Liminal spaces of Cyprus: Storytellings of power, identity and displacement in the seafront, buffer zones, camps

This thesis examines liminality as both a spatial condition and an analytical framework, exploring how it shapes urban development, migration, and displacement in Cyprus. Liminal spaces-those zones of transition and uncertainty-do not simply mark divisions; they actively shape power, belonging, and resistance. They are spaces where authority is both imposed and negotiated, where geopolitical and economic forces collide with lived experience. As a postcolonial and partitioned island at the crossroads of the Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus provides a crucial case for understanding how such spaces unsettle territorial control and social hierarchies. A central question drives this study: how do three key sites-the Limassol seafront, the buffer zone, and Kofinou/Köfünye village-reveal shifts in Cyprus's urban landscape, migration patterns, and geopolitical position? Drawing on photographs, newspaper archives, literature, visual art, film, advertisements, and public statements, the thesis examines how these spaces are framed by institutional narratives and how they are inhabited, contested, and redefined by those who move through them. Chapter One introduces the myth of Aphrodite as a lens for understanding Cyprus's liminal identity. While colonial, capitalist, and nationalist forces have long commodified her image, feminist, queer, and migrant reinterpretations reclaim her as a symbol of hybridity and resistance. Chapter Two turns to official narratives that structure the three sites: the Limassol seafront, transformed by foreign investment and luxury developments, is also a space of quiet defiance, where migrant domestic workers carve out their own forms of belonging; the buffer zone, designed as a rigid border, functions as a corridor of crossings, trade, and informal negotiations; Kofinou/Köfünye, shaped by its history of displacement, now embodies "suspended belonging," serving as a reception centre for asylum seekers while remaining on the periphery of national consciousness. Chapter Three examines how literature, film, and visual art contest dominant spatial narratives. Through storytelling, these works make visible the marginalized experiences that official accounts erase, revealing how liminal spaces are sites of both vulnerability and agency. These spaces are not peripheral; they are strategic arenas where social norms are remade, where corporate and state power is challenged, and where new political identities emerge. Liminality, far from implying invisibility or impotence, opens up new possibilities for action. Bringing together humanities and social science theories of liminality, displacement, spatial transformation, and myth, this thesis reframes Cyprus's liminal spaces as critical sites of negotiation-where history, power, and identity are constantly reshaped. It is the first to analyse Limassol, the buffer zone, and Kofinou/Köfünye as interconnected arenas of historical trauma, capitalist transformation, and migratory resistance. It contributes to postcolonial, migration, spatial, and Mediterranean studies by identifying and theorising a previously overlooked intersection: the ways in which Cyprus's unresolved territorial division and its external migration flows generate shared liminal spaces that redefine the island's identity from the margins. Ultimately, it positions Cyprus as a model for understanding liminality in the Eastern Mediterranean, demonstrating that struggles over space are, at their core, struggles over who is seen, who belongs, and who has the power to tell the story.