Nationalism and Embodied Memory in Northern Cyprus

Abstract

This chapter draws upon recent studies of the discursive constructions of nations within anthropology in order to examine the rhetorical devices used by two groups competing over the hegemonic understanding of the nation. The author argues that the imagining of the social body through the rhetorical device of the embodiment of memory physicalizes a sense of self continuous with a physical territory. Anderson posits that all communities are imagined, but also that they are distinguished by the style in which they are imagined. Control of the island of Cyprus has passed through a number of “hands,” most recently the Ottomans and then the British. Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived in both mixed and separate villages during this period, although whether this era was characterized as a time of conflict or a time of harmony is greatly debated and central to the resolution of the Cyprus conflict.