Diasporas regard memory and place as the principal means of forming and sustaining identity. Consequently, diaspora tourism – journeys to ancestral homelands – plays a vital role in nurturing connections to historic sites and kindling potent memories. Given the complexities of this intricate process, the study of diaspora tourism invokes interdisciplinary questions that traverse anthropology, history, politics, psychology and sociology. This chapter examines the case of diaspora Armenians visiting Historic Armenia, much of which is situated in present-day Eastern Turkey. It explores how narratives and identity are affected by unresolved historical grievances stemming from the 1915 genocide and mass deportations that nearly depopulated the entire Armenian population from Anatolia, and how these tours reshape participants’ views of what they have lost and their feelings towards contemporary Turkey. We focus on personal, political and practical aspects of diaspora tourism and suggest that such journeys make two contributions. First, the pilgrimage to ancestral lands undermines entrenched Armenian perspectives that have hindered psychological and social change, and second, the pilgrimage nurtures the Armenian diaspora by preserving and reimagining its identity.

Diasporas see themselves as keeping alive an endangered ethnic, religious and national identity. In particular, the Armenian diaspora has carried the responsibility for the survival of the nation since the early modern era, especially in periods when there was no official state. After the 1915 deportations and genocide, the diaspora communities further felt the burden of protecting and nourishing Armenian identity and culture. Armenians in diaspora hardened their attitudes towards Turks and the Turkish state after the 1970s, as we explain below, some going so far as to condemn travel to Turkey and calling for a boycott of Turkish products. Moreover, in the United States, there were very few opportunities for Turks and Armenians to interact because immigration from Turkey was very limited until the 1990s.

In tracing Armenian footprints in Eastern Turkey, there are no real maps or guidebooks. Even when travellers reach the village or town of their parents or grandparents, they do not know where to look or how to make sense of what is or was there – names of villages, streets and other place-markers have been changed by the Turkish Government over the last century to cement their claims and control over the region.