Abstract
This study examined the impact of the emergency measures on community relations, fundamental rights, and mobility rights during the Covid19 pandemic in de facto divided Cyprus. It explored states of exception, as well as solidarity aiming to counter those restrictions. Internal and external borders were mobilised to separate ‘us’ from ‘them’, shaped by the pandemic policies and media discourses via a hygiene emergency with suspension of rights, hitting severely the most vulnerable, often migrants and asylum-seekers.
The hostile and securitized climate was generated by the political elites and the media and was built on the ‘Cypriot states of exception’ and colonial laws by extending old and generating new bordering processes. An illiberal policy frame towards migrants and asylum seekers was manifested in the form of a state of exception of immobility, which affects the relations between the two communities, the division of Cyprus, peace-keeping, and peace-making.
Contra this hostile environment and given the welfare state crisis acts for citizenship have generated praxis-based solidarity. Via digital networking, we observed processes of reorganization of activism. This is prefiguring a potential for reassembling socialities, paving ays for social imaginaries of a mobile citizenship transcending old and new divisions of Cyprus and the world.
The hostile and securitized climate was generated by the political elites and the media and was built on the ‘Cypriot states of exception’ and colonial laws by extending old and generating new bordering processes. An illiberal policy frame towards migrants and asylum seekers was manifested in the form of a state of exception of immobility, which affects the relations between the two communities, the division of Cyprus, peace-keeping, and peace-making.
Contra this hostile environment and given the welfare state crisis acts for citizenship have generated praxis-based solidarity. Via digital networking, we observed processes of reorganization of activism. This is prefiguring a potential for reassembling socialities, paving ays for social imaginaries of a mobile citizenship transcending old and new divisions of Cyprus and the world.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 183 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-99 |
Number of pages | 99 |
Journal | Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe, GreeSE working paper series, GreeSE Paper |
Volume | 183 |
Publication status | Published - 2 Jan 2023 |
Keywords
- border regimes
- states of exception of immobility
- migration/asylum
- solidarity
- mobile citizenship
- socialities
- Cyprus problem
- de facto partition
- Green Line