Authors

Aude Merlin¹; Taline Papazian²;  ¹ UNIVERSITÉ LIBRE DE BRUXELLES, Belgium;  ² Sciences Po Aix, France

Discussion

Since the 44-day war of September-November 2020 which hit Nagorno-Karabakh and led to the defeat of Armenian forces, the informal clubs and groups of military training that existed in Armenia before have been joined by new initiatives.

This study, based on several field missions carried out in Armenia in 2021 and 2022 - observations of training clubs, individual and collective semi-directive interviews with war veterans, combattants, trainees, civil society / NGO activists, informal discussions -, aims to analyse the evolution of what we postulate to be a ‘state of alert’ at work in society, in a situation of "no war, no peace" that lasts.

In particular, based on the material collected, we wish to analyse the way in which this state of alert is translated into action via the activity of these clubs before or after the war (VOMA, POGA, and others), their discourses, and the testimonies of their members, both usual trainees and newly arrived.Furthermore, we wish to see whether this ‘state of alert’ is also detectable among individuals who participated in the war without being enrolled in the Army or affiliated with any club.

In addition, we seek to understand what the 2020 war has changed in terms of the sociology of their members, and the possible diffusion of the state of alert to other segments and sectors of activity (economic fabric, care and rehabilitation sector).


Through this research, we seek to analyse the way associations, clubs and private initiatives compensate for deficiencies in state policies and at the same time interact with the State.