Project Coordinator & Principal Researcher: Professor Nicos Trimikliniotis
LSE Collaborator: Professor Myria Georgiou
Duration: January 2021 - December 2022
Overview
The study aims to analyse the contradictory consequences of pandemic-related restrictions to mobility rights: on the one hand the emergence and establishment of states of exception and on the other, the intensification of new (and old) forms of solidarity aiming to counter those restrictions. Examining public discourse that justifies (or contests) the rebordered reality, the project engages with the different actors that produce it. Being aware that some actors (especially asylum-seekers and migrants) have been fully absent from public debate, this study will seek to include those who speak and those who are silenced when states of exception are established. The research seeks to relate how states of exception in the form of border regimes have been utilized to justify, legitimize or contest restrictions within and between communities and between citizens and non-citizens in Cyprus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In particular, the project examines the following set of questions:
- How are internal and external borders mobilized to separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ – us/them determined within an elastic biopolitics of the border that raise fear/hostility/suspicion against the Other?
- What do processes of otherisation entail in regards to i) the migrant and asylum seeker as Other, ii) those on the other side of the Green Line as Other?
- What form, if any, do performances of solidarity shaping mobile commons and contesting border regimes, take, online and offline?
- Does digitization compensate for restricted mobility and physical encounters? If so, how and in what ways is solidarity reconfigured digitally?
- How do the discursive construction of borders, citizenship and mobility compare between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot community?
*An essential part for this project is the collaboration with an LSE academic (Assistant Professor equivalent or higher).
Project Outputs
Policy Brief & Research Paper
The Policy Brief is available here.
Read the Research Paper of the project, which was published as part of the GreeSE working paper series, GreeSE Paper No.183.
Events
- Professor Trimikliniotis gave a presentation on 'Researching border regime(s) during the pandemic: evidence from Cyprus' at the virtual Conference ‘Contemporary Societies in Motion’, 27-28 of May 2021
Research Team
Project Coordinator and Principal Researcher: Nicos Trimikliniotis, Professor of Sociology and Law, University of Nicosia
Co-Principal Researcher: Giorgos Charalambous, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Nicosia
Co-Principal Researcher: Erol Kaymak, Professor of International Relations, Eastern Mediterranean University
Co-Principal Researcher: Myria Georgiou, Professor of Media and Communications, LSE
External Collaborator: Ari Sitas, Professor Emeritus, University of Cape Town
Research Associate and team coordinator: Corina Demetriou, Independent Researcher & Senior Expert; Associate, Centre for Fundamental Rights, University of Nicosia
Research Assistant: Afroditi Koulaxi, ESRC PhD Reseacher, LSE Media and Communications
Research Assistant: Melis Mevsimler, PhD Researcher, Utrecht University