Altanian, Melanie (ed.) (2017). Archives against Genocide Denialism? Challenges to the Use of Archives in Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation, (1). swisspeace
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Considering the value of archives for dealing with the past processes, especially for the establishment of collective memory and identity, this paper discusses the role of archives in situations of conflicting memories such as in the case of the official Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide. A crucial problem of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation are the divergent perceptions of what to consider as proper ‘evidence’, i.e. as objective, reliable, impartial or trustworthy sources of knowledge in order to prove the Armenian genocide. The aim of this paper is to show how in a general atmosphere of distrust or prejudiced credibility judgments, even technically reliable archival records will be perceived as unreliable and biased, lacking any evidentiary status to factually prove a genocide which is categorically denied. Therefore, this working paper discusses how claims to reliability, objectivity and other similar scientifically and epistemically relevant attributes are understood in archival science as well as memory studies, and emphasizes the problems related to their instrumentalization by political actors within the context of genocide denialism. The Turkish-Armenian context promises many important empirical as well as theoretical insights on the uses and misuses of these attributes, suggesting that measures ought to be taken beforehand to decrease intergroup prejudice and distrust toward the ‘other’, so that archives can be effective in the truth-finding process.
Item Type: |
Journal or Series (Working Paper Series) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Philosophy Graduate Schools > Graduate School of the Humanities (GSH) 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Philosophy > Practical Philosophy |
Graduate School: |
Graduate School of the Humanities (GSH) |
UniBE Contributor: |
Altanian, Melanie |
Subjects: |
100 Philosophy 100 Philosophy > 120 Epistemology 100 Philosophy > 170 Ethics |
ISBN: |
978-3-906841-04-5 |
Series: |
Archives against Genocide Denialism? Challenges to the Use of Archives in Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation |
Publisher: |
swisspeace |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Melanie Altanian |
Date Deposited: |
25 Apr 2018 13:37 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 15:08 |
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
archives, dealing with the past, memory conflict, historical denialism, prejudice, disrespecting rememberers, testimonial injustice |
BORIS DOI: |
10.7892/boris.107622 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/107622 |
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