Dr. Shushan Karapetian’s research initiatives center contemporary Armenian experiences, with special focus on competing ideologies at the intersection of language and the construction of transnational identity. Through interdisciplinary perspectives, the director’s work highlights the dynamic ways in which contemporary Armenian identities are negotiated, performed, and transmitted across geographic, national, and generational boundaries.
Broadcasting Armenia(nness) via Vanity License Plates in Los Angeles
This study collects and examines Armenia(n) themed personalized license plates in Los Angeles as a means of projecting sociocultural and sociolinguistic identities by Armenian Americans. Having sourced a visual archive of nearly 1000 original plates, the project explores how diasporans broadcast various facets of their Armenian heritage through the creative alphanumeric combinations that a seven-unit California license plate affords. Given the dynamism of Los Angeles as an immigrant metropolis and vibrant center of Armenian diasporic life, this project investigates the (meta)linguistic, thematic, and social nuances in both the crafting and promotion of Armenian identity through these unique moving signs.
Performing Diasporic Resistance: (Re)Claiming the Heritage Language
Based on fieldwork in Armenia and Los Angeles during and after the 2020 Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) War, this study examines the unprecedented transnational mobilization of Armenian communities worldwide. Considering the advances in digital media and communication technologies, the scope of civilian participation in warfare has exponentially grown. This study considers how language is viewed and used during war, particularly the heritage language of diasporan civilians. More specifically, it explores to what extent the heritage language is employed as both a symbolic and strategic tool in wartime transnational activism. The project proposes that transnational actors (re)claimed the Armenian language as an act of resistance in the context of participatory warfare, which also served as a powerful means of fashioning and solidifying diasporic identities.
Ethnolinguistic Masculinity: Interdependence of Language and Gender Socialization among Armenian American Men
This ethnographic study explores the interdependence and resilience of gender and language socialization in the performance of masculinity among Armenian American men in Los Angeles. The study proposes the novel formulation of an ethnolinguistic masculinity in a diasporic context, in which proficiency in a minority language is instrumentalized to perform masculinity as a strategy for maintaining social cohesion, status, and power. Embedded in multiple academic disciplines, including Linguistic Anthropology, Gender Studies, and Armenian Studies, the project offers a transnational perspective through an unexamined cohort of men who were born in Armenia but came of age in Los Angeles. Based on a series of ethnographic interviews, the study examines these men’s constructions and performances of masculinity through the influence of hegemonic codes and their evolution over space and time, with particular focus on the resilience of the Armenian language as the instrument of socialization and articulation.
Intergenerational Trauma and Resilience Post-2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War
This mixed-method study investigates how Armenian populations from Armenia and Artsakh were impacted by intergenerational trauma after the 2020 Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) War and the factors that shaped resilience. Quantitative data were collected using instruments with strong psychometric properties, while semi-structured interviews provided qualitative depth. The study poses two major questions: 1) What was the impact of intergenerational/historical traumas in framing the experience of the 2020 War? 2) What factors contribute to resilience when a major trauma occurs in a population that has experienced so much intergenerational trauma? To protect the mental health of future generations, it is imperative for more research to understand the transmission of intergenerational traumas and how to decrease the chances of transmission.
The study was conceived by Dr. Shushan Karapetian and former Institute student worker Arman Dzhragatspanyan (BA, Health and Human Sciences, USC, MA, Political Science, and International Affairs, American University of Armenia). The research team grew to include Dr. Frank Manis (Professor of Psychology, USC), Dr. Clayton Stephenson (Associate Professor of Psychology, USC), and Dr. Valentina Ogaryan (Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Director of Simms/Mann Center, UCLA).