Borders, De Facto Borders and Mobility Policies in Conflict Transformation: The Cases of Abkhazia and South Ossetia

The two separatist conflicts that led to the establishment of de facto independences from Georgia in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the early 1990s¹ created a status quo regarding territorial boundaries that lasted until the Russo-Georgian conflict of August 2008. However, far from being immutable, the dividing lines between the separatist territories and the rest of Georgia were subject to processes of “hardening and softening,” influenced both by state and non-state actors, throughout the stalemates that characterized most of the 1990s and 2000s. This contribution looks at the influence of regional and local actors on the evolution of external and