Living on contested land after war
Foto: Mostphotos
Some wars end without resolving the issue of contested land. This means a risk of resumption of war and have devastating consequences for people living in the area. Yet, some people manage to develop peaceful relations to their former enemies. However, there is very little research on the peace that exists in parallel to the unresolved territorial conflicts. Using the Relational Peace framework (Jarstad et al. 2023; Söderström et al 2021), the project aims to investigate peace against the odds: How can we understand degrees of relational peace in divided societies despite existing territorial incompatibility after the end of war?
Details
- Period: 2024-02-01 – 2024-08-31
- Budget: 802,000 SEK
- Funder: Riksbankens jubileumsfond
Description
The project applies a levels-of-analysis logic, from the international to the grassroot level, in order to analyze webs of relationships concerning the territorial conflicts in Cyprus. The situation in Cyprus is shaped by the legacy of the war in 1963-1974, which resulted in a de facto division where most Greek Cypriots now live in the southern part of the island, and most Turkish Cypriots live in the northern part. Turkey has troops on the northern part of Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus does not accept the breakaway territories TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) as an independent state, but the EU and the UN are engaged in peacekeeping and mediation efforts to re-unite the island and prevent a return to violent conflict. There have been no war-related casualties since 1974, and since the border opened in 2004 there are active youth movements engaged in peaceful interactions across divides.
The question of how people can live peacefully after a war is critical. After war, some areas still remain contested and there is a risk of return to war. Even short of war, the contestation over land makes life difficult. It is therefore important to learn from conflict areas where people have developed some sort of peaceful relations despite land contestation. This knowledge can be useful for future solutions to the conflicts in places such as Israel/Palestine and Ukraine, says project leader Anna Jarstad.