Place Attachment through Everyday Sound: The Case of Divided Nicosia

Abstract

Studying soundscapes can provide an understanding of the relations within an acoustic community that is situated in a defined area, and also can allow correlations to the properties of place itself. This PhD study commences from the field of acoustic communication, where soundmarks are seen as the sonic events that are part of a soundscape: they are of distinctive importance and are able to define an acoustic community. In such a context, the experience-oriented theory of sound in its core is considered, so as to approach the special case study of the divided city centre of Nicosia. The inhabitants of the centre of Nicosia – producers and listeners of the soundscape – mostly belong to the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot communities. The northern part, the buffer zone itself and the southern part of its city centre define aural areas/soundscapes, characterised by sonic events of significant meaning for the acoustic community that lives there. By investigating the religious soundmarks with the use of soundwalks and ethnographic interviews as methodological tools, the PhD study comments on their effect as far as the place attachment of the inhabitants is concerned, by presenting, at the same time, their attitude towards them. By taking into account the aforementioned aspects, the investigation concerns the place attachment of both communities (Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot) through the Muslim and the Orthodox call to prayer, via the sound of the church bells and the voice of the imam, respectively. In a wider level, the study explores, how such soundscapes acquire meaning by the inhabitants of Nicosia and how these meanings influence the bond of the inhabitants with their place, by using the religious soundmarks as a guide. At the same time, such sounds can travel across the borders of the city, signifying [the formation of] one acoustic community with common characteristics - habituating in a conceptual acoustic place.