Invisible States, Invisible Knowledge: Abkhazia and the Silence of International Relations

This article examines the epistemic invisibility of Abkhazia within the discipline of International Relations (IR) and argues that the region’s marginalization is not only geopolitical but also epistemological. Although Abkhazia has maintained a de facto statehood since the early 1990s, it remains largely underrepresented in mainstream IR literature, which tends to prioritize recognized states, power politics, and Western-centric frameworks. Drawing on the concepts of epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007) and peripheral knowledge production (Connell 2007), the study explores how hierarchies of knowledge define what counts as legitimate international reality. By tracing the ways in which Abkhazia is framed as a “frozen conflict,” a “proxy territory,” or a “breakaway region,” the article reveals the disciplinary mechanisms that silence alternative epistemic voices from the Caucasus. It also examines how linguistic, institutional, and geopolitical barriers contribute to the exclusion of Abkhaz-authored scholarship from global academic networks. Through a meta-analytical reading of existing literature and its silences, the article calls for a more inclusive, plural, and decolonized approach to knowledge production in Caucasus studies. In this sense, Abkhazia is not an absence in world politics but an epistemic site through which the boundaries and biases of the discipline itself can be critically re-examined.