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(Review of) Cyprus and its Conflicts: Representations, Materialities and

Cultures

Article in Journal of Language and Politics · March 2020

DOI: 10.1075/jlp.20003.ana

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Andreas Anastasiou
University of Leicester
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Anastasiou, A. (2020). 'Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier (eds). (2018) Cyprus and its
Conflicts: Representations, Materialities and Cultures' (book review), Journal of Language
and Politics, 19:4, 716-719, https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20003.ana

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier (eds). (2018) Cyprus and its Conflicts: Representations,
Materialities and Cultures. New York & Oxford: Berghahn. Pages: 324. ISBN: 978-1-78533-
724-6, $135.00/£99.00, Hb; 978-1-78533-725-3, $34.95/£21.80, eBook.

Reviewed by Andreas Anastasiou (University of Leicester)

The aim of Doudaki and Carpentier, who edited Cyprus and its Conflicts: Representations,
Materialities and Cultures, was to produce a discursive ‘tool’ for conflict studies, whose use
would extend beyond the analysis of the specific situation. The latter, however, definitely
benefits from the interperspectival approach provided collectively by the diverse pool of
authors of the book. The reader acquires a good idea of the Cyprus issue, as the editors and
authors provide concise reviews of the related historical background. Well beyond being
merely informative, the book is indeed useful and interesting to those who already have a
good knowledge of the issue, but can still benefit from coming in contact with fresh, timely
and – at times – unexpected approaches. The book presents studies referring to the discourse
of the multi-faceted and enduring conflict through examining the material base of relevant
representations, viewed through the eyes of researchers both from within the involved
communities and outside of them.
The basic question posed is how these materialities influence the representations of the
conflict and vice versa. This aspect distinguishes Doudaki and Carpentier’s edited volume from
other publications directly referring to the Cyprus issue (Aktar et al., 2010; Papadakis et al.,
2006; Mirbagheri, 1998) or indirectly touching upon it by examining the relationship between
Greece and Turkey (Heraclides & Alioğlu Çakmak, 2019; Anastasakis et al., 2009; Özkirimli &
Sofos, 2008). The interest in, and timeliness of, the book is also related to current
developments, such as the conflict over the exploitation of hydrocarbons discovered in the
sea around Cyprus and Turkey’s aim for a greater role in the geopolitics of the region, but also
the election of a Turkish-Cypriot Member of European Parliament (the academic Niyazi
Kızılyürek, cited in the book) with the votes, mainly, of Greek-Cypriot voters. The book
comprises three parts: (I) the materiality of conflict; (II) representations from within; (III)
representations from the outside- each part including four chapters.
In Part I, concerning cultural products, expressions and organisations, Carpentier, in
Chapter 1, addresses issues of national identity and otherness represented through public art.
He shows that statues around the island mainly perpetuate the hegemonic (nationalist)
discourse (p. 50), but a few counter-voices also exist (ibid.). In Chapter 2, Christidis and Gazi
refer to sounds transcending/ignoring the line separating the two communities in the capital,
Nicosia. The authors posit that “[i]nstead of enhancing conflict, the presence of a symbolic
common soundmark [encourages] community bonding through place attachment” (p. 73).
Drucker and Gumpert, in Chapter 3, refer to (unfinished) physical bridges, as well as to media
bridges. On the latter, they maintain that mainstream media in the two communities
perpetuate rather than bridge the divide, while alternative media make efforts to (re)unite
people, but they fail to reach large audiences (p. 94). Chapter 4 by Spyridou and Milioni deals
with struggles over resources and the character of the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation
(CyBC). They discuss issues caused by austerity and issues inherent to the Public Broadcasting
System model (p. 114), and they point at the Risk the CyBC to become an “effectively […]
irrelevant media actor” (p. 115).
In Part II, observing internal representations of materialities, Christophorou and Şahin,
in Chapter 5, analyse how the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot press represents otherness by
covering the intercommunal talks for a resolution to the conflict. Both sides promote the
hegemonic discourse, with few variations reflecting stances on suggested solutions or more
general ideological ones (p. 139). In Chapter 6, Doudaki, investigates discourses legitimating
the bailout and the ‘haircut’ in bank deposits, showing that the mainstream media “not only
facilitated but actively participated in the construction of the hegemonic discourse
[representing] the neoliberal ideology as a natural and unavoidable reality” (p. 160). Chapter
7 by Karayanni discusses the embarrassment of the Greek-Cypriot media, and their struggle
to re-territorialise the hegemonic discourse after 2003, when crossing points opened and
contacts between the two communities were allowed. “[A]t that historical moment, ‘the myth
of the mediated centre’ [(Couldry, 2014)] was severely challenged and at times even collapsed
as people realized how very different their current reality was from the one built by the
media” (p. 178). In Chapter 8, Papa and Dahlgren examine digital opportunities and
limitations for civil society. They notice the suggestion of a new, non-‘national’, civic identity:
‘cypriotness’, as opposed to identities stemming from the ‘motherlands’ of Greece or Turkey
(pp. 187ff.).
Part III reports on outsiders’ perspectives of representations, and tension between
journalistic professionalism and national loyalty (Nossek, 2004 cited on p. 16). In Chapter 9,
Beybin Kejanlıoğlu and Güney analyse football reporting and demonstrate Billig’s (1995)
‘banal nationalism’ position. Arsoy, in Chapter 10, analyses the Cypriot myth about the hidden
treasure of King Guy of Lusignan (that has been used to enhance Turkish national identity)
and evokes Barthes (1972) to demonstrate that myths, “through a blend of facts and fiction”,
make ideological discourses seem innocent, natural and eternally justified (p. 243). In Chapter
11, Airaghi and Avramidou present the UK perspective of the German approach to the
economic crisis in Cyprus, and assert that “[t]he naturalization of capitalism was achieved
through recurrent positions that shifted attention away from an economic system producing
inequalities, and towards the troika’s handling of the crisis and Germany’s role in it” (p. 262).
Mylonas, in Chapter 12, compares the economic crisis in Cyprus with the one in Greece, and
identifies a key issue in the defeat of the relevant counter-hegemonic (left) discourse through
the acceptance of the “no-alternative-to-austerity dogma […]: the lack of a social imaginary
beyond capitalism” (p. 287).
The problematics suggested by the book as a whole, according to the editors, are
“emphasizing the importance of the politics of history and memory, including the process of
amnesia” (p. 17), as well as “highlighting the need for a stronger presence of the cultural
dimension, together with an argument for better theorizing the interactions of the discursive
and the material in what is called the ‘discursive-material knot’” (ibid.). From a reader’s
perspective, a question generated through the reading of the book is how real versus
fabricated (and rational versus emotional) the basis of the conflict in discussion is. The book
seems to imply that changing materialities could help resolve the conflict. It also makes clear,
though, that there is great reluctance, among the involved parties, towards changing these
 materialities. The negative role of the mainstream media is underlined as are the limited
capabilities of alternative media to promote a rapprochement agenda and a resolution of the
conflict. Finally, a more general inference drawn through a critical reading of all chapters, is
that neoliberalism (or just capitalism) needs to establish or perpetuate fake conflicts, in order
to distract people’s attention from other ones that could be more critical towards its
dominance.
Overall, the editors, with the thoughtful contributions of the authors, accomplished
their aim of producing an adaptable tool for studying conflicts in general. A reader familiar
with (for example) the Northern Ireland Conflict could make numerous analogies concerning
the two troubled islands. The book, therefore, can be useful to scholars and students with an
interest in understanding and explaining conflicts, while it also constitutes a valuable addition
to the scholarly bibliography on the socio-political reality of Cyprus.

