Public Attitudes toward Partisan and Neutral Symbols in Post-Agreement Northern Ireland

Using original data from the Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, this article assesses public attitudes toward key issues of symbolism intimately connected with the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process. It uses public attitudes toward the symbolic expressions of Northern Ireland's politico-religious blocs as indicators of the extent of intercommunity tolerance in the delicate post-Belfast Agreement period. Survey questions on attitudes toward flags, including the idea of a new flag for Northern Ireland; loyalist and republican murals; and memorials to the dead of the conflict, including the idea of a memorial for all of the victims of the conflict, reveal that partisan attitudes toward communal symbols of identity and commemoration persist, despite macro-level political changes heralded by the 1998 peace accord. It is argued that the consociational design of the Belfast Agreement facilitates the perpetuation of the single-identity politics of Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism. In this context, public attachment to partisan symbols remains strong.     

Social work for critical peace: a comparative approach to understanding social work and political conflict

ABSTRACT

This paper uses a case study approach to explore issues of social work policy and practice in three sites of political conflict in Europe: Northern Ireland; Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Cyprus. It begins with a review of the international literature on social work and political conflict and then discusses the strengths and limitations in engaging with comparative case study approaches. The authors explain how they view the writing of the paper as an intellectual encounter that helped establish the beginning stages of their comparative analysis. This starts with an analysis of the existing knowledge base about the three case studies that each share similar patterns of colonial histories, political and community conflict and the social work response. The second part of the paper extends this analysis to a critique of the impact of neo-liberal social and economic policies that often adversely impact upon the role of social workers in resolving conflict and building peace. The paper concludes with an appeal for social work to rediscover its rights-based role in working with victims and survivors of political conflict, what the authors describe as: ‘social work for critical peace’.     

Visual and textual narratives of conflict-related displacement in Northern Ireland

Combined textual and visual narratives and counternarratives illustrate a range of experiences in Northern Ireland’s conflictual, spatial landscape. In this article, I argue that combined textual and visual narratives about conflict-instigated displacement create and articulate community-specific experiences of disadvantage, with the intention of gaining political recognition and/or advantage over other communities in ongoing processes of conflict transformation. I expose the multiple, contextualised meanings of selective narratives that are accessible in language and image but, that are rarely questioned because of the political influence of their tellers or, because of their scale. Their meanings and intentions exist alongside counternarratives about intra-community displacement and displacement against other groups and are concurrent with public apathy, which serve to minimise their effectiveness as political tools to gain community-specific, social and political advantage. These narratives and counternarratives persist as key spatial markers and as sites on which conflict, and its effective transformation, are played out.     

Researching paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland

This paper examines methodological challenges in researching paramilitary violence, with particular reference to the author's examination of paramilitary 'punishment' activity in Northern Ireland. The author notes the dearth of published work on methodological issues in social science research of violence generally. The range of major qualitative studies on paramilitary violence is presented and discussed. The paper explains the context of conducting such research in Northern Ireland in terms of the broader political conflict. It then examines several key challenges in researching paramilitary violence based primarily on the author's research. These included maintenance of political sensitivity, good faith and cautious security protocols. Potential legal and ethical difficulties were addressed through design of interview schedules that minimized risk of disclosure of the names or identities of those subject to 'punishment' or the perpetrators of offences. Those subject to paramilitary 'punishment' proved 'hard-to-reach', requiring greater time and effort in meeting the initial target sample, and a consequent need to research across a wide range of voluntary and community-based organizations. While risks of physical injury were minimal, successful research in the field was achieved through transparency about the impartiality and funding independence of the researchers, and a strategic sensitivity towards community and political backgrounds.     

Political Transformation and the Reinvention of the Ulster-Scots Identity and Culture

In the 1990s, Ulster-Scots language and culture was mobilized by some Ulster unionists in Northern Ireland as a badge of their cultural identity. The Ulster-Scots language and culture had its eighteenth century, premodern heyday in the north-eastern counties of the north of Ireland where it expressed distinctiveness from English and Englishness. However, in common with many regional dialects elsewhere in Europe, the processes of modernization signalled the demise of Ulster-Scots. The contemporary reinvention of an Ulster-Scots identity was precipitated by the 1990s political transformation of Northern Ireland. This reinvention has multiple manifestations. It is, variously, a myth of origin, a language and culture, a communal consciousness, a reaction against Irish nationalist cultural assertiveness in Northern Ireland, an embryonic nationalism, and a component part of the British identity. Ultimately, the reinvention of the Ulster-Scots cultural narrative appears designed to offset advances made by Irish nationalists in the assertion of their culture in Northern Ireland. Ulster-Scots has also been reinvented in an attempt to provide the Ulster unionist identity with the cultural booster required to deliver security and continuity to an identity experiencing chronic insecurity and doubt during a period of political transformation. However, the ability of Ulster-Scots to deliver on these aims is questionable.     

Why We Can't Wait!

Abstract

An Afrocentric theoretical approach is utilized as a framework in guiding practitioners working with African American families. Afrocentricity places African American history, culture, and African heritage at the center of persons of African American families. An Afrocentric perspective also epitomizes the political, economic, and social freedom of African American families and communities. More importantly, understanding the cultural dynamics of African American families and their historical and contemporary use of resources (e.g., worldview, language, spirituality, etc.) to adapt and overcome certain life circumstances can be useful in assessment and treatment.     

Organizational identity,political contexts,and SMO action: Explaining the tactical choices made by peace organizations in Israel,Northern Ireland,and South Africa

Students of social movements have long been interested in the question of why social movement organizations (SMOs) employ the tactics that they do. This paper explores this question by examining twenty-seven SMOs engaged in peace and conflict resolution in Israel, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. While the investigation reveals that SMOs across the sample employed an eclectic mix of tactics to pursue their goals, both cross-region and within-region variations in SMOs' tactical behavior are identified. The paper argues that cross-region variations in tactical behavior are best explained by the political contexts of each region and demonstrates that SMOs' organizational identities best account for within-region variations. Overall, the analysis supports scholars' claims that organizational identities ultimately drive the goals that SMOs pursue, the mix of tactics they emphasize, the degree to which they change their tactics over time, and, most importantly, the extent to which they are willing to engage in extra-institutional modes of action (protest, civil disobedience, violence).     

Conceptual Framework of Coalitions in an Organizational Context

Summary

Organizations are forming coalitions in their struggle to survive with fewer resources. Under the “Contract With America,” funds for human services are expected to be increasingly cut back. Organizational actors will continue to coalesce because of their compelling interests to serve disadvantaged populations in our communities. This article uses the political-economy perspective in presenting a conceptual framework of coalitions in organizational settings. We need access to various perspectives and models of coalition building in order to provide direction for organizational groups as they attempt to change the sociopolitical structures in which they must operate.     

Negotiating Identity and Belonging: Migration Narratives of Protestants from Northern Ireland

This article draws on the migration narratives of Protestants from Northern Ireland, examining the impact of migration on issues of identity and belonging, particularly in relation to the Northern Ireland conflict. The life narratives were collected during the course of two studies relating to contemporary migration from Northern Ireland (2004-2007). The author concludes that the insecurity of Protestant identity continues to influence the significant migration rate of young middle class Protestants, most of whom are unlikely to return to live in Northern Ireland.     

Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations in Three Protracted Conflicts: Structures,Resources and Ideology

Guided by organizational and social movement theories, this study compares the structures, resource bases, ideologies, and strategies of nongovernmental organizations engaged in peace and conflict resolution (P/CROs) in three regions with extended violent conflicts: Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine. Qualitative content analysis techniques are used to analyze 27 detailed case reports. We analyze the funding patterns and structural attributes of the P/CROs in our sample, with particular attention to how they obtain fiscal resources and membership in spite of the risks they may experience. We then explore the degree of formalization among P/CROs over time and, finally, we examine the ideological frames that P/CROs use and how these frames relate to their tactics. Throughout the analysis we pay attention to how the political context of each region influences P/CRO behavior.     

