Temptations in Ruin

Temptations in Ruin examines the political-economic afterlife of the Armenian genocide in present-day Turkey, focusing on the region of Musä (Moush). Anthropologist Alice von Bieberstein explores how the 1915 genocide and dispossession of Armenians shaped property regimes, citizenship, and economic logics that continue to reverberate today. By combining ethnography with historical context and diverse perspectives, the book generates new insights into how past violence shapes contemporary economic practices and social relations. It shows readers how the genocide gave rise to a racialized property regime and a recursive movement of sovereign accumulation that builds on and re-animates the Armenian genocide as generative of wealth in the present. And it demonstrates the complex interplay between genocide denial, destruction, and valorization in post-genocide contexts. By illuminating these enduring reverberations of genocide, this investigation contributes crucial insights to our understanding of political violence's long-term impacts on society and on the economy. To tell this history, von Bieberstein introduces the concept of "sovereign accumulation" to describe how it is that the state and other actors mobilize histories of sovereign violence for present-day economic benefit. This framework illuminates the legacy of violence and resource extraction present in practices such as urban renewal projects, treasure hunting for "Armenian gold," and heritage tourism as manifestations of the economic aftermath of the genocide