Imagining Positive Contact Across the Conflict Divide: A Qualitative Comparison of Imagined Contact Stories of Greek and Turkish Cypriots

Abstract

Heeding calls for a closer examination of intergroup encounters in intergroup contact research, we examine the accounts of individuals asked to imagine positive contact with an outgroup member to understand what contributes to rendering the encounter positive for them. Additionally, we examine whether individuals from groups representing opposite sides of a conflict construct positive contact in distinct ways. Such a comparison can shed light to a commonly registered asymmetry in contact studies whereby contact mainly benefits majority than minority group members. Toward that end, we used the imagined contact stories of 24 Greek Cypriots (majority) and 22 Turkish Cypriots (minority) in the ethnically divided island of Cyprus, which we subjected to a thematic analysis. Our results show that the two groups differed in how they construed positive contact in two important ways: (a) Greek Cypriots represented the outgroup member as a likable character and sought for superficial interactions to avoid sensitive discussion topics, whereas Turkish Cypriots focused on how their interlocutor viewed them and sought for depth, not superficiality, in the interaction; (b) Greek Cypriots abided to a general plot of happy-ending fiction and were influenced by their community's master narratives of conflict to achieve that, whereas Turkish Cypriots, whose stories were more inspired by real-life incidents, used the imagined contact space to give a positive twist to otherwise unpleasant real-life intergroup experiences. We interpret these differences drawing primarily on the concepts of intergroup contact, master narratives of conflict, and minority-majority dynamics and conclude with ideas for future research.