Syrian-Armenians and their Return to the ‘Ancestral Homeland’ - explorative research on Armenian resettlement policy

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2021-08-26
Language
en
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Abstract
The South-Caucasian state of Armenia is receiving a substantial number of Syrian refugees. These refugees are welcomed with open arms because of their Armenian heritage. This is remarkable because the economic situation in Armenia is dire and the state has been entangled in a long-lingering territorial conflict with Azerbaijan about Nagorno-Karabakh. The objective of this research is to explore the underlying (geo) political reasons for the Armenian resettlement policy regarding Syrian-Armenian refugees. The research method is inductive and explorative and the specific method that is used is qualitative triangulation. The main sources of information are interviews, academic literature and news articles. The different tools are: a most similar case (Abkhazia), self-conducted interviews and the theory of ethnogeopolitics. The critical analysis of these sources led to a plausible case for the active involvement of the Armenian government in the resettling of Syrian-Armenian refugees in the contested area of Nagorno-Karabakh in order to repopulate this area. This repopulation was a (geo) political goal to strengthen the Armenian negotiation position in the conflict. Furthermore, the cases of Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia led to a conceptual contribution to the ethnogeopolitical theory: strategic migration policy with a differentiation between a hard and soft form.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen