The Make-Believe Space: Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity

297 Pages·2012·1.48 MB·English

by  Yael Navaro-Yashin

The Make-Believe Space

Yael Navaro-Yashin
THE MAKE-BELIEVE SPACE
Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DURHAM AND LONDON 2012
∫ 2012 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of
America on acid-free paper $
Designed by C. H. Westmoreland
Typeset in Chaparral by Keystone
Typesetting, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-
Publication Data appear on the
last printed page of this book.
The frontispiece and
all other photographs were
taken by the author.
for Ayshe-Mira

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xxi
Introduction: The Make-Believe Space 1
PART I. SPATIAL TRANSFORMATION
1. The Materiality of Sovereignty 37
2. Repopulating a Territory 51
3. The Affects of Spatial Confinement 62
PART II. ADMINISTRATION
4. Administration and Affect 81
5. The Affective Life of Documents 97
PART III. OBJECTS AND DWELLINGS
6. Abjected Spaces, Debris of War 129
7. Affective Spaces, Melancholic Objects 161
8. Home, Law, and the Uncanny 176
9. Collectibles of War and the Tangibility of Affect 202
Epilogue 215
Notes 223
Works Cited 247
Index 261

Preface
MY FIRST CONNECTION WITH CYPRUS was not through research but
through kinship. It may also have had something to do with kısmet (luck,
destiny). Soon after I met Mehmet Yashin in Istanbul in 1995, he took me
to Cyprus, his homeland, and to the childhood home left to him by his
deceased mother. Little did I know then, on this first trip, that this, one
day, would also be one of my homes.
The Cyprus we were visiting in 1995 was carved in half, with a border of
barbed wire running right through its middle. We were on the ‘‘Turkish
side,’’ but the ‘‘Greek side’’ was visible in the distance. As evening fell over
the Mesarya (Mesaoria in Greek) plain, one could distinguish the electric
lights on the other side from those on ours, as they glittered in a different
color. Crossing to the other side was forbidden. The border was heavily
guarded. On my first visit, I was struck by the bullet holes in the side of a
hotel building in Mag˘usa (Ammochostos in Greek; Famagusta in English)
and discovered that it had previously belonged to a Greek-Cypriot and
was now empty. Southward along the Mag˘usa seashore was an entire city
of high-rise apartment blocks and hotel buildings that looked like a ghost
town: broken windows, dangling gates, decrepit stairs, decaying walls. I
was to learn that this city, to which no access was allowed, was Maras¸; for
the Greek-Cypriots, Varosha. It was a thriving tourist destination in the
1970s, until the war of 1974 and Turkey’s invasion of the north of the
island, including the town. The Greek-Cypriots of Varosha had escaped
from the invading Turkish army, and the town was blocked off from
habitation after the war. This is where the seashore of Mag˘usa stopped.
Running across the end of a beach facing Varosha was a barbed-wire fence
and military signs forbidding access and photography.
After Mag˘usa, we were to visit Lefkos¸a (Lefkosia in Greek; Nicosia in
English), which is Mehmet’s home town, both his parents being original