The Make-Believe Space is a book of ethnographic and theoretical meditation on the phantasmatic entanglement of materialities in the aftermath of war, displacement, and expropriation. "Northern Cyprus," carved out as a separate space and defined as a distinct (de facto) polity since its invasion by Turkey in 1974, is the subject of this ethnography about postwar politics and social relations. Turkish-Cypriots' sociality in a reforged geography, rid of its former Greek-Cypriot inhabitants after the partition of Cyprus, forms the centerpiece of Yael Navaro-Yashin's conceptual exploration of subjectivity in the context of "ruination" and "abjection." The unrecognized state in Northern Cyprus unfolds through the analytical devices that she develops as she explores this polity's administration and raison d'etre via affect theory. Challenging the boundaries between competing theoretical orientations, Navaro-Yashin crafts a methodology for the study of subjectivity and affect, and materiality and the phantasmatic, in tandem. In the process, she creates a subtle and nuanced ethnography of life in the long-term aftermath of war.

This is an anthropological look at the Turkish territory of Northern Cyprus, a self-defined state, which is actually imaginary (because it is only recognized by Turkey). Where Greek and Turkish Cypriots once lived historically side by side, now only the Turks remain. Navaro-Yashin surveys the affective landscape, examining the sense of haunted property and objects lost and gained in the partition, along with people's relation to the fictive remapping of places and history by this new state. The author is a highly regarded theorist, and her innovative joining of a biopolitics of the state and affect theory should make this an influential work of anthropology.

About the Author

Yael Navaro-Yashin is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Newnham College. She is the author of Faces of the State: Secularism and Public Life in Turkey.

Reviews
"An unforgettable ethnography of a nation-state whose special status sharpens our eyes to the make-believe quality of every state. Yael Navaro-Yashin's evocative writing brings to life the scarred landscapes of Northern Cyprus and the affective worlds of Turkish-Cypriots who inhabit them-uncomfortable with 'looted' and abandoned objects, melancholic about the ruins of war and the ghostly Greek presence, and cynical about the banal apparatus of the state, whether its documents, laws, or occupations. Intimate conversations with philosophers and theorists weave in and out of profound ruminations on the details of people's interactions with their pregnant material worlds in this unique study that reveals anthropology's incisive beauty."-Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University
"Can the experience of citizenship in an illegitimate state reveal something about state making more generally? In her insightful account of Northern Cyprus as 'make-believe' space, Yael Navaro-Yashin traces the diverse practices-imaginative, material, and affective-that craft this de facto polity, both as fantasy and as tangible truth. In the process, she offers profound insight into what it is that makes nation-states believable everywhere."-Jean Comaroff, University of Chicago
"Navaro-Yashin's book is a serious and intriguing exploration... Navaro-Yashin's work strongly engages this conflict [in Cypriot identity] and, in so doing, enlivens and broadens the social science discourse on Cyprus." -- Bayard E. Lyons * Social Analysis *
"This book is a must-read for scholars interested in the Mediterranean region as well as those with a more general interest in the intermingling of politics,materiality and affect." -- Mikkel Bille * Ethnos *
"The Make-Believe Space is a genuinely important and lucidly written book. The theoretical originality that oozes from every single chapter renders it a very inspiring political ethnography." -- Erden Evren * American Ethnologist *
"The Make-Believe Space is a very rich account of a violently partitioned spectral space, a stunted temporality, a haunted and cynical people, and a state with no stability, legitimacy, or recognition. It is well written and full of interesting stories. It is innovative in its focus on materiality and affect. I would highly recommend it to those interested in affect theory, material objects, and state formation in post-war contexts." -- Banu Goekariksel * The Australian Journal of Anthropology *
"The Make-Believe Space will appeal to readers in search of an analysis of statecraft that troubles the grounding of its legitimacy and authority in the law. As an ethnographic encounter with critical theory, the book also offers rich material to scholars studying the politics of affect and the socio-materialities of natural and built environments." -- Kabir Tambar * PoLAR *



Book Information
ISBN 9780822352044
Author Yael Navaro
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 431g