Emotions in a diaspora’s interpretation of political developments in their place of origin: the case of Australian Armenians from Turkey

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to investigate how emotions guide and shape diasporic communities’ interpretation/perception of socio-political developments in their place of origin. Based on our study of members of the Armenian diaspora who are originally from Turkey and who now live in Melbourne, Australia, we argue that these Armenians have formed their views on political issues under the influence of their emotional experiences, stemming from direct or indirect victimhood. The paper finds that several key emotions – fear, hate (and lack of hate), anticipation, and pessimism, inform and shape the Australian Armenian diaspora’s making sense of political developments in their place of origin, Turkey. The paper’s contribution to the relevant scholarship is twofold. First, it contributes to the studies on emotions in diasporas by examining how emotions shape individual members of a diaspora make sense of political developments in their place of origin. Second, it contributes to the literature on modern Turkey by studying Armenians from Turkey and their emotions on socio-political phenomena.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotions
• victimhood
• diaspora
• Turkey
• Armenian
• Australia

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. James Barry for getting the ethics approval for this project and for leading the field work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In this paper, we use Grossman’s definition of diaspora: ‘a transnational community whose members (or their ancestors) emigrated or were dispersed from their original homeland but remain oriented to it and preserve a group identity’ (Grossman 2019, 1267).

2. By place of origin, we refer to the immigrant country where the diaspora is historically associated and migrated from at first place. In the case of Armenians who lived and migrated from Turkey, a subgroup of Armenian diasporas, we refer to Turkey as their place of origin not Armenia. However, place of origin for those Armenians lived and migrated from Armenia would be Armenia. This is also true for the Kurds, Georgian, and other ethnic diaspora groups lived and migrated from Turkey. We had an open ended question on the participants’ identity. Most of them concurred with ARM11: ‘I would say Armenian background born in Turkey, but I would say Armenian,’ with no mention of Turkey. Some responded like ARM14 who stated that she only explains the lineage when people really dig into the background or ask for it, ‘If they ask about my background, I say Armenian. And then I have to go further into it, I say but I was born in Turkey Istanbul but Armenian background.’ ARM06 also expressed a similar ease with letting make mistaken for being Armenian or German and would only clarify if someone ‘really digs’. ARM07 said, ‘I say my background is Armenian and my parents and our background have come from what was Armenia which is present day Turkey. I always feel the need to say that, I do not know. I don’t say this Turkish-Armenian.’ ARM03: ‘I use, I am an Australian with an Armenian background.’ ARM12: I say I am Australian-Armenian. ARM08: ‘Born in Turkey. Australian-Armenian born in Turkey.’

3. ‘ … system of self-government for the non-Muslim minorities of the Ottoman Empire’ (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9780230118874_1)

4. The non-Muslim population in Anatolia declined from 20% in 1913 to 2.5% in 1923.

5. ARM02: ‘I think it is getting better and now we can repair our churches and we can now get you know the things that belong to churches and take it back you know. And it think it is going a good way.’ ARM14: ‘When I went in 2010 it was very interesting it was Erdogan’s first term and there was hope because he was being nice to the minorities. He seemed to be returning the land and the titles that belong to the Armenian churches, hospitals and schools. I think he was more Western looking that’s the impression. And, the country was preparing for his second term elections there were elections coming up and even within the Armenian community people were saying ‘we gonna vote for Erdogan because he is brining all those changes, he is very friendly with the minorities with the Christians whatever. So, there was that hope but after his second term things started going back.’

6. Before starting the interviews, an ethics approval has been received from the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (2018–088). For this, we thank Dr. James Barry who also coordinated the field research and interviewing process.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ihsan Yilmaz

Ihsan Yilmaz is Research Chair of Islamic Studies and Intercultural Dialogue at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. He has conducted mixed-method research on several themes: 1. Islam–state–law relations in majority and minority contexts; 2. Islamism, Islamist populism, politics of victimhood and resentment, emotions in politics; 3. Global Islamic movements; 4. Nation-building, citizenship, ethnic, religious and political minorities and their securitization; 5. Socio-legal affairs, identities, belonging, political participation and intergroup relations of Muslim minorities in the West (the UK, Australia, and the USA); 6. Authoritarianism, democratic decay; 7. Turkish politics; 8. Turkish diasporas (the UK, Australia), transnationalism; 9. Muslim youth in the West. He has been invited by several eminent think-tanks, universities and governmental bodies in many parts of the world as either keynote speaker, guest lecturer or expert witness in areas related to his expertise. He was professor of political science at Istanbul Fatih University (2008–2016), lecturer in law, social sciences and politics at SOAS, University of London (2001–2008), and a fellow at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Islamic Studies (1999–2001).

Mustafa Demir

Mustafa Demir, is a lecturer at the College of Business, Law and Social Sciences University of Derby and also is a non-resident research fellow at the research program on Authoritarianism at European Centre for Populism Studies. He was awarded his PhD from Keele University in 2015. He, examining impact of democratization on foreign policy making, worked on Turkey’s relations with Kurdistan Region of Iraq (2003-2013) as his doctoral thesis. Since then he has worked as a freelance academic and research consultant. He has taught Introduction to Politics; Peace and Conflict Resolution; Political History (post-1945) at various Universities in the UK. He has conducted research on democratization and foreign policy making; authoritarianism; populism; religion and politics; transnational movements and diaspora.