Abstract
This paper is an answer to the question of why people, particularly men, recreationally hunt. It combines ethnography and archival research to explore the personal motivations of recreational hunters in Northern Cyprus. A history of recreational hunting is then examined to explore why royalty that colonised Cyprus recreationally hunted, and why this right was then extended to the new citizens that emerged in the wake of the Enlightenment. In both cases recreational hunting is a personal practice in being free that is juxtaposed against the trials and tribulations of the coercive civilisations it takes place as a part of. It is entangled with other gains in political rights in the wake of the Enlightenment, and hence its extension to newly free citizens and men in particular. The history of recreational hunting also situated it spatially as juxtaposed against places where the trials and tribulations of civilization take place. I conclude that male citizens recreationally hunt as it offers a passing taste of one’s superiors way of experiencing being free and is a demonstration of the limited sovereignty over one life that being a citizen of a state offers.
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