Transgressing the Nation: In Defence of Cypriot Peasantry and Rustic Politics

Abstract

This article examines the proposition that Cypriot peasant culture, socio-political underdevelopment, and nationalism are inextricably linked. In assessing this thesis, it utilised perspectives from peasant and postcolonial studies. The article suggests that whilst the peasantry, like any other social class, can be appropriated for nationalist purposes, peasant consciousness is able to transgress nationalist endeavours, specifically, by reimagining dominant projections of the nation, resisting centralised power, and supporting struggles for autonomy. This is illustrated in and through global as well as Cypriot experiences of rustic politics, challenging through infrapolitics, i.e., indirectly and invisibly, the dominant language and predicates of nationalism.