Healing through the Bones: Empowerment and the Process of Exhumations in the Context of Cyprus

Violent conflict created a divide in Cyprus (1950–1974) that still exists to this day between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. This study explores specifically an effect of violent conflict—Missing Persons and the bi-communal process of their humanitarian return. This process is important for peacebuilding because it empowers individuals, families, communities, and nation-states to satisfy basic human psycho-social needs in order to deal with the trauma of past violence, to recognize loss and grieve, and to seek closure of uncertainty to prevent the transgenerational transmission of trauma and escalation of violence between and within ethnic societies.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Journal Entry 1.2 Introduction 1.3 History of Cyprus Conflict 1.4 Purpose Statement 1.5 Significance of the Study 1.6 Limitations of the Study 1.7 Context of the Study 1.7.1 Missing Persons in a Global Context 1.7.2 Missing Persons in a Cypriot Context and Some Challenges for the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus 1.8 Framework of the Study 1.9 Conclusion Chapter 2 Literature Review 2.1 Journal Entry 2.2 Introduction 2.3 Basic Human Needs 2.4 Psychological Ideas and Trauma 2.5 Peacebuilding as Sustainable Reconciliation and Restorative Justice 2.6 Restorative Justice 2.7 Storytelling 2.8 Conclusion Chapter 3 Methodology 3.1 Journal Entry 3.2 Introduction 3.3 Research Location 3.4 Qualitative Research Strategy 3.5 Semi-structured Interviewing 3.6 Role of Researcher 3.7 Data Gathering Techniques 3.8 Data Analysis and Grounded Theory 3.9 Study Participants 3.10 Problems/Challenges Encountered Conducting Research 3.11 Conclusion Chapter 4 Uncertainty and Psychology 4.1 Journal Entry 4.2 Introduction 4.3 Uncertainty and Knowledge of Death 4.4 Uncertainty and Closure 4.5 Uncertainty and Burial 4.6 Uncertainty and Time 4.7 Psychology and Time 4.8 Psychological Healing and Catharsis 4.9 Psychological Relief 4.10 Psychological Closure 4.11 Psychologically Shared Suffering 4.12 Victimization and Psychological Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma 4.13 Conclusion and Summary of Key Findings Chapter 5 Bicommunal Relations 5.1 Journal Entry 5.2 Introduction 5.3 Percentage of the Missing 5.4 List Agreement and Bicommunal Challenges 5.5 Bicommunal Contact and Time 5.6 Bicommunal CMP Organization and Inter-ethnic Friendship Development 5.7 Bicommunal Leadership 5.8 Conclusion and Summary of Key Findings Chapter 6 Storytelling—Even the Dead Have a Voice: The Bones Are Telling a Story 6.1 Journal Entry 6.2 Introduction 6.3 What is Storytelling? 6.4 The Bones as Story 6.5 Storytelling and Information 6.6 Constructive Storytelling 6.7 Storytelling and Historical Non-Reoccurrence of Violence 6.8 Conclusion and Summary of Key Findings Chapter 7 A Common Future 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Empowerment and Uncertainty 7.3 Challenges of the Process of Exhumations 7.4 Conclusion and Future Research References Appendix A Interview Questions Appendix B Diagram: 1) Empowerment or Uncertainty Appendix C Diagram: 2) Challenges of the Process of Exhumations Appendix D Map of Cyprus

About the Author :
Kristian Fics has a joint Master’s in Peace and Conflict Studies from the Arthur V. Mauro Center of Peace and Justice at the University of Manitoba and University of Winnipeg. He is currently doing his PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy at Nova Southeastern University.

Review :
There are many challenges to building sustainable peace and reconciliation in societies desperately trying to emerge from a violent and traumatic past. As politicians negotiate peace accords, people in the grassroots need to heal from the trauma of violence. Kris Fics’ original and innovative study of the return of the remains of the dead to loved ones in Cyprus after many years breaks new ground in the Peace and Conflict Studies field. Returning the Missing to their loved ones brings about the closure, healing, and reconciliation that is necessary to build a comprehensive and sustainable peace, as even the bones have their stories to tell. Following decades of political manipulations on the issue of Missing Persons in the Cyprus conflict, this revealing work focuses on the constructive and cooperative process of exhumations and identifications carried out by a bicommunal, nongovernmental committee of dedicated Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The writing is accessible and engaging for the most part, supported by personal journal entries chronicling the author’s experience in completing this challenging piece of field research, including serving as a volunteer worker for the committee. The findings from qualitative interviews with members of the committee are connected to relevant scholarly literature on the need for certainty, bicommunal relations, and storytelling in order to develop a richer meaning of the process of exhumation and its effects. The work thus illuminates how the recovery of missing loved ones provides a model of positive intercommunal interaction, and serves as an essential element of reconciliation and sustainable peace that is empowering at both the individual and the collective levels In this powerful volume Kristian Fics explores the personal, social and political impact of the ongoing bicommunal process of exhumations in Cyprus, led by the Committee on Missing Persons. His study reveals that addressing the issue of persons missing from Cyprus' history of inter-ethnic conflict—that can only be done through exhumation and confirmation of the identity of the dead—not only restores identity to the missing, but addresses the ambiguous loss that defined the trauma suffered by their families. More than this, addressing the issue of Missing Persons has collective impacts, removing an issue that continues to divide people in the most emotional way, and offering routes to reconciliation and peacebuilding. Fics' book synthesizes the psychological and the sociological to permit the central importance of the addressing of the issue of Missing Persons in post-conflict contexts to emerge.