Cyprus and its Places of Desire

Book excerpt: By the summer of 1974, the island of Cyprus was home to two separate refugee communities. Charting the displaced cultures of the Greek Cypriot community in the south, and that of the Turkish communities in the north, Lisa Dikomitis provides a moving and detailed qualitative ethnography of the refugee experience in Cyprus. In her groundbreaking study, made possible by the opening of the north/south border during fieldwork, Dikomitis demonstrates how both ethnic groups are linked by their histories of displacement to a single 'place of desire', a small mountainous village located in the north of the island. By identifying the specific social and cultural meanings that the notions of home, identity, justice and suffering have come to have for both populations, Cyprus and its Places of Desire will appeal to scholars and students of Cypriot, Turkish and Greek history as well as those with an interest in the fields of anthropology, sociology and identity.