Beyond ethnic identity: a transterritorial framework of trauma and belonging

Abstract

The 1944 deportation of Muslim Meskhetians remains a foundational trauma shaping identity, memory and belonging across generations. This article examines how Muslim Meskhetians negotiate identity and belonging in two contrasting sociopolitical contexts: Georgia and the United States. Drawing on 84 qualitative interviews, two focus groups and document analysis, the study explores how traumatic memory, symbolic attachment to homeland and everyday practices of adaptation interact across generations. The findings show that participants negotiate identity through inherited memories of displacement and their experiences within contemporary social and institutional environments. In Georgia, linguistic barriers, limited recognition and experiences of symbolic exclusion complicate belonging, while in the United States, educational opportunities, religious freedom and community institutions create different possibilities for social participation and cultural continuity. The article develops the concept of transterritorial traumatic identity to explain how memories of displacement, symbolic homeland and adaptation interact in sustaining belonging across remembered, symbolic and lived spaces.