How formerly abducted women in post-conflict situations are reasserting their humanity in a hostile environment: photovoice evidence from northern Uganda

ABSTRACT

Northern Uganda received significant international attention during and immediately after the conflict between the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army, in which over 20,000 women and children were abducted and trafficked. However, globally there has been little investigation into the long-term impacts on formerly abducted women in post-conflict reconstruction, or on their own efforts to improve their conditions. This article presents original photovoice evidence from 13 co-researchers; all members of the Women’s Advocacy Network, a grassroots organisation seeking to improve life in northern Uganda for women. All the co-researchers are from the Acholi ethnic group and were formerly abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army. They are all engaged in rebuilding their lives in Gulu, northern Uganda. The article seeks to present the work of the co-researchers and explores the long-term needs they identify for formerly abducted women in conflict zones. It also explores how their own experiences with abduction continues to erode the recognition of their humanity, both in terms of how they are perceived by their communities and how they view themselves, and how they are individually and collectively working to reassert their place in the moral universe.     

Integrated community development/conflict resolution strategies as 'peace building potential' in South Africa and Northern Ireland

This paper argues that integrated community development andconflict resolution strategies could help to sustain peace in‘post-settlement’ contexts. The conceptual backgroundto this argument is unfolded through the tracking of key conceptssuch as convergence, post-settlement contexts, civil society,community development, conflict resolution, peace building,and multi-track approaches to peace building. Empirical evidencefor convergences at the practice level is presented throughexcerpts from two case studies, one from Northern Ireland andthe other from South Africa. Some of the key issues around whichcommunity development/conflict resolution strategies coalescerelate to addressing human needs, encouraging people participation,and building democracy. These are critical peace building tasks.Despite the positive potential of such integrated strategies,both South Africa and Northern Ireland face crucial challenges.     

Slave Ships and Coffin Ships: Transatlantic Exchanges in Irish-American Blackface Minstrelsy

Abstract

Irish participation in blackface minstrelsy underwent complex transatlantic exchanges as it jumped from the US to Ireland and back again from the era of the Great Famine through the end of the nineteenth century. Most research on Irish-American blackface minstrelsy treats the Irish in America as a homogenous group that used ‘blacking up’ to establish its ethnic whiteness. However, there were at least two distinct groups of Irish Americans who participated in blackface minstrelsy: Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. The latter’s incorporation into the history of minstrelsy means that we must reconsider assumptions about how and why the Irish performed blackface in both Ireland and America. Because Irish Protestants’ whiteness was never in question, theories of ethnic assimilation and working class anxieties do not adequately account for Irish gravitation to minstrel shows. Something else about Irish identity captivated performers and audiences. Moving beyond the racial assimilation mode, I argue that blacking up carried tensions of land dispossession, national identity, and ethnic conflict in Ireland into American culture.     

A Note from the President

Abstract

A marked pattern of area-to-area differences in violence is described for Northern Ireland during 1969–74. Violence, measured by death rates, is especially high in the two largest cities and in the southwestern area. Two variables which together account for most of the area variation in violence are population density and proportion Roman Catholic. These findings underline the relative importance of group mobilization for political challenge as a basis of recent Ulster violence.     

The Policy Outputs and Conflicts of Large Communities from an Interorganizational Viewpoint

Abstract

An interorganizational framework is employed to merge elitist, pluralist, and dialectic perspectives on the community in this pilot study of 36 large United States cities.

An interorganizational framework is employed to merge elitist, pluralist, and dialectic perspectives on the community in this pilot study of 36 large United States cities.

Where organizations fail to abound, power may be wielded by an organized elite over an unorganized mass, thereby creating the conditions of polarized conflict, undampened by the crosscutting and issue-specific lines of coalition and conflict existing in organizationally richer environments. The indicators of community decentralization did indeed have independent effects upon the absence of conflict, measured by flouridation of the municipal water supply.

