Armenians, Turks and Kurds beyond denial: an introduction

Abstract

First paragraph: Where are we beyond denial? This was the key question of a workshop that we organized at the University of Lancaster in March 2012. The question seemed as appropriate at the time as it is now. After almost a century of a Turkish nation-building project rooted in the denial of the mass violence perpetrated in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, and an Armenian diaspora caught in another project of national boundary-making, the space in which Turks, Kurds, Armenians and others are able to interact has extended considerably. This change in dynamics has been facilitated by a series of events, which are explored in detail in Sossie Kasbarian and Kerem Öktem’s contribution to this issue (‘Subversive friendships’), and which range from taboo-breaking academic conferences to civil society encounters and commemorative events.