Syrian-armenian Women Migrants In Armenia (gender, Identity, And Painful Belonging)

By (author) Matossian, Anahid
Description:

After the outbreak of the 2011 Syrian War, a number Syrian-Armenians who had lived in the territory for generations, fled to the Republic of Armenia. This book traces the experiences of Syrian-Armenian women as they navigated their changing and gendered identities from their adopted ‘homeland’ to their socially constructed new ‘ancestral’ home in Armenia. The rich ethnographic research conducted over 6 years by the author reveals how women adjusted to new lives in Armenia, supported themselves through gendered work such as embroidery production, yet mostly challenge simple identities such as ‘refugee’ or ‘repatriate,’ existing in a state of what the author terms “painful belonging”. The book further reveals crucial insight into how experiences and traumatic memories of war in Syria and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict reciprocally shape each other in the minds of the women interviewed.

Table of contents:

List of Figures
A Note on Language and Transcription
List of Interlocutors

Chapter 1 Introduction
Part I. Armenians in Syria
Part II. Syrian Armenian Women in Armenia
Part III. Overview of Book Chapters

Chapter 2 Hayrenatartzutyun [Repatriation]: “Repatriates, Not Refugees”
Part I. Painful Belonging in Syria
Part II. Painful Belonging in Armenia
Part III. Positive Reception in Armenia
Part IV. Safety in Armenia
Part V. Refugee Status: UN Definition, Status, and Its Effects in Armenia
Part VI.“You Can’t Eat a Passport”: Moralizing Legal Status Decision-Making in Armenia
Conclusion
Part II. Destruction of Physical Homes and “Sense of Possibility”
Part III. Homemaking in Syria and Armenia
Conclusion

Chapter 4 Beckoned by, and Belonging to, the State
Part I. The Idea of the (Armenian) State
Part II. Collective Memory of the Armenian Genocide and Return Narratives
Part III. State Anxiety and Expanded Citizenship Processes
Part IV. The Performativity and Discursive Power of the “Beckoning” Armenian State
Conclusion

Chapter 5 “I Can Work, I Can Get on My Feet”: Syrian Armenian Women Entrepreneurs
Part I Brief Overview of Women Entrepreneurs
Part II Western Armenian Embroidery and Female Survivors
Part III Syrian Armenian Women Entrepreneurs and Western Armenian Embroidery
Part IV Participant Observation in Western Armenian Embroidery Classes
Conclusion

Chapter 6 The Syrian Armenian Brand
Part I. The Syrian Armenian “Brand”
Part II. Performativity and Syrian Armenian Exhibition Sales
Part III. Local Employee Perspectives on Brand Implementation
Conclusion

Chapter 7 “Women Are in the Driver’s Seat Now”: Changing Gender Dynamics from Syria to Armenia
Part I. Gender Dynamics in Syria
Part II. Gender Dynamics in Armenia


Chapter 8: Conclusion
Epilogue: From One War Zone to Another: Syrian Armenian Migrant Women and the Artsakh Conflict
Syrian Mercenaries, Specters of the Syrian Conflict Spirited to Artsakh
Syrian Armenian Women and the Artsakh War Effort

Review quote:
An excellent ethnographic analysis of Armenian women in the twenty-first century, focusing on the lived experiences of Syrian Armenian women who were forcibly displaced after 2011 to Armenia, their new homeland in the east. Interviews with Syrian Armenian women entrepreneurs, Armenian state officials trying to create citizens out of them, and self-reflexivity experienced by the American-Armenian author with origins in Syria capture the painful process of belonging in the polity, economy and everyday life in Armenia. This process of belonging is a long journey for all Armenians, originating in the 1915 Armenian Genocide when all Western Armenian speaking Ottoman imper