Beyond water security: asecuritisation and identity in Cyprus

Abstract

Forty years after the division of Cyprus, the unstable political agenda still prevents a meaningful bi-communal discourse on the joint management of natural resources, especially water, a vital resource for all islanders. Until now, both communities have deployed unilateral, tactical methods to securitise the water discourse by linking it to high politics; yet, the situation remains deadlocked. Processes by which the water discourse in Cyprus acquired multiple meanings of securitisation over time and across different groups remains understudied, as does the concept of asecurity. We suggest moving water management in Cyprus into an asecuritisation realm, where decision-making processes are founded on a shared social identity with water acting as a unifying agent. Based on empirical findings from multiple methods employed dealing with social dilemmas involving scarce natural resources, we conclude that an alternative way of organizing political space with no a priori reference to the securitisation logic would create new opportunities for transforming the discourse beyond the political lock-in and incorporating bi-communal dynamics into natural resource management, laying the groundwork for future cooperation on other emblematic issues.