Taming Anxieties, Coping with Mnemonic Conflicts: Cultural Diplomacy of Crimean Tatar and Lithuanian American Diasporas through Historical Films
Abstract
This study focuses on the cultural diplomacy of Crimean Tatar and Lithuanian American diasporas, who both suffered from deportation at the hands of the Soviets and are conducting anti-Russian diplomacy today. Historical films are useful in terms of showing how the diasporic communities seek to reconstruct a collective memory on a traumatic event and tame their anxieties of death, meaninglessness, and condemnation that constitute “unknown unknowns” by turning them into the fear of a “known unknown” through securitization. Therefore, this study aims to grasp the multiplicity of anxieties reflected upon the Crimean Tatar and Lithuanian diasporas’ recent historical films that demonstrate how diasporas’ varying anxieties translate into diverse strategies of political representation and mobilisation against Russia. It thus reconciles the scholarship on diaspora’s memory politics with anxiety/fear nexus in securitization theory.
Keywords
Trauma, deportation, securitization, anxiety of death, memory politics
Citation
Didem Buhari Gulmez and Dovilė Budrytė, “Taming Anxieties, Coping with Mnemonic Conflicts: Cultural Diplomacy of Crimean Tatar and Lithuanian American Diasporas through historical films”, Uluslararasi Iliskiler, Vol. 19, No. 73, 2022, pp. 13-28, DOI: 10.33458/uidergisi.1086514
Affiliations
- Didem BUHARI GULMEZ, Associate Professor, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Department of International Relations
- Dovilė BUDRYTĖ, Professor, Georgia Gwinnett College, Department of Political Science