Abstract
In the Cyprus peace process, the practices of co-existence have been centralised in the Nicosia where the intergroup contact is facilitated between Turkish Cypriot (TC) and Greek Cypriot (GC) communities through the existence of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). Considering this context, the original contribution of this study is to employ, for the first time, the theoretical framework of social representations (SRs), to understand the process through which “Reconciliation” is (or not) co-constructed in Cyprus. Moreover, this study intends to explore reconciliation’s SRs of those who are taking part in CSOs and of the laypeople. It is our hope that this work may contribute to our understanding of contemporary politics of peace in Cyprus, and to the importance of analysing power relations in both competing and convergent SRs between different groups of actors. This paper presents preliminary insights drawing on the fieldwork, which was carried out in Cyprus through convenient and purposive sampling method. Methodologically we choose the Central Nucleus Theory (Abric, 1976). This much-used methodological approach it’s based on the Hierarchized Evocations tool: a task of word association starting from the inductor "Reconciliation", followed by a justification questionnaire (Galli, Fasanelli & Schember, 2018) as well as a classification of the associated terms (Vergès, 1992). Two groups of participants were involved: (1) CSO’s member (n=30); and (2) laypeople (n=40). Data were analysed using both a Prototypical and Symilarity analysis processed by IRaMuTeQ an interface of R. Results will be discussed in greater detail in the context of the preferred theoretical framework.
Author Information
Kartika Pepe, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Roberto Fasanelli, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Ida Galli, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
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