Challenging (Internal) Integration: Debating Internal Displacement and Integration in Greek-Cypriot Refugees’ Oral Histories

• Authors: Christakis Peristianis

Abstracts

EN

The turn of the century has brought the issue of internal displacement to the forefront of the international agenda, recognising it as a matter of global concern. Scholarly research has also taken an interest, examining important aspects such as the integration of internally displaced persons into their resettlement areas. This paper examines the case of Greek-Cypriot ‘refugees’, a population which has experienced internal displacement for the past 50 years. Despite enjoying certain privileges granted by the Greek-Cypriot government and sharing a common language, religion and cultural practices with the non-displaced population, oral narratives collected and analysed in this study reveal a complex interaction with non-refugees during resettlement. These narratives highlight the challenges of internal displacement and emphasise that a shared ethnicity alone is insufficient to ensure social inclusion. In order to comprehend these complexities, the paper sought to engage with theories of refugee integration, with this engagement revealing the limitations of indicator-oriented conceptualisations in cases of internal displacement. The way in which these oral narratives contradict an observable indicator such as ethnicity is a point which we should take into serious consideration.

Keywords

EN

internal displacement; Greek-Cypriot refugees; oral history; refugee integration; resettlement; objective indicators

• Publisher: Ośrodek Badań nad Migracjami Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego oraz Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Central and Eastern European Migration Review
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 31-47

