‘Cold European civilisation hasn’t arrived here yet’ – negotiations within the Cypriot regime of (im)mobility

Fischer, Leandros

doi:10.1080/17450101.2021.1885841

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...

Citation Types

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Year Published

2023

2024

Publication Types

Select...

Book2

Article1

Relationship

Self Cite0

Independent3

Authors

Journals

Cited by 3 publications

References 31 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

Regimes of Mobility in Times of Accelerated Crisis

Fischer

2023

Mobility &Amp; Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Regimes of Mobility in Times of Accelerated Crisis

Fischer

2023

Mobility &Amp; Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dubai and Cyprus as Geographies of Social Mobility between Europe and the Middle East

Alloul,

Fischer

2023

Mobility &Amp; Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

‘Life is peaceful here’: Nigerian refugees in Limassol between colonial afterlives and city-making

Fischer

2024

Migration Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Divided by ethnic conflict, plagued by an economic crisis, and enforcing restrictive bordering practices at the edge of Europe, the Republic of Cyprus hardly constitutes an obvious choice for Nigerians fleeing conditions of state breakdown, crisis, and social immobility. The perceived ‘unusualness’ of this migration has made Nigerian and other African refugees particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses, violent nativist discourse, and racialised hyper-exploitation in the labour market. Yet despite these difficulties, some Nigerians strive to build a life on the island, with modest success. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article attempts to unravel the prevailing methodological nationalism, upon which notions of the ‘unusualness’ of African migration to the island are premised, in two ways. In contrast to notions of being itself a former colony, ‘too small’ to accommodate refugees, I show that colonial-era emigration to Africa has engendered anti-black racism in Cyprus, which has only been strengthened by EU membership and economic crisis. By focusing, on the other hand, on the city of Limassol as an ambivalent landscape of crisis and opportunity, I demonstrate how the urban rather than the national dimension can put notions of ‘unusualness’ into perspective. Within a global condition of crisis and social immobility, Nigerian refugees emplace themselves within the opportunities that Limassol, as a nodal point of social relations along multiple scales—national, regional, European, and global—has to offer. While this fact in itself does not improve their position vis-à-vis a restrictive asylum policy framework, it nonetheless renders them a constituent part of the city.

show abstract

‘Cold European civilisation hasn’t arrived here yet’ – negotiations within the Cypriot regime of (im)mobility

Cited by 3 publications

References 31 publications

Regimes of Mobility in Times of Accelerated Crisis

Regimes of Mobility in Times of Accelerated Crisis

Dubai and Cyprus as Geographies of Social Mobility between Europe and the Middle East

‘Life is peaceful here’: Nigerian refugees in Limassol between colonial afterlives and city-making

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About