This chapter presents a linguistic ethnographic case study exploring the
role of linguistic resources in the institutional organisation of the
Armenian diaspora within the Finnish context. Even though the Armenian
diasporas across the globe have been extensively studied in various
countries, relatively little research has been conducted on linguistic
resources employed in the institutional organisation of the Armenian
diasporas. In addition, to our knowledge, no single research has focused
on the Armenian diaspora residing in Finland or organisational work
done at the institutional level within the Finnish context. The study
reported here attempts to address these gaps by drawing upon multi-sited
ethnographic fieldwork, more precisely, participant observations and
informal interviews conducted with Armenian volunteers of the
non-governmental organisation (NGO) promoting the organisation of the
Armenian diaspora at the institutional level in Finland. To do so, we
examine the landscape of the Armenian diaspora, which is shaped on the
basis of different generations of historical and contemporary
Armenian diasporas, who have increasingly diversified backgrounds
regarding their migration grounds and legal statuses in addition to
their linguistic and socio-economic characteristics. Some activities,
events and festivities arranged by the NGO are then described to
illustrate organisational work done by the volunteers with the
cooperation of individuals, institutions, associations and schools,
apart from with the support of the Armenian diaspora based in Finland.
Finally, we discuss linguistic resources that are used by the volunteers
in organisational work carried out through internal and external
communication within the offline and online contexts. Overall, the study
findings indicate that the volunteers of the NGO make use of different
linguistic repertoires in organisational work as not all the Armenian
diaspora members master Armenian, which is the shared main language for
the majority of them. The study, thus, confirms that linguistic,
especially multilingual, resources promote the institutional
organisation of the Armenian diaspora since linguistic diversity is
commonplace among the diaspora members. This chapter contributes to
understanding of how the diaspora can be organised at the institutional
level through multiple linguistic resources that provides new insights
into diaspora communities with little or no common language.