Remembering a place : a case study of a Facebook page for Varosha, Cyprus

The ghost town of Varosha is a district of the city of Famagusta, located in the southeast coast of Cyprus. The thesis explores how Varosha is remembered on a specific, now removed, Facebook page called 'Varosha, Cyprus - What they don't want you to see'. It concentrates on the following questions: Why is it important to remember Varosha? How is Varosha pictured before and after the Turkish intervention/invasion of 1974, and how is the district's future seen? What memories are involved in 'specific places' and what are these places? The research material consists of postings and comments on the page, made during a two and a half year long data collection period. The research was conducted by using a thematic analysis. The research approach is deductive, in other words, theory-driven. The study pays more attention to those themes that were repeated by several commentators. A lot of citations is used to back up the notions. Varosha is nowadays a remembered place and a community which cannot be visited by public. It represents a powerful memory to many people, whether they have experienced it first-hand or not. The meanings associated with a place vary according to one's relation to the place. Outsiders want to know how Varosha was and is like inside the fences. The stories that the residents and visitors tell and the feelings and memories they share keep the place alive. The page was aimed at keeping the memory of Varosha alive, getting the word of the district's situation out to the world and exposing what the Turks have done to Varosha by providing photographic evidence. There were some topics that the administrators of the page had ruled out of the discussion. For example, disrespecting the feelings of the Varoshotes led to the removal of several postings, comments and commentators. Words that were used in describing Varosha's current state reflect the bitterness, sorrow and anger that many of the commentators and the administrators were feeling, whereas the words and descriptions connected to pre-1974 Varosha were all very positive. The depictions were divided according to the commentators' relation to the place. The idea of returning to Varosha is fuelled by nostalgia and the feeling of belonging to the fenced off area. For the old residents and their offspring - second generation 'Varoshotes' it is not (just) about returning Varosha habitable again but also in some ways recreating the old community which was forcefully displaced over four decades ago. The research could be duplicated into another Facebook page focused on remembering a place. However, Varosha's special history combined with the on-going conflict in Cyprus have created somewhat special conditions for remembering. The page would also have provided material for studying otherness and hate speech.