Changing the State's Story: The Politics of the Past

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Presents a Lecture by
Jennifer Dixon Ph.D. Candidate, UC Berkeley

In this lecture, Jennifer Dixon will discuss the sources of continuity and change in states' narratives of past atrocities, drawing on her in-depth
research into Turkey's narrative of the Armenian Genocide and Japan's narrative of the 1937-38 Nanjing massacre.

She will argue that international pressures act primarily as catalysts for change in official narratives, while domestic processes determine the direction and magnitude of that change. In contrast to those who warn that progressive changes in states' narratives can provoke a backlash from the right, Jennifer's research shows that actors across the political spectrum vehemently contest and shape narratives of the past. Her findings are based on more than eight months of fieldwork, including archival research in Turkey, and over seventy-five
elite interviews conducted in Turkey, Japan, and the United States.

Jennifer Dixon is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and currently a Research Fellow in the International
Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Her dissertation, "Changing
the State's Story: Continuity and Change in Official Narratives of Dark Pasts," investigates how states' narratives about dark pasts are shaped and contested over time. She has written two articles based on her research, one of which is forthcoming in the journal South European Society and Politics, and the other of which was published this summer in the International Journal for Education Law and Policy.

NAASR