Cypriotness After Postcolonialism

The relationships between the notion of a resurgent Cypriot identity and the recent social, political, cultural and economic factors associated with Turkish settlement in northern Cyprus have been extensively examined in the social sciences and humanities over the past four decades. However, the cultural traces of British colonialism in the present and its relation to the contemporary dynamics of Turkish Cypriot identity have not received the same level of scholarly attention. This thesis offers a conjunctural perspective of the exploration of Cypriot identity. It provides an account of Cypriotness in reference to the post-postcolonial conjuncture, that is the historical meeting point of the colonial past and the postcolonial and the colonial present. The study also considers the extent to which Cypriot identity is constructed against two distinct constitutive others, namely mainland Turks and Greek Cypriots. The research has been conducted using a mixed-method ethnography, combining auto-ethnography and sensory ethnography. The main data were generated through participant observation, semi-structured interviews and informal/conversational interviews. Using ideas from postcolonial theory (Said, 1978, 1993; Bhabha, 1984, 1994), I provide an analysis of the living of complex dynamics as they relate to the production and negotiation of cultural difference, racism, identity and identifications within a post-postcolonial society. In doing so, the thesis contributes to the current debates on identity politics in northern Cyprus, as well as contributing to discussions in postcolonial studies.