Decision by coalition lends special significance to linkage-providing organizations, such as large-scale and diversified municipal government. The idea of organizations with plural interests and values suggests that centralized governments either are weak or exist in organizationally barren communities; neither alternative is conducive to collective community action. The finding follows that seven different community outposts, each one requiring interorganizational cooperation, were positively affected by the scale and diversification of municipal government and/or by its decentralization.

All of this suggests that various small conflicts serve to prevent large ones in the multiorganizational setting and that the power of organizations, even government agencies, depends upon their capacity for coalition-formation, whatever the degree of their political autonomy.     

Conflict in Divorcing and Continuously Married Families: A Study of Marital,Parent–Child and Sibling Relationships

ABSTRACT

Family members in both separated or divorcing and married families completed a range of questionnaires about the conflict in 3 relationships—couple, parent–child, and sibling—across 2 phases of the study approximately 12 months apart. In addition, the adolescents completed measures of adjustment: self esteem, depression, and anxiety. Adolescents in a subset of the divorcing families were interviewed about the conflict in their families across the 2 phases (107 at Phase 1 and 35 at Phase 2). Analyses showed that conflict was higher in the separated or divorcing families across all 3 relationships, and that the highest levels of conflict occurred for the high-conflict divorcing families. Qualitative data from interviews illustrated the nature of the conflict that was occurring.     

Northern Crises

Abstract

Using feminist disability studies and intersectionality, this article draws upon the ongoing resource extractions in Labrador, Canada to argue for examining local communities and relationships as one way to understand gender and global social, economic and environmental crises. The article explores how crises in Labrador have been constituted and maintained around global agendas of economic and resource development, historical and current colonial practices and a limited and constrained international relations with local Indigenous nations. The lives of women and their communities in Labrador illustrate one wave of a global crisis that extinguishes diversity and connection to the land in a race to extract natural resources, maintain global military power and gain profit in the global economy. The actions over the past thirty years by NATO and the Canadian federal, provincial and municipal governments, coupled with transnational mining corporations such as Vale, have “normalized” crisis in the communities and reduced the capacity of these communities and Indigenous nations to respond to the issues arising as a result of the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric development project. Yet the women and their communities illustrate their agency and reject an analysis of them exclusively as victims. Together with researchers and activists, the women in Labrador have built a community of practice in the Feminist Northern Network.     

Locality Matters: Ethnic Segregation and Community Conflict—the Experience of Protestant Girls in Belfast

Research continues to illustrate the resonance and intensity of feeling that attachment to a locality can generate, within this highlighting the gender‐specific impacts created by the intersection of ethnicity and locality. Within the ethnically segregated working class communities of Belfast, the importance of locality takes on added significance. By focusing on a case study of Protestant girls aged 7–8 and 10–11 years living in a predominantly Loyalist community in Belfast, the study demonstrates the significance of locality and the girls’ experience of sectarian residential segregation and community conflict in Belfast. The findings highlight the importance of engaging with children to increase our understanding of their lived experiences and to inform policy and decision‐making on matters of importance to their lives. Copyright © 2006 Barnardo's Northern Ireland.     

Water as rural heritage: reworking modernity through resource conflict in Edwards County,Kansas

Conflicts over changing uses of natural resources are familiar within communities of the Western US and are usually resolved through legal processes. This paper analyzes resource conflict through juxtaposing impact analyses often used in their juridical resolution with discourse analyses of affected rural communities. The purchase of property by a mid-size city in central Kansas to transfer water from a ranch along the Arkansas River in rural Edwards County evoked expressions of water as “heritage”, functioning as a placed-based, defensive ideology. Plans for the first rural-to-urban interbasin water transfer in Kansas failed to materialize into a legal proposal because of the controversy that ensued, despite the fact that impact analyses suggested little material effect. In light of decades of decline due to economic frustration, political marginalization, and demographic outmigration, rural communities maintain the symbols of nature in order to legitimate their struggle against what are seen as intrusive, destructive elements of changing uses of natural resources.