This article examines the predicaments and paradoxes of identity politics in Cyprus.
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that brought about a static bicommunal system, establishing the basis for
inter-ethnic conflict, or what became known as the `Cyprus problem'. The advent of
modern governmentality, dividing and classifying the Cypriot population, helped, in
addition, to solidify fluid and ambiguous ethno-religious boundaries, making it more
difficult for individuals to use ethno-religious identities flexibly and
pragmatically, including their use as a tactic to resist the policies of consecutive
regimes of power. The article suggests that the 'Cyprus problem' provides a moral
alibi for the pursuit of a range of problematic regulations and practices against
individuals caught between the dominant ethnic identities, even though there also
exist windows of opportunity and resistance on the ground. The article focuses on
the genealogy and presence of hybrid communities and syncretistic lifestyles, which
complicate and transgress the binary of Greek/Christian versus Turk/Muslim, and the
existence of which became progressively abnormalized or exoticized.
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