Seminar: “Remembering Rupture and the Loss of Terroir: Artsakh Foodways in Displacement”
The 36th session of the seminar series will be the PoSoCoMeS Pre-conference seminar, on 14th January 2026, at 5 p.m. CET.
Link: https://teams.live.com/meet/9361814345634?p=F2RnOYriXF2vpWL2rf
Presenter: Ruzanna Tsaturyan, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Yerevan State University, Armenia
About the seminar
This seminar examines the forced displacement of the population of Artsakh in 2023 as a moment of rupture that is remembered and narrated through food practices. It discusses how the loss of terroir represents not only a material rupture, but also gradually functions as a mnemonic practice through which displacement is remembered and lived as experience.
The discussion draws on ethnographic interviews and observations conducted in recent years among displaced Armenians from Artsakh. It explores how people remember and cook once-familiar dishes in exile, whether displacement prompts renewed attention to traditional food practices, and how the loss of terroir reshapes these practices. In everyday conversations and in the repeated preparation of familiar foods, ideas of home and continuity are revisited – often in the context of family separation, the urbanization of formerly rural communities, and reflections on the loss of land as a key source of social and material security – through the lens of taste and smell.
By foregrounding remembering as an evolving practice, the seminar asks how cultural memory persists and is reworked in times of crisis and uncertainty when both ecological foundations and social worlds are lost.
This online seminar is linked to the international conference POST-SOCIALIST MEMORY IN TIMES OF CRISES AND SPECULATION, where a live demonstration of preparing jingyalov hats – a traditional Artsakh flatbread with greens – will take place during the lunch session (January 23, 1:15–2:15 PM). The demonstration and personal narrative will be shared by Kristine Balayan, who experienced the forced displacement from the Republic of Artsakh in 2023 and is the owner and co-founder of Tumanyan’s ART. Through traditional Artsakh cuisine, family recipes, and live masterclasses, she turns cooking into a conversation about home, roots, and memory. The online lecture complements this event by offering a scholarly overview of how cuisine functions as a medium of memory, particularly in contexts of loss and displacement.
Author
Ruzanna Tsaturyan is a cultural anthropologist and researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and a lecturer at Yerevan State University. Her research focuses on intangible cultural heritage, foodways, memory, and forced displacement, with recent attention to Artsakh. She works at the intersection of ethnography, memory studies, and community-based heritage practices.