Resisting Territorial Control

This paper examines historical and contemporary commoning practices in Cyprus, with a focus on their implications for territorial transformation and access to agroecological land. From Ottoman-era communal land classifications and sharecropping to 20th-century land consolidation legislation and the rise of agricultural cooperatives, Cyprus presents a layered case of evolving relationships between land, policy, and community.

These practices reflect shifting socio-political dynamics, economic strategies, and territorial models. Land consolidation, particularly since the 1970s, aimed to address agricultural fragmentation and infrastructure deficits. Scholars such as Lanitis (1944) endorsed consolidation to improve land use and productivity, but implementation faced resistance—especially in areas with large historical estates—due to inheritance structures and social barriers. Sharecropping in Cyprus functioned as a hybrid model of land access, involving mutual dependencies between landowners and tenants. Though it allowed for risk-sharing and flexibility, it also revealed vulnerabilities tied to labour conditions and social hierarchies. Comparative perspectives from international contexts (e.g., India) further highlight the system's capacity for adaptability amid market volatility, while also showing its potential for exploitation. The cooperative movement in Cyprus and abroad emerges as a vital counterpoint, facilitating access to credit, protecting small farmers, and promoting collective agency. International examples—from Western Europe to Japan and Hungary—reveal efforts to balance land tenure reforms, agricultural efficiency, and rural cohesion through legal mechanisms, preference rights, and land banks. However, even cooperative models face structural limitations, such as bureaucratic inefficiencies and pressures from real estate development that threaten agricultural land.

The Cypriot experience reveals the tension between historical continuity and policy-driven disruption. In addition to policy and institutional models, this paper foregrounds the resistance techniques employed by rural communities of the past—including the grafting of wild trees, informal planting and harvesting, and the shared use of olive presses and water mills—as material acts of de-territorialisation. These practices contested state-imposed control over land and natural resources, and reflected non-state strategies of land access, cooperation, and stewardship rooted in cultural continuity. Rather than abstract speculation, these acts offer tangible lessons from the past for designing equitable and regenerative territorial futures. By engaging with commoning as both a historical and future-oriented practice, this study contributes to rethinking territoriality beyond ownership, centring on collective agency, land stewardship, and regenerative agricultural possibilities. It aligns with broader agroecological transitions that demand fluid, inclusive, and context-sensitive approaches to land access and territorial governance.