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.

Keywords:

• Gramsci
• occupy movement
• gentrification
• Cyprus Buffer Zone
• Home for Cooperation

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the journal’s two anonymous reviewers and the editors for valuable comments and the editors for their support in the publication process. The paper has benefited greatly from comments received at the ‘Heritage, gentrification, and housing rights: Remaking urban landscapes in the name of “historic” preservation’ panel in SIEF’s 2015 Congress as well as the ‘Urban Segregation in Mediterranean Cities’ conference at UCY in 2016.

Notes

1. For a discussion of formal and informal classifications of heritage in the Cyprus conflict and a theorisation of the processes of heritagisation, see Demetriou (2012, 2015). In a sense, this article picks up from that discussion. It also develops questions regarding the connections between tangible and intangible heritage in Nicosia, as for example explored in the Euro-Med project ‘Mediterranean Voices’ (Scott 2012).

2. This is one aspect of the legacy of cosmopolitan coexistence that characterised many Mediterranean cities, elaborated in Scott (2012). The ramifications of repossession of Other properties on concepts of sovereignty are explored in Erdal Ilican (2011).

3. See http://www.ahdr.info/home.php (last accessed 20 November 2017).

4. http://www.ahdr.info/ckfinder/userfiles/nicosia_calling/arabahmet%2011-12%20UK_Final%20Layout%2003_09.pdf (last accessed 20 November 2017).

5. http://www.home4cooperation.info/index.php/about-h4c/history-of-the-h4c (last accessed 20 November 2017).

6. See Pellapaisiotis (2014) for a critical analysis of the exhibition and comparisons with other political art projects in Cyprus.

7. Authorisation to intervene in the Buffer Zone is granted by the UN Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), which consults authorities as relevant. In this specific area in the Buffer Zone, jurisdiction lies with the authorities of the Republic of Cyprus when it comes to permits for building, water, electricity, etc., but only for designated sections in the area. Generally, the east side of the road is considered to fall under the Republic’s jurisdiction, the west side UNFICYP’s.

8. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEQu8WKlZjM (last accessed 2 June 2017).

9. A critical evaluation of the shortcomings of such liberal peace is provided by Richmond (2012).

10. http://basaksenova.com/uncovered/ (last accessed 20 November 2017).

11. See also Welz (2015).

12. For alternative accounts of these see Mac Ginty and Richmond (2013).