Dr Maghakyan is a political scientist specialising in heritage and security. His forensic exposé of the 1997-2006 systematic erasure of the entire material Armenian past in Nakhichevan has been praised as “groundbreaking” by Forbes and “rock-solid” by The Guardian. His writing has been cited at the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice. His analyses often appear in popular media, including the BBC and Time. His theoretical explanation of systematic state-sponsored heritage crime is forthcoming as a Cambridge University Press publication.
Research Interests:
Heritage and Security
Politics of the Past
Material Memories and Conflict in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey
Selected Publications:
Sovereign Heritage Crime: Security, Autocracy, and the Material Past, of Elements in Critical Heritage Studies Series, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).
“Monumental Lessons from Nakhichevan for the Future of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Past”, chapter in The Second Karabakh War Between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Vicken Cheterian (ed.), I.B. Tauris (forthcoming).
“Investigation: Armenian Fears of a ‘Concentration Camp’ in Nagorno-Karabakh May Have Been Warranted”, lead co-author, New Lines Magazine, 11 Jan., 2024.
“How Azerbaijan Weaponized Environmentalism to Justify Ethnic Cleansing”, Time Magazine, 22 Feb., 2023.
“Is Indigeneity Discourse Productive for the Cause of Armenian Preservation?” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, 2022: 29(1), 85-95.
“A Vicious Circle of Cultural Erasure in Azerbaijan”, The Wall Street Journal, 24 Mar., 2022.
“Cultural Desecration is Racial Discrimination”, Foreign Policy, 13 Jan., 2022.
“Special investigation: Declassified satellite images show erasure of Armenian churches”, The Art Newspaper, 1 Jun., 2021.
“Can Islamic Shrines’ Connection to Armenians Transform Azerbaijani Politics of Erasure?”, Hyperallergic, 28 Feb., 2021.
“A Regime Conceals Its Erasure of Indigenous Armenian Culture,” lead co-author, Hyperallergic, 18 Feb., 2019
