ABSTRACT
By moving beyond centred, official Ottomanness to search out its discreeter forms, do we not run the risk of massively diluting what we mean by ‘Ottoman’ and ‘Ottomanness’? If the contours of Ottomanness fade and disappear then what becomes of a provincial history seeking to insert the case of Cyprus within the social and institutional context thought of as ‘Ottoman’? What is needed is to find new approaches and lines of enquiry, and test them to see if they allow us to redefine both the empirical realities and the theoretical issues of a form of Ottoman provinciality.
