“Everything is Connected to the Genocide.” Intergenerational Memory, Diaspora Mobilization, and Armenian Youth Identities in Jerusalem

Abstract

Considering commemorative practices of postmemory, past presencing, and transnational memory, this study considers how Genocide memories and the conflict in Artsakh intersect to shape the performance of diasporic Armenian youth identities in Jerusalem as members of a disempowered minority community. Drawing on ethnographic research in Jerusalem’s Armenian School, participant-observation in community events, and interviews with youth and community leaders, this article documents processes of intergenerational memory transmission within educational and community settings and suggests ways in which inherited narratives of victimization find new expressions via transnational acts of citizenship. As Jerusalem’s multilingual Armenian youth engage in commemorative ceremonies and take protests to the streets in acts of diaspora mobilization, memories are (re) interpreted to construct novel identity narratives tied to an imagined Armenian transnation.

#WeWillWin: Mobilisation of Jerusalem's Armenian youth and digital acts of citizenship during the Second Artsakh War

“…Between 1915 and 1923, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed, while dispersed survivors became refugees initially concentrated in the Middle East (see Kévorkian, 2011 on the Armenian genocide). The shared cultural trauma of the genocide—and Turkey's continued denial of the atrocities—has been paramount in shaping contemporary Armenian collective identity in the diaspora (e.g., Levenson, 2021). Genocide recognition remains the central political cause around which diasporans mobilise, encouraging intergenerational cooperation and collaboration between rival political parties (Koinova, 2017).…”