Living-together before and after the Karabakh war?

After a month of military combats in Nagorno-Karabakh, a Russian-brokered truce has stopped the fighting around the conflicted territory between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In this conflict, Armenia and Azerbaijan view the other as an enemy who employs a very similar rhetoric, thereby reinforcing demonisation of each other. Attempts towards a peace process and critical voices towards the war seem to be a taboo topic on both sides. It is time to raise questions about the possibilities of living together and potential routes for a peace dialogue. Armenians and Azerbaijanis lived together side by side in pre-Soviet and Soviet periods, in and outside of national borders, sharing territories and everyday co-existence. Why is this memory not in demand today? Is it conceivable to restore relationships between Armenians and Azerbaijanis and to find new platforms of non-conflict exchange? What are the potentials and alternatives for developing interactions between the two sides on the level of civil society and communities? Under what conditions may local grassroots initiatives come together?

With this online event, we want to start a discussion about the challenges and possibilities of living together and living with differences in the South Caucasus and beyond. Moments and practices of solidarity that support more inclusive initiatives at the local level will be considered.

• Vadim Romashov, Tampere University, Doctoral Researcher at Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI), Faculty of Social Sciences. His research addresses relations of minority groups in multicultural settings in post-Soviet societies. He is currently finalizing his doctoral research on everyday co-existence of Armenians and Azerbaijanis in rural settlements of Georgia.
• Dr. Sevil Huseynova, social anthropologist, project manager at the CISR e.V. Berlin, member of the international Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation. She is the co-author of “Beyond the Karabakh Conflict. Kizil Shafag and Kerkendj. The Village Exchange", Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung 2012. 
• Chair: Dr. Tsypylma Darieva, social anthropologist and a senior researcher at ZOiS, Berlin.