Translating Memory: Feminist Interventions in Writing Iranian-Armenian Diasporic Histories

Based on extensive research for The Armenian Woman, Minoritarian Agency, and the Making of Iranian Modernity, 1860-1979 (Stanford University Press, 2025), including about 100 oral interviews, private informal collections, and visual and material sources, as well as traditional textual archives and press materials, we examine the (im)possibilities of reconstructing contemporary Irano-Armenian diasporic histories through the lens of doubly minoritized women’s activism and elusive archives. We argue that oral histories and material culture, ranging from embroideries to family photo collections, are fundamental to advancing diasporic historiography where women’s history takes a central role. We analyze how the ephemeral and unstable nature of memory, embedded in informal archives—themselves powerful repositories of (blurred) collective memory—shapes the reorganization, reimagining, and reconstruction of marginalized voices in mobile societies. We highlight the major methodological challenges in researching and constructing a history marked by absences and shaped by the memory of a twice-marginalized community of Irano-Armenian women, where matrilineal legacies are either forgotten or overlooked by some, or celebrated by others. Therefore, the presentation addresses the intersection of archives, memory, and movement.