The monograoh "Conflict, Space, and Transnationalism: An Ethnography  of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War"  published

ArmInfo.The National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (NAS RA) hosted a presentation-discussion of the book "Conflict, Space, and Transnationalism: An Ethnography of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War" (Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).

According to the NAS RA press service, the work is dedicated to a  comprehensive study of the Nagorno- Karabakh conflict and the 44-day  war. he work is dedicated to a comprehensive study of the Karabakh  conflict and the 44-day war. The authors are Arsen Hakobyan, a  leading researcher at the Department of Cultural Anthropology of the  Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the NAS RA, and Marcello  Mollica, an associate professor of anthropology and ethnology at the  University of Messina, Italy. The book was published by the  prestigious scientific publishing house "Palgrave Macmillan".

The participants of the discussion were welcomed by  Academician-Secretary of the Department of Armenian Studies and  Social Sciences of the NAS of the Republic of Armenia Yuri Suvaryan.  "This book is a serious scientific achievement in Armenian studies.  It considers the personal component of the war and has remarkable  conclusions. The work tries to resolve many issues. I hope that the  book will receive its deserved assessment also in the field of  awards. I congratulate the authors on the publication of this  valuable work and wish them new creative achievements," said  Academician Yuri Suvaryan.

Pavel Avetisyan, Vice President of the RA National Academy of  Sciences, Scientific Director of the Institute of Archeology and  Ethnography of the RA National Academy of Sciences, noted that the  book is primarily about the problem of societies transformed through  war. "This conflict is multifaceted, and its discussions should be  conducted from different perspectives. The work carried out within  the framework of this international cooperation is one of the best  examples. Such work should be done a lot, this tragedy should become  a subject of discussion from all perspectives," said Pavel Avetisyan.

Arsen Hakobyan and Marcello Mollika previously authored the book  "Syrian Armenians and the Turkish Factor Kessab, Aleppo and Deir  ez-Zor in the Syrian War." The book on the Syrian War shows how  identity and belonging become the target of cross-border attacks,  reproducing the memory of the Genocide and the same threats to  survival, with the role and participation of the Turkish factor.  While working on this book, the second Karabakh war broke out, and  the Turkish factor played a decisive role in the 2020 Karabakh war.  And the epilogue of the book on the Syrian War begins with a  description of the Armenian- Azerbaijani border clashes of July 2020,  where for the first time the tendencies of the transnationalization  of the conflict appear through the export of violence from Syria. 

"Before the start of the Second Karabakh War, researchers from the  Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the RA NAS conducted  fieldwork in Nagorno-Karabakh, which, as Arsen Hakobyan notes, was  the last fieldwork of Armenian ethnographers in pre-war Karabakh. "In  2020, during the war, we received an offer from the same publishing  house to continue researching the issue. The cities of Hadrut,  Shushi, and Stepanakert had become targets during military  operations. In November-December 2020, we began discussing and  shaping the content of the project, which was later adopted by the  editorial board as the main structure and questioning of the book,"  Arsen Hakobyan said.

The author noted that the book discusses war and crisis within the  framework of urban anthropology. Cities and territories are not just  physical spaces here, but are also important in terms of  relationships for a given community. "If we study the issue from that  perspective, we see that the first protest movements begin in the  cities of Stepanakert, Hadrut, Yerevan. Later, the first cases of  violence also occur in the cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku.  They are the subject of separate discussion in the work. The Baku  massacres of 1990 end the chain of urban violence and massacres,  which later grow into military operations. Then we move on to the  first Karabakh war, the events of the April 2016 war, and in a  similar process we reach the second Karabakh war, focusing on urban  territories. Stepanakert is considered important as a political  center, the axis and symbol of political identity, the second  Armenian capital.  Shushi is presented in the context of  ethno-religious diversity and the conflicts arising from that  diversity.  Then we move on to the transnational nature of the 2020  war. And the last part of the work is about cultural filtering, since  the concept of cultural genocide provides an opportunity to discuss  the connection between territory, culture and crisis, dictated by the  challenges of war. We have discussed several realities here: the role  of important holy places and territories during the war and post-war  developments. During the analysis of the events, already during the  conclusion, we found such an interesting phenomenon: neither the keys  to Gandzasar, nor the keys to Dadivank, nor the keys to Amaras were  handed over. We hope that these undelivered keys will provide an  opportunity for their return. This is how we summed up the work,"  Arsen Hakobyan presented.

The book's Italian co-author, Marcello Mollica, noted: "One of the  main ideas of this book is transnationalism. In the previous book,  the idea of transnationalism was defined, opened up, and there were  some predictions that came true during the second Karabakh war. It  was mainly the arrival of external actors and their important role.  The last chapter of the book was dedicated to mapping  transnationalism, as well as the impact of conflicts in other regions  on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Of of course, with this we also  entered the field of international relations. I think it was  important to broaden the subject matter further, not excluding other  disciplines. It was also important to include history, because it is  impossible to understand the Karabakh conflict without taking into  account its historical development." During the discussion, the  participants presented their observations and addressed the existing  issues.