ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 examines the pivotal significance of place and space in postcolonial discourse and partition studies so to establish the spatial model and introduces the postcolonial partitioned Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The spatial model proposes a meeting between postcolonial discourse, partition studies, Marxist philosophy and humanistic-geography; this is an empirical-theoretical interdisciplinary model, which shows the usefulness and usability of Yi-Fu Tuan’s humanistic-geography and Henri Lefebvre’s Marxist philosophy to postcolonial partition studies. The case of Cyprus is discussed through responding to comparative British and Ottoman imperialism, as related to dominant historical and political competing narratives on colonial, postcolonial and partition moments, ending in deadlock, here pointing to the formation and flux of identity into identification as determined by place, space and geography. This chapter is preparation for the book that writes Cyprus on the postcolonial partitioned map, whilst rewriting, making and breaking the postcolonial partition map through the literatures of Cyprus that operate through place, space and identity.
