Ontological insecurity and the return of the Greek-Turkish conflicts: reconfiguring Hagia Sophia as an ontic space

Abstract

This article locates the rising tensions between Greece and Turkey in the milieu of increasing ontological insecurity in the European periphery. Building on the growing literature on ontological security in IR, we argue that the dissipation of Europe as a framework of meaning and identity in the European periphery has generated ontological insecurity—a state of general anxiety which stems from the disruption of self-narratives—on part of the actors concerned. Following a decade and a half of rapprochement within the framework of Turkey’s EU membership bid, this ontological insecurity has created a longing for a return to the established conflict narratives and antagonistic identity constructions in Greece and Turkey. We show the linkage between ontological insecurity and the escalation of disputes by tracing the political and societal discourses surrounding the reconversion of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul from a museum back to a mosque.