A field practice
ASSA Sondernummer 1/2017, ISSN 1815-3704
Rasuly-Paleczek, Gabriele and Maria Six-Hohenbalken (eds.)
Abstract
Vertreibung und Migration spielen eine wichtige Rolle in den Erinnerungen und eigenen Erfahrungen der ArmenierInnen. Jahrhundertelang waren ArmenierInnen gezwungen ihre Wohngebiete aufgrund von politischer oder religiöser Verfolgung, schwierigen wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen und Naturkatastrophen zu verlassen. Armenien hat prozentuell eine der höchsten Emigrationsraten weltweit und zeigt eine Vielfalt von Einflüssen und wechselseitigen Abhängigkeiten von langfristiger und kurzfristiger Arbeitsmigration sowie Emigration. Des Weiteren ist der Einfluss der weltweiten armenischen Diaspora in Bezug auf Remigration, Remittenzen und Verbindungen zwischen Armenien und der transnationalen Gemeinschaft außerordentlich einflussreich für die heutige armenische Gesellschaft. Daher können Fragen von Mobilität in verschiedensten Bereichen untersucht werden.
All das hat die Herausgeberinnen dieses Bandes Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek and Maria Anna Six-Hohenbalken dazu bewogen einen Feldaufenthalt für Studierende der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie nach Armenien zu organisieren. Dieser ‘special issue’ der ASSA vereint verschiedene Artikel, die aus dieser Feldforschung entstanden sind und inkludiert auch Beiträge von armenischen KollegInnen, die zu den Themen Migration und Mobilität geforscht haben.
Keywords: Migration, Diaspora, Remittenzen, Identität, NGOs
English abstract
Displacement and migration play an important role in the memory and lived experience of Armenians. For centuries, they have been forced to leave their places of residence because of political and religious persecution, difficult economic conditions, and natural disasters. Armenia—exhibiting one of the world’s highest emigration rates in comparison to its overall population— shows a plethora of impacts and interdependencies between long-term, short-term labor migration and emigration. Furthermore, the worldwide Armenian diaspora has a huge impact on current social developments in Armenia. This refers in particular to questions of return migration, transfer of remittances and connections between the people in Armenia and transnational Armenian communities. Thus, Armenia is a good case to study a vast array of issues closely related to mobility.
All this convinced the editors Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek and Maria Anna Six-Hohenbalken to organize a guided field trip for social and cultural anthropology students to Armenia. This special issue of ASSA brings together several papers that emerged from this field research including papers from colleagues in Armenia working on topics of mobility and migration.
Keywords: Migration, diaspora, remittances, NGO’s, identities
Zu zitieren als
Rasuly-Paleczek, Gabriele and Maria Six-Hohenbalken (eds.) 2017: Migration and its impact on Armenia. A field practice. Austrian Studies in Social Anthropology, Sondernummer 1/2017, 186 pp. URL: [AUS DER BROWSERZEILE ÜBERNEHMEN]. Zugriff: TT.MM.JJJJ.
CVs of contributors
Anna Atoyan
Anna Atoyan graduated with a master’s degree in Sociology from Yerevan State University in 2016. Master thesis: “Family Alienation within in Terms of Labor Migration Based on the Example of Gyumri”. Her research interests are migration, sociology of family, social alienation, peace, war and conflict. Her latest work, awarded by the Institute of Armenian Studies, University of South California, was on family alienation in terms of labor migration in the Republic of Armenia.
Contact (2017): Anna Atoyan, Yerevan State University, annaat.18@gmail.com
Bernhard Begemann
Master’s degree in Cultural Differences and Transnational Processes, University of Vienna; Master thesis: ” ‘…when survival is at stake, set ideology aside.’ A Scientific Inquiry into Europe and the ‘Refugee Crisis.” Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies of Russia, University of Potsdam / Moscow State Regional University. Recent Publication: European Citizenship – An In- and Exclusive Concept? In: GAP-Journal, Vol. 6, Vienna 2016. Research Interests: Russia/Post-Soviet Area, Transnational Processes
Cristina Biasetto
Studied Social and Cultural Anthropology as well as Art History at the University of Vienna. Master thesis: “Das Erbe Pater Wilhelm Schmidts: ein Untersuchung zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Museo Missionario Etnologico im Vatikan” [The Legacy of Father Wilhelm Schmidt: Study on the Historical Development of the Museo Missionario Etnologico in Vatican”]. Her fields of interest include the anthropology of art, museology, and visual anthropology. She was involved in different projects tackling the topics of migration, refugees, and diaspora.
