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Call for Papers: Cyprus and the violence of bordering 50 years on

The island of Cyprus is known to most in Europe as a popular holiday destination; the violent history and the ongoing (if stable) conflict on the island is easily forgotten by tourists who enjoy the sunny beaches, the rich archaeological sites, and the club scene of Agia Napa. Yet for half a century Cyprus has remained divided. In August 1974 Turkish forces occupied the island and initiated a process of violent partition against the backdrop of two decades of conflict: first with the British in the fight for independence and then among Greek and Turkish ethnic groups trying to get a footing in national and municipal politics while hamstrung by an unworkable constitution

Cyprus is part of an archipelago of hybrid spaces in the eastern Mediterranean. Historically governed under Hellenic, Venetian, Byzantine and Ottoman rule, in 1878 the island was leased to Britain, and then formally annexed as a crown colony in 1914.  The complex international and regional politics of decolonization laid the ground for the partition of the island. Since the 1950s the ‘Cyprus question’ has become a permanent fixture in international politics, and ever since multiple plans have been proposed for the ‘solution’ to the Cyprus question; those that have been implemented have failed to unify the communities and establish peace.

This workshop, Partitioning for Peace? Cyprus and the violence of bordering 50 years on, will bring together scholars from various disciplines and paradigms (politics, IR, history, literature, anthropology, media and communications, sociology, journalism, geography, migration studies, border studies, peace and conflict studies) to discuss new research on the past and present of the Cyprus question 50 years on from the events of 1974. We welcome applications from academics, early career scholars, policy professionals, and practitioners working in community-based initiatives.

We invite new work responding, but not limited, to the following questions:

  • Where does the Cypriot experience sit in the context of the global history of territorial partitions?
  • What is the dynamic relationship between emotion and territoriality that sustains conflict?
  • In what ways does the partition keep peace on the island (and beyond) and in what ways does it sustain violence?
  • How does population dislocation compromise prospects for a resolution?
  • What is the logic of the solutions proposed by the international community and why have they failed?

The workshop will take the form of an in-person event on 7th – 8th of November 2024 at City, University of London, with paper presentations and discussion over one day, and a linked panel event.

Interested applicants should submit a 500-word abstract and a short 2-page CV in one document by 15 May 2024 to alexandria.innes@city.ac.uk and georgios.giannakopoulos@city.ac.uk with the subject line Partitioning Cyprus.  A small amount of travel support will be available for early career researchers, please indicate if you would like to be considered for this support.

The successful applicants will be notified by 1 July 2024. Full drafts will be due by 16 October 2024 for circulation to workshop attendees.

Illustration from licensed Adobe Stock library

Webinar: Hate crime and human rights – Taiwan, UK and global perspectives

This event is over. 28 June 2023, 12:30 – 13:40 BST, online

The Violence & Society Centre at City and the UKPRP VISION Consortium are pleased to invite you to Hate Crimes and Human Rights: Taiwan, UK and Global Perspectives.

Po-Han Lee and Wen Liu are members of TUSHRN, an ESRC funded network of sex, gender and sexuality health (SGS) researchers in Taiwan and the UK, which includes City, LSHTM, and Lancaster. They will be visiting the Centre on 28 June to present their research:

  • Queer Politics in South/East Asia: State-Sponsored Hate and Political Cultural Relativism (by Po-Han Lee)
  • Anti-Asian Violence Amidst US-China Geopolitical Conflicts: The Limits of “Hate” Discourses and Cross-Racial and Cross-National Solidarity (by Wen Liu)

Please register by emailing your interest to VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk. An invitation with the Teams link will be emailed to you 28 June.

Please see below for the programme and the presenters’ biographies.

Programme

12:30-12:35 Introductions

12:35-1:00 Queer Politics in South/East Asia: State-Sponsored Hate and Political Cultural Relativism (by Po-Han Lee)

1:00-1:25 Anti-Asian Violence Amidst US-China Geopolitical Conflicts: The Limits of “Hate” Discourses and Cross-Racial and Cross-National Solidarity (by Wen Liu)

1:25-1:40 Overall Q&A and reflections

Biographies

Po-Han (Peter) Lee:

Po-Han Lee is an Assistant Professor at the Global Health Program and the Institute of Health Policy and Management at National Taiwan University. Previously trained in International Law and Political Sociology, he has been studying the construction, circulation and consumption of the right to health discourse in global health policymaking. Po-Han has been a member of the Feminist Review Collective (UK) and a senior editor for Plain Law Movement, the first multimedia platform for legal and human rights education in Taiwan. He recently published the book, Towards Gender Equality in Law (2020), which he co-edited with Gizem Guney and David Davies, and his new book, Plural Feminisms: Navigating Resistance as Everyday Praxis, coedited with Sohini Chatterjee, is being published later in 2023.

Wen Liu:

Wen Liu is an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Trained as a critical social psychologist and informed by queer and critical race theory, her book project (forthcoming from the University of Illinois Press) investigates diasporic Asian American subjectivities and their geopolitical alignments in times of US-China interimperial rivalry.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Accounting for Inequalities

In this research, Dr Alexandria Innes, Senior Lecturer in International Politics and Co-Investigator within the VISION research grant, draws on a case study of gender-based violence and subsequent responses to argue that Ontological Security Studies – a sub-paradigm of International Relations that focuses on a sociology of security based on identity and social environments – have thus far failed to fully account for intersectional inequalities within social narratives of security. 

She argues that the state is incapable of providing lived experiences of security for all residents, because of inherent inequalities that underlie national identity, affecting services people have access to and the level of support they might receive from state-based agencies such as the police and social services. It is only in attending to those inequalities among the population that we can attend to the biases at the heart of the state. 

Through the case study of the murder of Sarah Everard and the responses, the value and necessity of an intersectional approach to security is made clear: trauma responses that are positioned as transgressive by the patriarchal and White supremacist dominating account are used to undermine the credibility of alternative narratives of security. The state adopts a technique of dividing identity and constructing normatively oppressed identities as transgressive to consolidate the state narrative of security. 

For further information please see: Accounting for inequalities: divided selves and divided states in International Relations – Alexandria Innes, 2023 (sagepub.com) or contact Andri at alexandria.innes@city.ac.uk