Overview
- Combines fieldwork and interviews with archival and media sources (newspapers, social media, and academic literature)
- Examines the ongoing Syrian conflict from a new perspective, that of the Syrian Armenian refugee community
- Sheds new light on urban wartime events and diaspora issues through the lenses of transnationalism and memory studies
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology (PSUA)
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About this book
This volume examines significant social transformations engendered by the ongoing Syrian conflict in the lives of Syrian Armenians. The authors draw on documentary material and fieldwork carried out in 2013-2019 among Syrian Armenians in Armenian and Lebanese urban settings. The stories of Syrian Armenians reveal how contemporary events are seen to have direct links to the past and to reproduce memories associated with the Armenian genocide; the contemporary involvement of Turkey in the Syrian war, for example, is seen on the ground as an attempt to control the Armenian presence in Syria. Today, the Syrian Armenian identity encapsulates the complex intersection of memory, transnational links to the past, collective identity and lived experience of wartime “everydayness.” Specifically, the analysis addresses the role of memory in key events, such as the bombing of Armenian historical sites during the commemorations of 24 April in the Eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor; the (perceived) shift from destroying Syrian Armenians’ material culture to attempting to destroy the Armenian community in urban Aleppo; and the informal transactions that take place in the border area of Kessab. This carefully-researched ethnography will appeal to scholars of anthropology, sociology, and political science who specialize in studies of conflict, memory and diaspora.
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Keywords
Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“This book is a warning about an impending disaster — an impending tsunami wave seen in a small drop — remembering a similar past disaster.”
— Levon Abrahamian, Professor of Anthropology, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia
“This book asks excellent questions about the legacy of the Ottoman Empire. It opens a door between anthropology and conflict studies that helps to understand the international relevance of Armenian history.”
— Emidio Diodato, Professor of Political Science, University for Foreigners Perugia
“Being focused on the Armenians of Syria, this book is an excellent historical and anthropological insight into the Syrian war as a chain of ethnic, religious and political games, identities and struggles, rooted back in the Armenian genocide.”
— Yulia Antonyan, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Yerevan State University
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Marcello Mollica is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at the University of Messina, Italy.
Arsen Hakobyan is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Syrian Armenians and the Turkish Factor
Book Subtitle: Kessab, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian War
Authors: Marcello Mollica, Arsen Hakobyan
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72319-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-72318-7Published: 28 October 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-72321-7Published: 29 October 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-72319-4Published: 27 October 2021
Series ISSN: 2946-2436
Series E-ISSN: 2946-2444
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: V, 309
Number of Illustrations: 318 b/w illustrations
Topics: Social Anthropology, Ethnography, Social Structure, Social Inequality, Political Sociology, Area Studies