Contribution short abstract:

What ‘un(der)commons’ is possible in the aftermath of genocide that has ruptured worlds also by way of racialized exclusions from property regimes? More-than-human ecologies play a key role by affording moments of recognition and affective connections across historical divides.

Contribution long abstract:

In my presentation, I ask what ‘un(der)commons’ are possible in the long aftermath of genocide and what role the more-than-human plays in this. I do so by looking at descendants of survivors of the Armenian genocide that ‘return’ to Western Armenia/Northern Kurdistan/Eastern Anatolia in search for traces and answers to a history of unfathomable loss and rupture. These encounters take the form of a confrontation between differently sourced fragments of knowledge and memory and the materiality of the land. They entail dwelling momentarily and sensuously in a landscape made up of trees, scattered stones and soil. I understand this modality of return and engagement as also speaking of the history of a racialized property regime that emerged with and through the Armenian genocide in the context of the First World War. This racialized property regime is built on the exclusion of non-Muslims from entitlement to land and property and constitutes the politico-economic and material dimension of the world-rupturing power of genocide. What commonalities or alternative publics become apprehensible across this divide? These involve, I argue, the more-than-human in a fundamental way. In the wake of destruction, water, mountains, trees and soils gain in significance and affect. More-than-human ecologies become hospitable to the work of the imaginary in a way not afforded by a built environment reduced to unrecognizable rubble. They offer moments of recognition and affective shelter as well as affordances of an un(der)commons, a coming together across (or in) heterogeneity.