Lee Smithey examines how symbolic cultural expressions in Northern Ireland, such as parades, bonfires, murals, and commemorations, provide opportunities for Protestant unionists and loyalists to reconstruct their collective identities and participate in conflict transformation. Northern Ireland provides a valuable case study of a seemingly intractable conflict undergoing transformation. Lee Smithey offers a grassroots view of that transformation, through interviews and field research in the region, and provides essential models for how ethnic and communal-based conflicts can shift from violent confrontation toward peaceful co-existence.Smithey focuses particularly on Protestant unionists and loyalists in Northern Ireland, who maintain varying degrees of commitment to the Protestant faith,the Crown, and British governance. He argues that antagonistic collective identities in ethnopolitical conflict can become less polarizing as partisans adopt new conflict strategies and means of expressing identity. Consequently, theclose and recursive relationship between collective identity and collective action forms a crucial element ofconflict transformation. Smithey closely examines attempts in Protestant/unionist/loyalist communities and organizations to develop more constructive meansof pursuing political agendas, expressing collective identity, and improving community relations. Key leaders and activists have begun toreframe collective narratives and identities, making community support possible for negotiations, demilitarization, and political cooperation while also diminishing out-group polarization.As Smithey shows, this kind of shift in strategy and collective vision constitutes the heart of conflict transformation, and the challenges and opportunities faced by grassroots unionists and loyalists in Northern Ireland prove instructive for other regions of intractable conflict. INDICE: 1. Introduction 2. Ethnic Identity Change and Conflict Transformation 3. Protestant Unionists and Loyalists 4. Mitigating Murals and Loyalist Cultural Innovation 5 The Orange Order: Mitigating Parades, Public Relations, and Identity Change 6. Heritage, Memory, and Identity Work 7. Strategy, Pragmatism, and Public Relations 8. Conclusion
- ISBN: 978-0-19-539587-7
- Editorial: Oxford University
- Encuadernacion: Cartoné
- Páginas: 304
- Fecha Publicación: 15/09/2011
- Nº Volúmenes: 1
- Idioma: Inglés