“On the grounds where they will walk in a hundred years’ time” - Struggling with the heritage of violent past in post-genocidal Tunceli

Abstract

Adopting a genealogical approach, this paper discusses recently emerging alternative heritage production as a discursive site for the confrontation of representations of contested memories of the violent past in modern post-genocidal Turkey by exploring the particular case of Tunceli province, former Dersim. The study critically questions the perspectives, constraints and limits of alternative heritage production. It argues that recent contested heritage action evolving in the discursive field, span between post-genocidal denialist discourse and tourist marketisation endeavours, contributes to the ongoing negotiations and struggle over the attribution of meanings to Turkey’s violent past and present. It then moves on to argue that local heritage actors, by claiming representation and recognition of state-induced violent crimes as genocide, adhere to the dominant denialist discourse whilst acknowledging the concept of genocide for their political ends.