The Caucasian isthmus is a historically significant mesoregion situated at the confluence of overlapping imperial influences that have shaped its trajectory over centuries. The enduring nature of these influences has prompted profound transformations in the region’s geo-cultural identity, socio-economic relations, and demographic composition, characterized by fluid allegiances to the imperial centers. Following Alfred Rieber’s characterization of contested imperial fringes, Georgia emerges as a salient case within this context, functioning as a ‘complex frontier’ where Russia, Turkey, and Iran have historically vied for dominance and control. In the wake of the Cold War, Western power centers have entered the arena as significant extra-regional actors, striving to assert their influence in the former imperial borderlands. The Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative of the European Union, which initially included six former Soviet republics along with Georgia, has played a crucial role in this endeavor, seeking to dissociate the country from its historical imperial legacy. However, it has inadvertently contributed to Russia’s military assertiveness and aggressive policies directed at the entire post-Soviet Europe included within the EaP framework. Against this backdrop, the paper focuses on Georgia’s recent internal political crisis, which has been exacerbated by political elites’ ambitions to articulate subjectivity in independently shaping the nation’s foreign policy trajectory, currently leaning towards accommodating the aggressive great power to the North as part of a broader pivot to the East. However, this pivot has faced strong public dissent advocating for continued commitment to European integration. The paper will argue that such a discrepancy between elites’ accommodating stance and popular resistance signifies incompleteness in geo-cultural identity formation and the persistent liminality in Georgia’s foreign policy behavior. By examining Georgia’s geo-cultural and geopolitical in-betweenness, the paper will employ the concept of liminality – a theoretical framework initially articulated in social anthropology by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, later extended to the field of International Relations. This concept provides a valuable framework for understanding the challenges small states face as they seek to define their place in the changing international order. By examining Georgia’s liminality, this paper aims to illuminate the broader dynamics of imperial borderlands and the lasting effects of imperial legacies on contemporary geopolitics in the Caucasian isthmus.

This paper examines how post-communist museums in Central Europe (Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic) use exhibitions to reframe the communist past through the lens of the "post-communist exotic." This concept, developed from postcolonial theories of exoticism, suggests that these museums transform the communist era into both a spectacle and a site for critical reflection, oscillating between familiarity and strangeness. Drawing from museum and memory studies, this research explores how these exhibitions shape national and transnational identities by negotiating the complex legacy of communism in Europe.

By analyzing how museums present the communist past on national, European, and global scales, this paper investigates how these institutions mediate contested histories and contribute to the construction of collective memory. At the national level, museums align communist memory with narratives of resilience and identity; at the European level, they incorporate Holocaust memory to position post-communist societies within a broader pan-European framework; and on the global scale, they often present the communist era as an exoticized spectacle for international tourists.

In light of Europe’s changing geopolitical landscape, this paper argues that these representations play a crucial role in reshaping identity and trust within Central European societies and their place in the wider European community. Through a comparative analysis of museums in Budapest, Warsaw, and Prague, this paper contributes to the ongoing rethinking of Europe’s East-West divide, revealing how historical narratives are mobilized to respond to both local and global pressures.

This paper investigates how civil society organisations (CSOs) navigate and reshape geopolitical narratives within the European Union’s evolving candidacy framework. By highlighting the performed inclusivity of EU narratives, it offers a nuanced perspective on the socio-political dynamics of accession processes and promotes a more pluralistic interpretations of the EU's borderlands. Focusing on Georgia's EU candidacy application, it examines how CSOs, situated in semi-peripheral and inter-imperial contexts, address the complexities of accession processes, structural inequalities, and the exclusionary practices embedded in performed inclusivity.

The analysis unfolds in three parts. First, it situates the study within the broader context of the politicisation of EU candidacy narratives, framing performed inclusivity as a key analytical lens to address how geopolitical narratives construct and perpetuate exclusion. Second, it investigates how CSOs challenge and reshape EU-Georgian relations through cultural and strategic engagements, highlighting their efforts to contest the EU’s limited geopolitical framing of Georgia’s candidacy. By leveraging geopoliticisation, CSOs craft alternative strategic narratives that foreground inclusion and agency within the accession framework. Finally, the paper analyses the performative dimensions of EU-CSO relations, revealing how inclusivity narratives often conceal exclusionary practices. It offers a nuanced understanding of the socio-political dynamics of accession processes, advocating for more pluralistic interpretations of the EU’s borderlands.