The Space In-Between Tracing Transformative Processes in Nicosia’s Buffer Zone Zinovia Foka The Space In-Between Tracing Transformative Processes in Nicosia’s Buffer Zone Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktor philosophiae (Dr. phil.) an der Fakultät Architektur und Urbanistik der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar vorgelegt von Zinovia Foka Diplom Architektin geb. am 10.07.1984 in Thessaloniki, Griechenland Weimar, den 05.07.2019 Gutachter der Arbeit Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Max Welch Guerra Univ.-Prof. Dr. Alexa Färber Tag der Disputation 25.05.2020 Ehrenwörtliche Erklärung Ich erkläre hiermit ehrenwörtlich, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit ohne unzulässige Hilfe Dritter und ohne Benutzung anderer als der angegebenen Hilfsmittel angefertigt habe. Die aus anderen Quellen direkt oder indirekt übernommenen Daten und Konzepte sind unter Angabe der Quelle unmissverständlich gekennzeichnet. Weitere Personen waren an der inhaltlich-materiellen Erstellung der vorliegenden Arbeit nicht beteiligt. Insbesondere habe ich hierfür nicht die entgeltliche Hilfe von Vermittlungs- bzw. Beratungsdiensten (Promotionsberater oder anderen Personen) in Anspruch genommen. Niemand hat von mir unmittelbar oder mittelbar geldwerte Leistungen für Arbeiten erhalten, die im Zusammenhang mit dem Inhalt der vorgelegten Dissertation stehen. Die Arbeit wurde bisher weder im In- noch im Ausland in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form einer anderen Prüfungsbehörde vorgelegt. Ich versichere ehrenwörtlich, dass ich nach bestem Wissen die reine Wahrheit gesagt und nichts verschwiegen habe. Weimar, 05.07.2019 Zinovia Foka To family 'I don't feel it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life is to become someone else you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think you would have the courage to write it?' (Foucault, in Martin et at, 1988, p. 9) Acknowledgements This thesis grew out of passion for knowledge, to satiate my need to explain ‘why’ things are the way they are. Little did I know that what began as postgraduate studies would become a life-altering journey. To complete this thesis has been a challenging, at times harrowing, yet fulfilling and rewarding experience. It has opened a door into knowledge I did not know existed, and I shall ever be grateful for becoming the person I am today because of it. I have met many people along the way, each of whom helped me grow in different ways. I owe thanks to them all. I would like to particularly thank Prof. Dr. Max Welch Guerra for his trust and support, and the freedom he gave me to develop this thesis according to my interests. The Bauhaus Research School for providing the necessary workspace, the much needed training courses and academic environment, which contributed to the advancement of my work and to my wellbeing in Weimar more than they can know. Prof. Dr. Alexa Färber for welcoming me to her colloquia in Hamburg and Vienna, and offering me the opportunity to engage in critical discussions, which broadened my understanding of the intersection of ethnography and urban studies. This thesis would not have been possible without the financial support of the ‘Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst’, as well as research grants from the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the Sylvia Ioannou Foundation. I owe gratitude to my family for always being supportive, and having confidence in my abilities, even when mine wavered. I am thankful to my friends who always showed up for me, taught me valuable life lessons, and shared laughs and tears. Credit goes especially to Liza, Srdjan, Katerina, Stratis, and Nikiforos, for their patience to proofread most of this thesis. Last but not least, I am grateful to Lykourgos for being my rock and inspiration. I cannot thank you enough for your support, love and care. Abstract This thesis examines urban partition in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, and how its changing roles and shifting perceptions in a post-conflict setting reflect power relations, and their constant renegotiation. Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, was officially divided in 1974 in the aftermath of an eighteen-year-long conflict between the island’s Turkish- and Greek-Cypriot communities. As a result, a heavily militarized Buffer Zone, established as an emergency measure against perpetuation of inter-communal violence, has been cutting through its historic centre ever since. Carved out of its urban fabric and under the control of the United Nations, this enclosed, abandoned and slowly degrading cityscape was impermeable until 2003. Over the years of unresolved conflict, it acquired the status of a symbol in Cypriot imagination, charged with emotions and vested with meaning for both communities, and was etched in popular perception as ‘dead’, ‘unchanging’, and ‘stuck in time’. Being central to antipodal, state-produced, historical narratives that see their ‘own’ as victim and the ‘other’ as perpetrator, it has come to embody the Cypriot conflict itself. Moreover, employed to legitimize opposing political and territorial claims, it has also become a primary vehicle to sustain the state apparatus and its political elites in power on both sides of the divide. The reinstatement of mobility between the city’s two sectors in 2003 saw an unprecedented surge in local initiatives, as various actors gradually stepped forward to articulate new demands with Nicosia’s Buffer Zone at their epicentre. Three contemporary examples serve as entry points for analysis. First, there was a shift in official planning strategy for Nicosia’s urban development. Influenced by cultural policies of the European Union, the mixed team of professionals, which worked across the Buffer Zone on the city’s Masterplan since the 1970s, promoted an urban heritage-driven strategy, seeking to regenerate Nicosia’s historic centre economically and socially. Through ensuing narratives and practices of space- and heritage- making, Nicosia’s Buffer Zone is being reimagined and claimed as common and shared heritage for all Cypriots. At the same time, two bottom-up initiatives have reclaimed and appropriated space in the Buffer Zone, contesting through new socio-spatial practices the official historical narratives, and producing new spaces to inhabit. The Home for Cooperation, an activity centre for institutionalized activism, offers a second example. Housed in a formerly abandoned building in the Buffer Zone, it offers office and meeting space to a wide range of bi-communal civil society organizations developing around it. Bringing people in the Buffer Zone, it is transformed into a bridge between communities in Nicosia, and aims to advocate from there a new norm for their interrelation. The third example is Nicosia’s Occupy Movement, which developed from protests directed against neoliberal approaches to economic development of Nicosia’s historic centre. Openly critical to exiting systems of governance in Cyprus, this movement was generally concerned with peace and the island’s demilitarization in the frame of an open, inclusive society, freed from known social norms. Occupying space in Nicosia’s Buffer Zone, its participants performed sovereignty, realizing and inhabiting even briefly, in-between the polities they renounced, their own vision for Nicosia. This thesis departs from a genuine interest in the material and ideational dimensions of urban partition. How is it constructed, not merely in physical terms but in the minds of the people affected by conflict? How is it established in official and everyday discourses? What kinds of mechanisms have been developed to maintain it, and make it an inseparable part of the urban experience? Moreover, taking into account the consensus in relevant literature pertaining to the imperative of its removal, this thesis is inquiring into the relevance of peace agreements to overcoming urban partition. For this purpose, it also looks at narratives and practices that have attempted to contest it. The examples examined in this thesis offer pregnant analytical moments to understand Nicosia’s Buffer Zone as a dynamic social construct, accommodating multiple visions of and for the city. This space in-between allows and facilitates encounters between various actors, accommodates new meanings, socio-spatial practices and diverse imaginaries. It is there that the struggle over power and control is taking place, offering as well the possibility for production of space accessible both physically and mentally to all. In this sense, urban partition is explored in this thesis as a phenomenon that transcends scales as well as temporalities, entwining past, present, and future. Urban partition in this work is, thus, a concept open to reinterpretation, through an exploration of relations that expand in both space and time. To this end, this thesis prioritizes the study of space to explore the entanglement of space, power and knowledge in shaping urban partition in Nicosia. Keywords: urban partition, in-between, conflict, peace-making, urban heritage, space, power, knowledge ix x Table of Contents Abstract ix List of Figures xv PART I RESEARCH FRAMEWORK CHAPTER 1 Observation …………………………………………………………………………………………. 3 1.1 Entering Nicosia’s Buffer Zone ………………………………………………………………………. 3 1.2 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………..… 7 1.2.1 Why Nicosia? …………………………………………………………………………..… 10 1.2.2 Particular spatial conditions …………………………………………………………..… 11 1.3 Research Interest ………………………………………………………………………………….… 13 1.4 Research Hypothesis ……………………………………………………………………………...…