Türkiye-Greece-Cyprus, and the West: A Lacanian Family Portrait

This article offers a Lacanian reinterpretation of the Cyprus conflict, examining how contested relations with Türkiye, Greece, and the West shape the formation and recognition of political subjectivity.

About the Article

This article brings Lacanian psychoanalytic theory into dialogue with Ontological Security Studies in order to rethink the protracted Cyprus conflict. Rather than approaching the conflict solely as a territorial dispute or a problem of interstate bargaining, it reads Cyprus as a contested site of political subject formation. Drawing on Lacan’s concepts of separation, symbolic authority, and the Name-of-the-Father, the article examines how Cyprus’s relations with Türkiye and Greece, figured as “motherlands,” and with the West, assigned the symbolic function of paternal authority within the proposed analytic framework, condition its capacity to assume an autonomous position in global politics. In doing so, the article shifts attention from the persistence of the conflict alone to a more fundamental question: what forms of separation and recognition enable a political entity to emerge as a subject within the symbolic order of international relations?

Contribution

• Extending Ontological Security Studies through Lacan.
• Reframing the Cyprus conflict.
• Rethinking recognition and modern statehood.