of and cleavages between boundaries in the Caucasus. It analyses the wide processes of border and boundary creation that have shaped the South Caucasus in the last quarter of a century. The chapter shows that a variety of ways to build groups/establish boundaries between communities, and that it is necessary to look at them in unison. The economies of the South Caucasus have become highly fragmented as a consequence of closed borders, differing natural resources endowments and diverging geopolitical orientations and support from external actors. Starting from October 2012, Russian troops and de facto Abkhaz border guards were to man jointly the checkpoint on the Inguri River, with no changes to be made to schedules and operating principles of the checkpoint. In 2016, military boundary along the Inguri denotes the extent of Russia’s military and geopolitical expansion into the south-western Caucasus.
