Follow the needle: Memorial materiality of needlework in post-violence diasporic archives

This study investigates the role of handcrafted textiles as surviving objects in the post-genocidal Armenian diaspora and focuses on their significance in France, Lebanon, and the US. Initially crafted by women survivors in refugee camps following the massacres in Anatolia, these textiles have evolved from symbols of survival to pivotal elements of cultural preservation and political identity in global contexts. Practices like needlework, are often dismissed in high art as domestic crafts but celebrated for empowerment in development, humanitarianism, and craftivism, serving as tangible manifestations of cultural memory and adaptation, allowing transnational Armenians to reconnect with their heritage while renegotiating gender roles and hybrid identities. Despite extensive scholarship on memorial materiality, personal objects often remain underexplored in discussions of war and displacement within new materialism literature. Similarly, the role of gender in the intergenerational transmission of memories, particularly in diasporic communities and transatlantic migration contexts, is often overlooked. In a context where research on the Armenian Genocide highlights restricted access to official archives, such as the Turkish state's control over historical records, this study explores how textiles can function as everyday and embodied archives, focusing on their sensory information and affective significance. THREADS examines the memorial materiality of textile artefacts, where memories of violence, loss, and resilience intertwine beyond mere symbolic representation to challenge denialist narratives. By employing an innovative methodological approach that integrates archives with multi-modal and multi-sited ethnographic research, this study aspires to enrich the social scientific understanding of material memories and knowledge production related to displacement in the diaspora.