Return or integration? Politicizing displacement in Georgia

Displacement in Georgia is highly politicized. By invoking inflated numbers of IDPs, failing to integrate them, or trying to discourage spontaneous return, the Georgian government's actions at times point to their use of IDPs as a political weapon. We examine the discourses and policies surrounding IDPs, including laws designed to deal with them, institutions that manage them, and political statements about IDPs, as forms of governmentality and geopower. We critically assess Georgian IDP policies and discourses, documenting the shift from solely prioritizing return to, after 2007, allowing room, alongside the rhetoric of return, for a specific understanding of integration. Our analysis highlights how, for the Georgian government, the meaning of integration is constructed in a narrow fashion, primarily understood as the provision of housing.