Academic Activism and Armenian Genocide Recognition in Australia
O'Brien, Melanie · 2025
Drawing on her own experience lobbying the Australian federal government, O'Brien traces the history of Armenian Genocide recognition in Australia and the obstacles to it. She analyzes the geopolitical and historical barriers: above all Australia's relationship with Turkey dating to the 1915 Gallipoli campaign, and the weight of Gallipoli in Australian military memory and national identity. She then examines the Joint Justice Initiative, the Armenian-Assyrian-Greek coalition through which she works to overcome those barriers. The article situates scholarship inside advocacy, arguing that academia is an active participant in the fight for political change rather than a bystander to it.
Read the publication ↗Citation
O'Brien, Melanie 2025. Academic Activism and Armenian Genocide Recognition in Australia. International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 76–102 (Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Yerevan); special issue 'Law, Activism and the International Recognition of the Armenian Genocide'; DOI 10.51442/ijags.0071. https://doi.org/10.51442/ijags.0071
What this offers a reader
A candid inside account of how a recognition campaign is actually run, and why it stalls.
Peer-reviewed; author is Associate Professor at UWA and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
A working model for how our own advocacy coalitions can move a government that is under Turkish pressure.
Why Australia still hasn't recognized the Armenian Genocide, from someone who has lobbied for it.
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