Dates

published

2023

Contributors

author

Christakis Peristianis

• European University, Cyprus

• https://orcid.org/000000027044135X

References

• Abrams L. (2016). Oral History Theory. London and New York: Routledge.
• Ager A., Strang A. (2008). Understanding Integration: A Conceptual Framework. Journal of Refugee Studies 21(2): 166–191.
• Ager A., Strang A. (2010). Refugee Integration: Emerging Trends and Remaining Agendas. Journal of Refugee Studies 23(4): 589–607.
• Alencar A. (2018). Refugee Integration and Social Media: A Local and Experiential Perspective. Information, Communication & Society 21(11): 1588–1603.
• Alessi E.J., Kahn S., Greenfield B., Woolner L., Manning D. (2020). A Qualitative Exploration of the Integration Experiences of LGBTQ Refugees Who Fled from the Middle East, North Africa, and Central and South Asia to Austria and the Netherlands. Sexuality Research and Social Policy 17: 13–26.
• Anthias F., Pajnik M. (2014). Contesting Integration, Engendering Migration: Theory and Practice. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Bakewell O. (2008). Research Beyond the Categories: The Importance of Policy Irrelevant Research into Forced Migration. Journal of Refugee Studies 21(4): 432–453.
• Breen L.J. (2007) The Researcher ‘in the Middle’: Negotiating the Insider/Outsider Dichotomy. The Australian Community Psychologist 19(1): 163–174.
• Briel H. (2013). The Uses of Oral History in Cyprus: Ethics, Memory and Identity. Language and Intercultural Communication 13(1): 27–43.
• Brubaker R. (1994). Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutionalist Account. Theory and Society 23(1): 47–78.
• Brubaker R. (2010). From Ethnic Insiders to Refugee Outsiders: A Community Level Ethnography of Greek Cypriot Identity Formation and Transference since Displacement. Oxford: University of Oxford, Refugee Studies Centre, Working Paper No. 59.
• Bruner J. (2002). Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Bryant R. (2010). The Past in Pieces: Belonging in the New Cyprus. Philadelphia, Oxford: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Bryant R. (2012). Partitions of Memory: Wounds and Witnessing in Cyprus. Comparative Studies in Society and History 54(2): 332–360.
• Bryant R., Papadakis Y. (2012). Introduction: Modalities of Time, History and Memory in Ethnonational Conflicts, in: R. Bryant, Y. Papadakis (eds), Cyprus and the Politics of Memory: History, Community and Conflict, pp. 1–26. London and New York: I.B. Tauris.
• Bulakh T. (2020). Entangled in Social Safety Nets: Administrative Responses to and Lived Experiences of Internally Displaced Persons in Ukraine. Europe–Asia Studies 72(3): 455–480.
• Cohen R., Deng F.M. (1998). Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press.
• Cole G. (2018). Beyond Labelling: Rethinking the Role and Value of the Refugee ‘Label’ through Semiotics. Journal of Refugee Studies 31(1): 1–21.
• Constantinou C.M., Hatay M. (2010). Cyprus, Ethnic Conflict and Conflicted Heritage. Ethnic and Racial Studies 33(9): 1600–1619.
• Dahinden J. (2016). A Plea for the ‘De-Migranticization’ of Research on Migration and Integration. Ethnic and Racial Studies 39(13): 2207–2225.
• Demetriou O.M. (2007). To Cross or Not to Cross? Subjectivization and the Absent State in Cyprus. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13(4): 987–1006.
• Demetriou O.M. (2018). Refugeehood and the Post Conflict Subject: Reconsidering Minor Losses. New York: University of New York Press.
• Dikomitis L. (2012). Cyprus and its Places of Desire: Cultures of Displacement among Greek and Turkish Cypriot Refugees. London and New York: I.B. Tauris.
• Djuric I. (2010). The Post-War Repatriation of Serb Minority Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees in Croatia: Between Discrimination and Political Settlement. Europe–Asia Studies 62(10): 1639–1660.
• Ferris E.G., Donato K.M. (2020). Refugees, Migration and Global Governance: Negotiating the Global Compacts. London and New York: Routledge.
• Georgiades S. (2009). Greek-Cypriot Refugees’ Welfare a Third of a Century Following their Expatriation: Implications for Local and International Policy. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 7(1): 35–57.
• Hammack P.L. (2011). Narrative and the Politics of Identity: The Cultural Psychology of Israeli and Palestinian Youth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Harrell-Bond B., Voutira E. (1992). Anthropology and the Study of Refugees. Anthropology Today 8(4): 6–12.
• Herzfeld M. (1991). Silence, Submission, and Subversion: Toward a Poetics of Womanhood, in: P. Loizos, E. Papataxiarchis (eds), Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, pp. 79–97. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
• Hollway W., Jefferson T. (2000). Doing Qualitative Research Differently. A Psychosocial Approach. London: Sage.
• Jepson A. (2006). Gardens and the Nature of Rootedness in Cyprus, in: Y. Papadakis, N. Peristianis, G. Welz (eds), Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History, and an Island in Conflict, pp. 158–175. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
• Just R. (1991). The Limits of Kinship, in: P. Loizos, E. Papataxiarchis (eds), Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, pp. 114–132. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
• Kikumura A. (1986). Family Life Histories: A Collaborative Venture. The Oral History Review 14: 1–7.
• Kintzmann A. (2011). Frames of Memory: WWII German Expellees in Canada, in: J. Creet, A. Kintzmann (eds), Memory and Migration: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Memory Studies, pp. 93–119. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Kliot N., Mansfeld Y. (1994). Resettling Displaced People in North and South Cyprus: A Comparison. Journal of Refugee Studies 7(4): 328–359.
• Loizos P. (1981). The Heart Grown Bitter: A Chronicle of Cypriot War Refugees. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Loizos P. (2008). Iron in the Soul: Displacement, Livelihood and Health in Cyprus. New York and Oxford: Bergham Books.
• Mooney E. (2005). The Concept of Internal Displacement and the Case for Internally Displaced Persons as a Category of Concern. Refugee Survey Quarterly 24(3): 9–26.
• Papachristophorou M. (2014). Ordinary Stories, Dreams, Miracles and Social Interactions. Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology 5(2): 61–71.
• Perks R., Thomson A. (eds) (2006). The Oral History Reader. London and New York: Routledge (Second edition).
• Pikulicka-Wilczewska A., Uehling G.L. (eds) (2017). Migration and the Ukraine Crisis: A Two-Country Perspective. Bristol: E-International Relations Publishing.
• Platts-Fowler D., Robinson D. (2015). A Place for Integration: Refugee Experiences in Two English Cities. Population, Space and Place 21(5): 476–491.
• Portelli A. (2006). What Makes Oral History Different, in: R. Perks, A. Thomson (eds), The Oral History Reader, pp. 63–74. London and New York: Routledge.
• Roper M. (2004). Analysing the Analysed: Transference and Counter-Transference in the Oral History Encounter. The Journal of the Oral History Society 31(2): 20–32.
• Rosenthal G. (1993). Reconstruction of Life Stories: Principles of Selection in Generating Stories for Narrative Biographical Interviews, in: R. Josselson, A. Lieblich (eds), The Narrative Study of Lives, pp. 59–91. Newbury Park: Sage.
• Roudometof V. (2011). Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the Uses of the Past in Contemporary Greece. Religions 2(2): 95–113.
• Roudometof V., Christou M. (2016). 1974 and Greek Cypriot Identity: The Division of Cyprus as Cultural Trauma, in: R. Eyerman, J.C. Alexander, E. Butler Breese (eds), Narrating Trauma: On the Impact of Collective Suffering, pp. 163–189. New York: Routledge.
• Sasse G. (2020). War and Displacement: The Case of Ukraine. Europe–Asia Studies 72(3): 347–353.
• Schinkel W. (2018). Against ‘Immigrant Integration’: For an End to Neocolonial Knowledge Production. Comparative Migration Studies 6: 31.
• Spencer S., Charsley K., (2021). Reframing ‘Integration’: Acknowledging and Addressing Five Core Critiques. Comparative Migration Studies 9: 18.
• Suleiman S.R. (2002). The 1.5 Generation: Thinking About Child Survivors and the Holocaust. American Imago 59(3): 277–295.
• Summerfield P. (1998). Reconstructing Women’s Wartime Lives: Discourse and Subjectivity in Oral Histories of the Second World War. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
• Taylor H. (2015). Refugees and the Meaning of Home: Cypriot Narratives of Loss, Longing and Daily Life in London. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Uehling G.L. (2021). Three Rationalities for Making Sense of Internal Displacement in Ukraine. Migration Studies 9(3): 1536–1559.
• Vassiliadou M. (2002). Questioning Nationalism: The Patriarchal and National Struggles of Cypriot Women within a European Context. The European Journal of Women’s Studies 9(4): 459–482.
• Zetter R. (1991). Labelling Refugees: Forming and Transforming a Bureaucratic Identity. Journal of Refugee Studies 4(1): 39–62.
• Zetter R. (1994). The Greek-Cypriot Refugees: Perceptions of Return under Conditions of Protracted Exile. The International Migration Review 28(2): 307–322.
• Zetter R. (1999). Reconceptualising the Myth of Return: Continuity and Transition Amongst the Greek–Cypriot Refugees of 1974. Journal of Refugee Studies 12(1): 1–22.
• Zetter R. (2021). Refugees and Their Return Home: Unsettling Matters. Journal of Refugee Studies 34(1): 7–22.
• Zinovieff S. (1991). Hunters and Hunted: Kamaki and the Ambiguities of Sexual Predation in a Greek Town, in: P. Loizos, E. Papataxiarchis (eds), Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, pp. 203– 220. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Identifiers

DOI

10.54667/ceemr.2023.09

Biblioteka Nauki

2233804