Growing up in A Divided Cyprus: Ethnographic Explorations of Children’s Perspectives on ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ Over Three Decades

What is it like to grow up in a territorially and ethnically divided society like Cyprus? What role does education, both formal and informal, play in this? How do children think about and navigate their political lives and selves in such a context? This presentation will draw on ethnographic work with children over three decades to tackle these questions and to shed light on processes of identity construction and ‘othering’ in post-1974 Cyprus both before and after the opening of the checkpoints in 2003. The talk will also consider the wider implications of these processes on key contemporary issues like nationalism, immigration, and racism and the role of education in these.