Assessing Transnational Re‐negotiation in the Post‐1974 Turkish Cypriot Community: ‘Cyprus Donkeys’, ‘Black Beards’ and the ‘EU Carrot’

This article discusses the construction and re‐negotiation of identity within the Turkish Cypriot community. This process is analysed in the context of its transnational position between Greek Cypriots and Turkey, as well as the Diaspora, the immigrants and the European Union. Further, it describes how competing conceptions of national and regional identity—located between Turkish nationalism and expressions of Cypriotism—developed among Turkish Cypriots after 1974. Addressing issues such as the debate on European identity within the community, identity formation in the Turkish Cypriot diaspora and the controversial issue of immigration to northern Cyprus, it argues that despite their strong transnational orientation, Cypriotist identity discourses also reveal a significant exclusionary potential.