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Exploring group identities in a complex post-conflict setting : Cypriot Turks' understanding and experience of social identity
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Date
2025-12
Abstract
This research project examines how Cypriot Turks construct and negotiate their social identities in a socio-political context characterised by partition, isolation, and existential threats to their cultural continuity. The thesis reports on three interconnected studies exploring how Cypriot Turks define themselves in relation to multiple reference groups—particularly Turkish settlers, Cypriot Greeks, and their colonial past—while dealing with the challenges of living in an unrecognised state. The findings show that participants primarily identify as “Cypriot” rather than “Turkish Cypriot”, emphasising cultural similarities with Cypriot Greeks rather than with Turkish people, despite official discourses promoting Turkish identity, language, and “motherland” connections. Social Identity Theory is the primary theoretical framework, but this research project also incorporated Social Representations Theory and Ethnolinguistic Identity Theory. The studies used a multi-method qualitative approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews (n = 20) combined with visual and linguistic elicitation techniques, including photo elicitation interviews with an additional sample (n = 10) to explore the relation between identity, physical spaces, political figures, and other material with relevant historical connotations. The findings show that ancestral lineage, geographical belonging, and cultural markers, including language, cuisine, lifestyle, and colonial heritage, serve as crucial identity determinants that extend beyond traditional ethnic-religious categorisations. Language use strategies emerged as a pragmatic survival tool through strategic code-switching, but also as a form of resistance against cultural assimilation. Participants used ironic discourse to express their frustration with the status quo, while conveying profound fears of cultural extinction due to demographic changes and other policies that threaten their social identity, distinctiveness, and continuity. This research contributes to the social identity literature by illustrating how groups maintain distinct identities despite external pressures and offers insights into identity resilience in a context of high uncertainty, political ambiguity, and demographic transformations, which are becoming increasingly relevant well beyond Cyprus.
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Peer-reviewed
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University of Limerick
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Akyulaf_2025_Exploring.pdf
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Sustainable Development Goals
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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International