Partitions of Memory: Wounds and Witnessing in Cyprus

Bryant, Rebecca

doi:10.1017/s0010417512000060

Cited by 36 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…In general, after 1974, both official and personal Greek Cypriot histories engaged in a remembrance of the lost home that insisted on the temporariness of the present and the future as a return to the past. In contrast, Turkish Cypriot official histories engaged in a politics of forgetting in the creation of a new state, and, indeed, Turkish Cypriots did not write poetry or songs for their lost homes or relay secondary trauma to their children (Bryant ).…”

Section: History As Ruinmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Calls to “right the injustices of the past” or to “put the past behind us” have the capacity to alter, stall, or give momentum to historical time. At this “threshold of anticipation” (Bryant ), the future is the space in which all will be rectified, while the present is a liminal state of waiting for the anticipated future rectification.…”

Section: Some Final Thoughts On Time and Belongingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cypriots, however, have long lived in a context in which the future is uncertain and the conflict is “unfinished.” Cypriots live in a prolonged ceasefire, a suspension of war, while ongoing negotiations promise a radical change in the status quo. Elsewhere, I call the uncertainty and anxiety produced by this knowledge a “threshold of anticipation” that implies an eventual crossing into another temporal space, a radical reorientation of the present (Bryant :339). In the moment of the checkpoints’ opening, that threshold seemed to have moved closer, to portend unpredictable change.…”

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confidence: 99%

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History's remainders: On time and objects after conflict in Cyprus

Bryant

2014

American Ethnologist

Self Cite

122

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In the aftermath of war, those who remain must rebuild lives in spaces that bear the scars of conflict. This essay focuses on one such space, the unrecognized state in north Cyprus, which has experienced waves of displacement, ethnic cleansing, and the appropriation and redistribution of “enemy” property. Families raise children in plundered spaces; grandchildren play in gardens replanted after war; houses are furnished with the remains of others’ lives. In such contexts, the questions of what belongs to whom, and who belongs where, or with whom, are particularly contested, while the future of these places and objects remains uncertain. This essay asks what everyday historical work may be done with looted homes and objects, and it shows how practices with and stories about belongings may also be ways of helping us to “belong” in history. [temporality, materiality, history, memory, belonging, Cyprus]

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Section: History As Ruinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Some Final Thoughts On Time and Belongingmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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History's remainders: On time and objects after conflict in Cyprus

Bryant

2014

American Ethnologist

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122

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“…The border as a dividing line has shaped people's personal histories and identities. Yet it is also a resource in the sense of external funding, individual remembrances and financial benefits or simply curiosity and excitement (Bryant 2012;Papadakis 2018). Notably, the proand con-EU attitudes that were dominant when the RoC joined the EU in 2004 have been blurred on various levels as well as on both sides of the Green Line.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Europeanization in Cypriot Borderscapes: Experiencing the Green Line in Everyday Life

Strüver

2018

Geopolitics

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Despite the EU accession of the Republic of Cyprus in 2004, the "Green Line" dividing Cyprus that was added as a border in 1974 remains an external EU-border between the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), a selfproclaimed state internationally recognized exclusively by Turkey. Pro-and con European attitudes on Cyprus are therefore not recent phenomena, but date back to the start of EU accession negotiations in 1998 and the Annan-Plan for reunification in 2004. These aspects, however, refer to the Turkish-Greek antagonism on the island and the ongoing national tensions that have resulted in violent conflicts since independence in 1960, the establishment of a demilitarized UN Buffer Zone in 1964 and the division of the island in 1974, also cutting through the island's capital Nikosia/Lefkoşa. Drawing on fieldwork from 2004/2005 and 2014/ 2015 regarding the border's shifting meanings and pointing to the border as a place where pro-and con-EU-articulations converge, emphasis is placed on the borderscape in Nikosia/Lefkoşa that impedes and increases the movement of people and goods. After all, the border is a dividing line that both shapes and exhibits identities. Moreover, it serves as an individual economic resource whilst border-crossings likewise offer benefits. Nevertheless, the border also stands as painful emotional remembrances for people on both sides. The pro-and con-EU attitudes that were dominant when the RoC joined the EU in 2004 have thus been blurred on both sides of the Green Line. The empirical research for this paper has been framed by the question of how this blurring is intertwined with the division of Cyprus and how people are affected by the Green Line as a socio-material and symbolic artefact on the micro-scale of personal feelings, identities and practices.

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“…In a previous article (Bryant 2012), I began a discussion of the role of the future in shaping our experience of temporality in the present and hence our approach to the past. which cannot yet be seen" (1985: 273), while for Ricoeur "the horizon presents itself as something to be surpassed, without ever being fully reached " (1988: 220).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%