This project supports the dissertation research of a cultural anthropology student in Soviet Armenia. The student will interview residents of two Soviet Armenian villages where local and diasporan Armenians are collaborating in reconstruction projects following the 1988 earthquake. The project will study how the rebuilding reflects local conceptions of national Armenian identity in the current changing macro-political context of a dissolved Soviet Union. Using participant observation, residential surveys, and formal interviews, the student will see how plain citizens as well as architects and developers express Armenian identity in their construction plans. This research is important because knowledge of the nationalist feelings and values of Eastern European peoples is critically important at this time in history, as the Soviet empire reduces its scope.
