In the late 1950s, as Greek Cypriots struggled against British colonial rule, Turkish Cypriots engaged in their first experiments in ‘state’ formation.  Through the Federation of Institutions (Kurumlar Federasyonu), an umbrella for various Turkish Cypriot organisations, the Turkish Cypriot leadership began a process of ‘national’ institutionalisation that included changes in village names, a ‘Turk-to-Turk’ economic campaign, and experiments in biopolitics, such as a healthy baby contest. 

This presentation will discuss this period and its continuities with the state-within-a-state that emerged after 1963.  While previous scholarship has focused on the Turkish Defense Organisation (TMT) and its paramilitary campaign of the 1950s, this presentation will concentrate on pre-1974 ‘state’-society relations and Turkish Cypriot attempts to achieve political subjectivity.

Rebecca Bryant is A. N. Hadjiyannis Senior Research Fellow in the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science.  She is the author of Imagining the Modern: The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004) and The Past in Pieces: Belonging in the New Cyprus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).  She is currently completing a co-authored book manuscript entitled Unbecoming Subjects: Sociality and Sovereignty in an Unrecognised State.

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