References
Aktar, Ayhan, Kızılyürek, Niyazi & Özkırımlı, Umut (eds). 2010. Nationalism in the Troubled
Triangle: Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Anastasakis, Othon, Nicolaidis, Kalypso & Öktem, Kerem (eds). 2009. In the Long Shadow of
Europe: Greeks and Turks in the Era of Post-Nationalism. Leiden, Boston: Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers.
Barthes, Roland. 1972. Mythologies (trans. A. Lavers). London: Jonathan Cape.
Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage.
Couldry, Nick. 2014. ‘Inaugural: A Necessary Disenchantment: Myth, Agency and Injustice in
a Digital World’, The Sociological Review, 62(4), 880-897.
Heraclides, Alexis & Alioğlu Çakmak, Gizem (eds). 2019. Greece and Turkey in Conflict and
Cooperation: From Europeanization to de-Europeanization. London: Routledge.
Mirbagheri, Farid. 1998. Cyprus and International Peacemaking. London: Routlege.
Nossek, Hillel. 2004. ‘Our News and Their News: The Role of National Identity in the Coverage
of Foreign News’, Journalism, 5(3), 343-368.
Özkirimli, Umut, & Sofos, Spyros A. 2008. Tormented by history: Nationalism in Greece and
Turkey. London: Hurst.
Papadakis, Yannis, Peristianis, Nicos & Welz, Gisela (eds). 2006. Divided Cyprus: Modernity,
History and an Island in Conflict. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Reviewer’s address
Andreas Anastasiou
University of Leicester
School of Media, Communication and Sociology
Bankfield House, 132 New Walk
LE1 7JA Leicester
United Kingdom

aa1059@le.ac.uk
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4903-1620

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