IAS Talking Points: Submerged Stories - Dams and Cultural Erasure in Eastern Turkey

In this talk, UCL Institute of Advanced Studies Junior Research Fellow Dr Laurent Dissard will take dams as symbols of Turkey’s 'modernisation' and their associated reservoirs, artificial lakes inundating the cultural heritage of river valleys, as metaphors for the country’s 'submerged stories'. He explains how technological infrastructures, which delineate the possibilities and confines of Turkey’s future, have also simultaneously helped to materialise the possibilities and confines of the nation’s past. In the end, he will explore the 'stories' of Turkey’s 'others' (Kurds, Alevis, Armenians) left 'submerged' by the country’s attempts to modernise.

Respondents: Dr Katherine Ibbett, UCL SELCS, and Dr Ruth Mandel, Department of Anthropology, UCL