The Armenian Diaspora and Stateless Power

Collective Identity in the Transnational 20th Century

Talar Chahinian, Sossie Kasbarian, Tsolin Nalbantian, Talar Chahinian, Sossie Kasbarian, Tsolin Nalbantian

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780755648214
• eBook ISBN: 9780755648238
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

From genocide, forced displacement, and emigration, to the gradual establishment of sedentary and rooted global communities, how has the Armenian diaspora formed and maintained a sense of collective identity? This book explores the richness and magnitude of the Armenian experience through the 20th century to examine how Armenian diaspora elites and their institutions emerged in the post-genocide period and used "stateless power" to compose forms of social discipline. Historians, cultural theorists, literary critics, sociologists, political scientists, and anthropologists explore how national and transnational institutions were built in far-flung sites from Istanbul, Aleppo, Beirut and Jerusalem to Paris, Los Angeles, and the American mid-west. Exploring literary and cultural production as well as the role of religious institutions, the book probes the history and experience of the Armenian diaspora through the long 20th century, from the role of the fin-de-siècle émigré Armenian press to the experience of Syrian-Armenian asylum seekers in the 21st century. It shows that a diaspora's statelessness can not only be evidence of its power, but also how this "stateless power" acts as an alternative and complement to the nation-state.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Note on Translation and Transliteration
• List of Contributors
• In Lieu of an Introduction
• I ‘The Logic of the Sedentary’: Complicating notions of home and homelands
• II ‘Diasporic Social Formation’: Leadership elites, institutions and transnational governmentality
• III ‘The Social Text of Diaspora’Diasporic becoming and legibility in diaspora’s semantic domain
• Afterword: Armenian diaspora studies and its transformative supplement, the study of diasporas
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright