A peace of bricks and mortar: thinking ceasefire landscapes with Gramsci

Abstract

This article addresses the ways in which Nicosia has been affected by division due to the ethno-political conflict and the gentrification efforts that have attended attempts to reunite the city. It examines two spaces of civic action in particular that have involved reconstruction and rehabilitation of two areas in the capital’s UN-controlled Buffer Zone: one by a peace and reconciliation initiative and another by the local variant of the global Occupy movement. In doing so, it addresses the question of how conflict politics becomes imbricated in the politics of urban development. The article examines the role of organic intellectuals in the making of war heritage and the transformation of post-conflict landscapes amid processes of gentrification. In the cases we are examining, we want to trace the processes of creating landscapes that memorialise not only ethnic conflict but the multiple political conflicts that unfold in time and space.