Freedom Square: The Unspoken Reunification of a Divided City

This article explores the relation between the structures of division and political subjectivity in Cyprus. The failed attempt to open a crossing point along the main street running through the two sides of the island’s capital is taken as the starting point for a discussion of how “division” is related to and internalized by the city’s inhabitants. Focusing on a set of locations in the city where the “division” is experienced in different ways, I elucidate how these experiences problematize and normalize what is universally considered an abnormal situation. The analysis borrows from psychoanalytical theory to investigate how this normalization gives rise to views of the self as a (non-)political subject, i.e., a subject whose engagement with the political centers on distancing the self from politics.