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“Fraternal” Other: Negotiating Ethnic and Religious Identities at a Muslim Sacred Site in Northern Cyprus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2021

Rabia Harmanşah Open the ORCID record for Rabia Harmanşah [Opens in a new window]
Rabia Harmanşah*
Affiliation:
University of Cologne, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Emails: rharmans@uni-koeln.de, rharmansah@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article shows how everyday religious practices inform the processes of social identification, complicate presumed ethno-religious categories, and mediate local cultural differences in face of political and cultural hegemonic practices. In the context of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a de facto state recognized only by Turkey, Turkish Cypriots and Turks are considered to share an ethnicity and religion. This “overlap” has been employed to justify Turkey’s military intervention and its political, economic, and cultural domination over the island. Yet the cultural diversities and “perceived” differences between and among these groups are exacerbated by power dynamics, nationalist agendas, and mutual biases. The article explains subtle discussions around “genuine” Turkish and Muslim identities, as well as the enforced coexistence and constructed brotherhood of Cypriots and Turks on the island. The competing accounts of the “correct” interpretation of Islam at a Muslim tekke reflect intragroup power asymmetries and the conflict between institutionalized Sunni-Orthodox and “heterodox” local Islam. The article focuses on two overlooked issues in the scholarship on Northern Cyprus—the relations between Turkish Cypriots and settlers from Turkey, and the role of religion in the political processes—as well as on literature on shared sacred sites and an analysis of competitive intracommunal interactions.

Keywords

Cyprusethnicityreligionnationalismshared sacred sites
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , March 2022 , pp. 334 - 352
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Association for the Study of Nationalities

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