Healing through the Bones

Empowerment and the Process of Exhumations in the Context of Cyprus

By (author) Kristian T. P. Fics

Not available to order

Publication date:

09 November 2016

Length of book:

168 pages

Publisher

Hamilton Books

ISBN-13: 9780761868200

Violent conflict created a divide in Cyprus (1950–1974) that still exists to this day between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. This study explores specifically an effect of violent conflict—Missing Persons and the bi-communal process of their humanitarian return. This process is important for peacebuilding because it empowers individuals, families, communities, and nation-states to satisfy basic human psycho-social needs in order to deal with the trauma of past violence, to recognize loss and grieve, and to seek closure of uncertainty to prevent the transgenerational transmission of trauma and escalation of violence between and within ethnic societies.

6.1 Journal Entry
6.2 Introduction
6.3 What is Storytelling?
6.4 The Bones as Story
6.5 Storytelling and Information
6.6 Constructive Storytelling
6.7 Storytelling and Historical Non-Reoccurrence of Violence
6.8 Conclusion and Summary of Key Findings
Chapter 7 A Common Future
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Empowerment and Uncertainty
7.3 Challenges of the Process of Exhumations
7.4 Conclusion and Future Research
References
Appendix A Interview Questions
Appendix B Diagram: 1) Empowerment or Uncertainty
Appendix C Diagram: 2) Challenges of the Process of Exhumations
Appendix D Map of Cyprus

Following decades of political manipulations on the issue of Missing Persons in the Cyprus conflict, this revealing work focuses on the constructive and cooperative process of exhumations and identifications carried out by a bicommunal, nongovernmental committee of dedicated Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The writing is accessible and engaging for the most part, supported by personal journal entries chronicling the author’s experience in completing this challenging piece of field research, including serving as a volunteer worker for the committee. The findings from qualitative interviews with members of the committee are connected to relevant scholarly literature on the need for certainty, bicommunal relations, and storytelling in order to develop a richer meaning of the process of exhumation and its effects. The work thus illuminates how the recovery of missing loved ones provides a model of positive intercommunal interaction, and serves as an essential element of reconciliation and sustainable peace that is empowering at both the individual and the collective levels