The Second Karabakh War of 2020 dramatically altered the strategic dynamics of the South Caucasus. How did the change in territorial control it entailed affect Armenia's sense of geography and national identity? This book addresses this question by examining Armenia's Siunik (Syunik) province. Rich in mineral resources and one of Armenia's only two open land borders, Siunik became an exposed and vulnerable space after 2020. This book draws from ethnographic fieldwork and the literature of critical geopolitics to investigate how Armenians in Siunik respond to their new material reality by looking to ideological nationalist imaginations of the territory, including its heroic figures and the framing of antiquity and indigeneity of its Armenian population. This book discusses the history of the region more broadly, with a focus on developments of the recent past, and proposes an analytical framework for understanding territorial disputes driven by nationalist geographical imaginations, arguing that they are a powerful motivator in their own right. They have the potential to be mobilised against external threats such as Azerbaijan or Turkey, and also instrumentalised at the sub-national level for intrastate conflict. Siunik serves as a telling case study for more nuanced and critical understandings of nationalist geographical imaginations.

Nareg Seferian holds a PhD from the School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech. He has taught at the American University of Armenia, Virginia Tech, Hampden-Sydney College, and Columbia University. His publications are available at naregseferian.com