Contact (2017): Cristina Biasetto, University of Vienna, crissi91@live.de
Shushan Ghahriyan
Shushan Ghahriyan graduated from Yerevan State University and holds a master’s degree in Sociology. Master thesis: “Sociological Analysis of the Issue of Social Alienation of Syrian-Armenian Immigrants in Armenia.” She currently works as a researcher at the Migration Competence Center, YSU. Her latest research was on the experiences of women in Nagorno-Karabakh during the four-day war in April 2016. Her research interests are migration, integration, social alienation, peace, war, and conflict.
Contact (2017): Shushan Ghahriyan, Yerevan State University, shushan.ghahriyan@gmail.com
Juliane Jakoubek
holds a bachelor’s degree in Educational Science as well as Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Vienna. She is currently working on her master thesis in Social and Cultural Anthropology about oil in Kirkuk, Iraq. Her research focuses are on geopolitics and resource extraction in the Middle East.
Contact (2017): Juliane Jakoubek University of Vienna, Juliane.Jakoubek@gmx.at
Anna Mautner
2010–2014 bachelor program in Social and Cultural Anthropology; since 2014 in the master program Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna. Main research interests are the working conditions and CSR programs (Corporate Social Responsibility) in global trade; conflict and resistance evolving around resource extraction; colonial legacies of ethnology.
Contact (2017): Anna Mautner, University of Vienna, a1007684@unet.univie.ac.at
Sinara Navoyan
Sinara is a PhD student at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna. Her scientific fields of interest are migration and gender. Navoyan’s latest publication is “Gender Attitudes of Yerevan State University Students”, published in “Gender Inequalities in Labor Market: Challenges and Solutions in Local and Global Contexts” (together with Victor Agadjanian and Gohar Shahnazaryan), YSU Press: Yerevan 2015.
Contact (2017): Sinara Navoyan, University of Vienna, sinara-n@yandex.com
Daniela Paredes Grijalva
worked at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Universitas Gadjah Mada. She holds a master’s degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology, focusing on transnational policies and practices of social protection. Research interests include migration, gender, women’s rights, development, environment, cosmopolitanism, citizenship, decoloniality, and colonial legacies. Her latest publication: Social Security and Migration (forthcoming 2017) (ES) Research Group on Public Policy in Ibero-America. Madrid.Contact (2017): Daniela Paredes Grijalva, University of Vienna, daniela.paredes.grijalva@gmail.com
Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek
works as a senior researcher and lecturer at the Department for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, since 1985. Post-doc fellow at Yale University/USA in 1999/2000, guest professor at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles in 2012. Main research interests: society and politics in the Middle East and Central Asia, migration, ethnicity, identity, state and nation building, and processes of social transformation. Her latest work – co-edited with Robert L.Canfield – is “Ethnicity, Authority, and Power in Central Asia: New Games Great and Small” (Routledge 2011).
Contact (2017): Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek, University of Vienna, Gabriele.Rasuly@univie.ac.at
Maria Six-Hohenbalken
is a researcher at the Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, and lecturer at the Department for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna. Her fields of interest are political violence, migration, refuge, and memory. Her latest publication is the edited volume “Memory and Genocide: On What Remains and the Possibility of Representation” (together with Fazil Moradi und Ralph Buchenhorst), Routledge 2017.
Contact (2017): Maria Six-Hohenbalken, Austrian Academy of Sciences, maria.six-hohenbalken@oeaw.ac.at
Andreea Zelinka
is a student of Social and Cultural Anthropology as well as Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Vienna and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Interested in political anthropology, her master’s thesis is concerned with the development of democratic practices within current democratization movements in Barcelona. Her latest publication: “What is Democratic Action? An Approximation” appeared in the Portuguese student journal APEIRON.
Contact (2017): Andreea Zelinka, University of Vienna, andreazelinka@web.de