Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T13:52:27.838Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Diaspora Identity and a New Generation: Armenian Diaspora Youth on the Genocide and the Karabakh War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2019

Dmitry Chernobrov  and
Leila Wilmers
Dmitry Chernobrov*
Affiliation:
Department of Journalism Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Leila Wilmers
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: d.chernobrov@sheffield.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, we explore the role of the early 20th-century Armenian genocide and the unresolved Karabakh conflict of the 1990s in identity shaping among the new generation of Armenian diaspora—those who grew up after the establishment of the independent Armenian state in 1991. We draw on original interviews with diasporic youth in France, the United Kingdom, and Russia—diasporas that were largely built in the aftermath of the genocide and the Karabakh war. Diaspora youth relate to these events through transmitted collective memories, but also reconnect with the distant homeland’s past and present in new ways as they engage with new possibilities of transnational digital communication and mobility. Their experiences of identity shed light on how the new generation of diasporic Armenians defines itself in relation to the past; how this past is (re)made present in their interpretations of the Karabakh conflict and in everyday behaviors; and how diasporic youth experience the dilemmas of “moving on” from traumatic narratives that for a long time have been seen as foundational to their identity.

Keywords

diasporaArmeniaKarabakhidentitygenerationsocial media
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 48 , Issue 5 , September 2020 , pp. 915 - 930
Check for updates
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, Yehonatan. 2017. “Making a Homeland, Constructing a Diaspora: The Case of Taglit-Birthright Israel.” Political Geography 58 (1): 14–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Alayarian, Aida. 2008. Consequences of Denial: The Armenian Genocide. London: Karnac Books.Google Scholar
Alexander, Claire. 2013. “Contested Memories: The Shahid Minar and the Struggle for Diasporic Space.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 36 (4): 590–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Axel, Brian Keith. 2002. “The Diasporic Imaginary.” Public Culture 14 (2): 411–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berenskoetter, Felix. 2014. “Parameters of a National Biography.” European Journal of International Relations 20 (1): 262–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billson, Janet Mancini. 1995. Keepers of the Culture: The Power of Tradition in Women’s Lives. New York: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Boltanski, Luc. 1999. Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brah, Avtar. 1996. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Braun, Virginia, and Clarke, Victoria. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2): 77–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinkerhoff, Jennifer M. 2012. “Digital Diasporas’ Challenge to Traditional Power: The Case of TibetBoard.” Review of International Studies 38 (1): 77–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2005. “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (1): 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, David. 1998. Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Cavoukian, Kristin. 2013. “‘Soviet Mentality?’ The Role of Shared Political Culture in Relations between the Armenian State and Russia’s Armenian Diaspora.” Nationalities Papers 41 (5): 709–729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darieva, Tsypylma. 2018. “Discovering the Homeland: A New Generation of Armenian Diasporic Organizations.” Revue d’Etudes Comparatives Est-Ouest 19 (4): 9–41.Google Scholar
Eide, Elisabeth, Anders, Knudsen, and Roy, Krovel. 2014. “Transnational Orientations in a Global Media Landscape: Youth, Media, War and Conflict.” Conflict & Communication Online 13 (1): 1–11.Google Scholar
Halbwachs, Maurice. 1950. The Collective Memory. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart. 1990. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Rutherford, Jonathan, 222–237. London: Lawrence and Wishart.Google Scholar
Hiller, Harry H., and Franz, Tara M.. 2004. “New Ties, Old Ties and Lost Ties: The Use of the Internet in Diaspora.” New Media & Society 6 (6): 731–752.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirsch, M. 2012. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Eva. 2004. After Such Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of the Holocaust. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Kasbarian, Sossie. 2018. “The Politics of Memory and Commemoration: Armenian Diasporic Reflections on 2015.” Nationalities Papers 46 (1): 123–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koinova, Maria. 2018. “Diaspora Mobilisation for Conflict and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Contextual and Comparative Dimensions.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44 (8): 1251–1269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LaCapra, Dominick. 2001. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Laycock, Jo. 2016. “Survivor or Soviet Stories?” History & Memory 28 (2): 123–152.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Sharon. 2013. Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahieu, Rilke. 2015. “Feeding the Ties to ‘Home’: Diaspora Policies for the Next Generations.” International Migration 53 (2): 397–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maier, Charles. 1993. “A Surfeit of Memory? Reflections on History, Melancholy and Denial.” History and Memory 5 (2): 136–152.Google Scholar
Mavroudi, Elizabeth. 2007. “Diaspora as Process: (De)Constructing Boundaries.” Geography Compass 1 (3): 467–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mavroudi, Elizabeth. 2018. “Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilisation at a Time of Crisis: Perspectives from the Palestinian and Greek Diasporas.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44 (8): 1309–1324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muldoon, Paul. 2017. “The Power of Forgetting: Ressentiment, Guilt, and Transformative Politics.” Political Psychology 38 (4): 669–683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noy, Chaim. 2008. “Sampling Knowledge: The Hermeneutics of Snowball Sampling in Qualitative Research.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 11 (4): 327–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Panossian, Razmik. 2002. “The Past as Nation: Three Dimensions of Armenian Identity.” Geopolitics 7 (2): 121–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pattie, Susan P. 1999. “Longing and Belonging: Issues of Homeland in Armenian Diaspora.” PoLAR 22 (2): 80–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redclift, Victoria. 2017. “The Demobilization of Diaspora: History, Memory and ‘Latent Identity.’” Global Networks 17 (4): 500–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soysal, Yasemin Nuhoǧlu. 2000. “Citizenship and Identity: Living in Diasporas in Post-War Europe?” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23 (1): 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tölölyan, Khachig. 2007. “The Armenian Diaspora and the Karabagh Conflict since 1988.” In Diasporas in Conflict: Peace Makers or Peace Wreckers, edited by Smith, Hazel and Stares, Paul, 106–128. New York: United Nations University Press.Google Scholar
Tsagarousianou, Roza. 2004. “Rethinking the Concept of Diaspora: Mobility, Connectivity and Communication in a Globalised World.” Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 1 (1): 52–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volkan, Vamik D. 1988. The Need to Have Enemies and Allies. Northvale, NJ: Jason Anderson.Google Scholar
Walle, Thomas Michael. 2013. “Cricket as ‘Utopian Homeland’ in the Pakistani Diasporic Imagination.” South Asian Popular Culture 11 (3): 301–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilcock, Cathy. 2018. “Mobilising towards and Imagining Homelands: Diaspora Formation among U.K. Sudanese.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44 (3): 363–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilmers, Leila, and Chernobrov, Dmitry. 2019. “Growing up with a Long-Awaited Nation-State: Personal Struggles with the Homeland among Young Diasporic Armenians.” Ethnicities. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796819866973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zenian, David. 1995. The Armenians of France. Armenian General Benevolent Union. https://agbu.org/news-item/the-armenians-of-france/.Google Scholar
Ziemer, Ulrike. 2010. “Belonging and Longing: Armenian Youth and Diasporic Long-Distance Nationalism in Contemporary Russia.” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 10 (2): 290–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar