Survivors: An Ethnographic Study of Armenian American Activism and Expression
In Armenian American youth activism, the practice of memory of woundedness and genocide is conceived as a form of resistance tied to claiming a subjectivity as diasporan Armenians and as a US minority. Young activists position themselves in history as remnants and freedom fighters, demanding recognition of the Genocide in a struggle for justice that simultaneously demands their own recognition as survivors in a context of perceived denial. The activist tradition studied here tends toward anti-assimilationism and the display of woundedness as a means of obtaining perceptibility. Youth claim survivorship through diasporan institutions that structure commemorations, cultural events and political protests. The study rests on eighteen months of field research in the Los Angeles region.