The Tbilisi Courtyard as Assemblage – Conviviality, Permeability, and Multispecies Coexistence in Urban Space

Ketevan Gurchiani (Ilia State University, Tbilisi)

 

Abstract

When analyzing conviviality and coexistence, the study of shared spaces raises fundamental questions: how does space itself act, and how do non-human elements participate in shaping social life? How do these forces together constitute an assemblage? This research approaches the city as an assemblage in which humans, nonhumans – whether buildings, plants, animals, discourses, or ideologies – and multiple temporalities coexist and co-produce one another. The phenomenon at the center of this talk is known as the Italian courtyard or Tbilisi courtyard (tbilisuri ezo) – a distinctive architectural and social form that has historically functioned as a site of diversity, including religious diversity

Rednerin

Ketevan Gurchiani is a professor of anthropology and the head of the Research Center for Anthropology at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. Currently, she is a fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, at the invitation of the LOEWE research center »Dynamics of Religion: Ambivalent Neighborhoods Between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in Historical and Contemporary Constellations«.