ABSTRACT
Nations, as imagined communities, rely on their members’ sense of unity and belonging with people whom they do not know. Similarly, national memory is sustained by the sense that they have a shared past with these people as a result of belonging to the same community. This chapter discusses the spatial politics of memory as they crystallized in Armenian genocide commemorations’ Human Rights Association’s Commission against Racism and Discrimination at the Istanbul branch (IHD) and Say Stop to Racism and Nationalism (DurDe) organized in Istanbul since 2010. IHD has pursued a particular site-specific memorialization strategy when choosing the place of commemoration. DurDe held its annual genocide commemoration at Taksim Square between 2010 and 2013. However, after the Gezi process, the government banned all political demonstrations at the square. As a result, in 2014 and 2015, DurDe moved the location for its commemorations to the point where the Istiklal Avenue reached Taksim Square.
