Within and Beyond Ethnicity: Negotiating Identities in Modern Armenian Diaspora

Within and Beyond Ethnicity: Negotiating Identities in Modern Armenian Diaspora

Veranstalter
Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas ; Graduate School Global and Area Studies Armenian Studies Program, University of Michigan
Veranstaltungsort
Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas, Specks Hof – Entrance A, Reichsstraße 4–6
Ort
Leipzig
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
09.05.2016 - 10.05.2016
Website
Von
Martina Keilbach

Modern Armenian diaspora is a multi-layered and multi-structured social phenomenon. It comprises communities with different migration and settlement histories and internal developments. These diverse diasporic formations have been engaged in the processes of identity constructions and negotiations within the societies, in which they have lived for decades and centuries, developing some sense of affinity to an ancestral land of origin–the homeland–whether imagined as a symbolic, eschatological or a physical place of return.

If the Genocide of 1915 and its memory, the preservation of ethnic attributes, such as the Armenian language, have become essential in certain diasporic circles, the diasporic identities of other communities, especially those whose migration history dates back to the pre-genocide periods, evolved beyond ethnic markers of identity.

The conference aims at addressing and exploring the role of ethnic institutions in the negotiations of Armenian diasporic spaces; the influence of global and glocal changes and developments on Armenian intra-communal diasporic dynamics; the perceptions of homeland in the diaspora and among the diasporans who chose to “repatriate;” and the dynamic and multiple negotiations of Armenian identities in the diaspora.

Programm

MONDAY, 9 MAY
Leipzig Centre for the History and Culture of East-Central Europe (Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas - GWZO)
Specks Hof – Entrance A, Reichsstraße 4–6, 4th Floor

Welcome and Opening Remarks

17:00 - 17:30 Prof. Stefan Troebst, GWZO/GESI, Leipzig University
Armenians in the Economy and Culture of East-Central Europe (15th to 19th Centuries): A Research and Editorial Project

17:30 - 18:00 Dr. Vahe Sahakyan (Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan): Why this conference? Armenianness Beyond Ethnicity

TUESDAY, 10 MAY
Centre for Area Studies – CAS, Thomaskirchhof 20

9:00 - 11:00 Session I
Negotiating Communal Spaces: Institutions and Politics in Modern Armenian Diaspora

Chair: Prof. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Institute for Cultural Studies, Leipzig University
Discussant: Dr. Hratch Tchilingirian, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford

Hakob Matevosyan (Institute for Cultural Studies, Leipzig University)
Establishment and Transformation of the Armenian Diasporic Field in Hungary

Konrad Siekierski (Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw)
Armenians in Romania Today: Diasporic Interventions and Institutions

Heitor Loureiro (Department of History, São Paulo State University)
Political Struggles within the Armenian community in São Paulo (1930-1960s)

11:00 - 11:15 Coffee break (CAS)

11:15 - 13:15 Session II
Negotiating Belonging: Homeland in Diaspora, Diasporans in “Homeland”

Chair: Dr. Balint Kovacs, GWZO, Leipzig University
Discussant: Dr. Jo Laycock, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Development and Society, Sheffield Hallam University

Sevan Beukian (Department of Political Science, University of Alberta)
Collective Memory and National Habitus: Constructions of Homeland among the Armenian Diaspora

Nanor Karageozian (Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford)
Mobile, Sedentary and Oscillating Habituses: Identity and Belonging Among Long-term Diasporic Returnees in Post-Soviet Armenia

Hamazasp Danielyan (Department of Diaspora Studies, Yerevan State University)
Refugees, Repatriates or Citizens? The Evolution of State Policy towards Syrian Armenians and their (Self)-perception

13:15 - 14:15 Lunch Break (CAS)

14:15 - 16:30 Session III
Negotiating Diasporic Identities

Chair: Prof. Armenuhi Drost-Abgaryan (Institute for Oriental Studies, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg)
Discussant: Dr. Vahe Sahakyan (Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan)

Ulrike Ziemer (Department of Applied Social Studies, University of Winchester)
Armenian Youth Cultural Identities in Southern Russia: Narratives of Location, Translocation and Dislocation

Brigitta Davidjants (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre)
Identity Construction in Narratives: Activists of the Armenian Diaspora in Estonia

Nikolett Czézár (Department of East European History, Ruhr-University Bochum)
Narrative of Genocide and Identity (Re)construction among Hungarian Armenians

16:30 - 16:45 Coffee Break

16:45 - 18:30 Round Table Discussion: Armenian Diaspora Studies: Challenges and Perspectives
Moderators: Prof. Stefan Troebst, Dr. Vahe Sahakyan, Hakob Matevosyan

Kontakt

Hakob Matevosyan
hakob.matevosyan@uni-leipzig.de


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Land Veranstaltung
Sprach(en) der Veranstaltung
Englisch
Sprache der Ankündigung