Lusine Kharatyan was born in Yerevan in 1977. In 1999, she graduated with distinction from the History Department of Yerevan State University. She holds a Masters degree in Public Policy/ Social Policy (2004) from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, USA, and a General Diploma (2000) in Demography from the Cairo Demographic Center, Cairo, Egypt.
Currently, Lusine is a postgraduate student at the Department of Modern Ethnology at the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. Her Ph.D. thesis is on “Borderline Population of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh: Peculiarities of World-view and Way of Life.” Mrs. Kharatyan has extensive ethnographic fieldwork experience in Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh and Egypt. Her research interests include anthropology of borderline cultures, border symbolism, border-center relations and perception of motherland, refugee culture and migrant populations, social/cultural impact of policy reforms, civil society formation in Armenia, and value systems and their transformation.
Lusine Kharatyan’s research topic ““Alienated" in one’s own group?” Adaptation Specifics of Armenian Refugees from Azerbaijan in Armenia: The case of Vardenis Region of Gegharkunik Marz of the Republic of Armenia” deals with the socio-cultural aspects of adaptation of Armenian refugees in one of the rural areas of Armenia. It is aimed to reveal a model of “mine – non mine” in today’s Armenian society, based on the case of refugee adaptation in a new place. Models of adaptation of “new” territory by refugees, i.e. mechanisms of cultural pioneering and adaptation of “alien” territory, as well as the formation of interrelations between refugees and locals in the context of “mine” and “mine-non mine” are examined.