Laboratorium. Russian Review of Social Research is a new international peer-reviewed journal for the publication of, and debate on, empirical social research. The South Caucasus is a region of exceptional interest to empirical social scientists. In Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the economic and political change of the past two decades has resulted in social transformations on a scale that makes the region stand out among post-socialist states. Nation-state building, contested borders, changing gender roles, a nascent civil society, poverty and unemployment, labour migration, the predicament of refugees and displaced persons, new historical narratives, ethnic conflicts and the rise of nationalism all require thorough empirical study as a precondition for in-depth analysis.

Scholars who have carried out original empirical research in the South Caucasus are invited to submit articles to this issue. We will only consider original, previously unpublished papers in either Russian or English.

The issue will be edited by Viktor Voronkov, director of the Centre for Independent Social Research in Saint Petersburg and Tsypylma Darieva, Department for European Ethnology at Humboldt University Berlin.

The deadline for submissions to this issue is 10 September 2007.

All papers will be subjected to double-blind peer review, and acceptance of any paper may be conditional upon revising it in accordance with suggestions by reviewers and/or the editorial board. Papers should be submitted to Nadia Nartova, managing editor: nartova@indepsocres.spb.ru. Enquiries concerning this thematic issue should be directed to Viktor Voronkov: voronkov@socres.spb.ru or to Tsypylma Darieva: tsypylma.darieva@staff.hu-berlin.de , while general questions on Laboratorium may be addressed either to Nadia Nartova or to the editor-in-chief, Mischa Gabowitsch: gabowitsch@gmail.com.