Paper short abstract:

This paper explores tactical uses of cultural intimacy in Limassol, Cyprus, as articulated in everyday citizen-state encounters involving informal practices. It illustrates a process of domestication of the state in which cultural intimacy and fictive friendship are instrumentalized.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents results from long-term ethnographic research in Limassol, Cyprus, to explore tactical uses of cultural intimacy, as articulated in everyday citizen-state encounters involving informal practices. It illustrates a process of domestication of the state in which cultural intimacy and fictive friendship are instrumentalized on the street-level. My interlocutors often distinguished between three types of exploitations of “the system” (i.e. the state): a friendly favor, an “I do not want to look like the bad guy in the “parea” (group of friends)” favor, and a favor that involves an exchange. The “malakas of the parea” (stupid loser among the buddies) then, refers to a person who abides by state regulation and therefore misses out on the fruits of informality. This view challenges traditional understandings of patron-client exchanges in the context of bureaucracies and statecraft. The paper illustrates how these types are expressed and articulated in daily citizen-state encounters and focuses on processes of sense-making on the side of citizens. “Fictive friendship” also dwells in the domain of cultural intimacy, and refers to uses of language that informalize formal relationships in an attempt to transform “bad guys” into “good,” that is, domesticate them. The paper concludes with a novel view of cultural intimacy as a tactical toolbox, which may be deployed tactically by citizens.