Sossie Kasbarian

Current Teaching

PPR 226 Comparative Politics of the Middle East

PPR 333 Contemporary Issues in the Middle East

PPR434 Diasporas and Minorities of the Middle East

POL100 Politics & Governance in the Contemporary World (lectures on Global South)

Research Overview

My research interests and publications broadly span Diaspora studies; contemporary Middle East politics and society; nationalism, identity and ethnicity; minority communities in the Middle East.

Professional Role

PPR Deputy Research Director

Current Research

My current research focus brings together my twin areas of expertise – contemporary Middle East politics, and Diaspora Studies - focussing on how political activism in the diasporic space - in self or state-imposed exile – functions, creating momentum within the host state, the transnational realm and the place of origin. I am particularly interested in what kind of role non-state actors within transnational civil society can play in entrenched conflicts, in unravelling and coming to terms with contested histories and memories, and in altering the framework of the debate.

I will be spending 2016-17 on sabbatical, based at the American University in Cairo.

Selected Publications in Print

Diasporas of the Modern Middle East - Contextualizing Community (Edited with Anthony Gorman), Edinburgh University Press, 2015

"The Myth and Reality of 'Return' - Diaspora in the Homeland" in Diaspora (Vol:18:Issue 3, Fall 2015)

A Discourse of Denial: Memories of the Armenian Genocide" Open Democracy (August 2014)https://www.opendemocracy.net/sossie-kasbarian/discourse-of-denial-memories-of-armenian-genocide

'It's time the World recognised the Armenian Genocide' The Conversation (24 April 2015)

https://theconversation.com/its-time-the-world-recognised-the-armenian-genocide-40576

Co-editor (with Kerem Öktem) of special issue of Patterns of Prejudice (Vol. 48: 2, May 2014) entitled Beyond Denial: Armenians and Turks, One hundred years since 1915, including two articles (co-authored with Kerem Öktem):

‘Armenians, Turks and Kurds beyond denial: an Introduction’ in Patterns of Prejudice (Vol. 48: 2, May 2014), pp. 115-120.

‘Subversive Friendships: Turkish and Armenian encounters in transnational space’ in Patterns of Prejudice (Vol. 48: 2, May 2014), pp. 121-146.

‘Subaltern Diasporic Voices – Armenian Experiences on the Margins of Community in Cyprus and Lebanon’ in The Cyprus Review(Vol. 25: 1, Spring 2013) pp. 81 – 110

‘The Armenian Community in Cyprus at the Beginning of the 21st Century: From Insecurity to Integration’, chapter in The Minorities of Cyprus: Development Patterns and the Identity of Internal-Exclusion. Eds. A. Varnavas, N. Coureas and M. Elia (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009)

‘Whose Space, Whose Interests? Clashes within Armenian Diasporic Civil Society’ article in Armenian Review Volume 51, Number 1-4 (Fall-Winter 2009) 81-109

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/ppr/about-us/people/sossie-kasbarian