Spatial Forms of Ethnic Coexistence in Ottoman Cyprus: The Role of Urban Form in Patterns of Everyday Life

Abstract

The rationale behind this article is an identified need for enhancing research on the relationship between the physical and the social aspects of the city of Nicosia through the lens of spatial history. Building on Baker’s categorizations of approaches to space in historical research and a syntactical, morphological approach to historical subjects, this article proposes an integrated methodology for researching historical space that may prove important to inform forms of urban segregation patterns. The article maintains that the analysis of the relationship between the physical, material form of a city and social processes at distinct historical periods may be key to understanding patterns of socio-spatial phenomena as well as for interpreting historical data of how people were distributed in cities and what they actually did in urban spaces at particular points in time.