New emotive attachment to abandoned homes after 1974 Turkish Cypriot displacement in North Cyprus

Abstract

This article examines the development of Turkish Cypriot refugees’ new emotive attachment to abandoned homes, after 1974 Turkish Cypriot Displacement in North Cyprus. After the war in 1974, refugees were relocated into abandoned homes containing objects abandoned by Greek Cypriots, who were also displaced by the war. Using an ethnographic research method, the results suggest that Turkish Cypriot refugees have developed new emotive attachment to abandoned homes through collecting happy family memories over time. Accordingly, they decorated their homes with the family-related material objects as a mirror of their family memories experienced in both their current and former homes. Currently, abandoned homes are described as a family place where refugees are happiest, while it was an uncanny place in the beginning. Finally, this research suggests new directions for research that places emotions at the heart of a project to investigate the development of new attachment to abandoned homes in psychology and sociology.

Keywords:

• Abandoned homes
• emotion
• displacement
• home attachment
• place attachment
• Turkish Cypriot refugees

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Turkey is one of the guarantor countries of the Republic of Cyprus along with Greece and the United Kingdom

2 The opening of the gates was announced on 21st April 2003 by the Turkish Cypriot authorities, just after the signing of Cyprus’ EU Accession Treaty (16th April 2003).

3 appraisal refers to the cognitive processes preceding the elicitation of emotion. 

4 ‘homely’ is the opposite of the notion ‘unhomely’ and refers to “familiar,” “native,” “belonging to the home” (Freud, 1955, p. 124).