This paper evaluates the effectiveness of urban planning interventions in interrupting the degenerative socio-spatial cycle which perpetuates division in divided cities. To analyze the abilities of different types of urban planning projects to transform division, this paper implements a new system of classifying urban planning interventions in divided cities, delineating projects by their object, rather than by process. Under this system, urban planners pursue one of three objects: segregation, the creation of integrated spaces, and the transformation of divided space at a micro-spatial level. Applying this model to six urban planning projects in Belfast and Mostar from 1969 to 2008, this paper finds that segregation perpetuates inter-group conflict, the creation of integrated spaces separate from divided cities fails to impact such conflict by bypassing contested areas, and that symbolic micro-spatial projects have the potential to transform space to positively impact conflict.

Although Northern Ireland is a part of United Kingdom and so Europe, it belongs to regions which are characterized as unstable. Lately, there has been a significant improvement in implementing desired measures, however, one can still encounter street rioting stemming from the history of Northern Irish conflict. The Master thesis conducts a survey of the situation after the crucial signing of Belfast Peace Accord. It aims to evaluate the rate of success of introduced post-conflict reconstruction and holds the opinion that the progress in social sphere is especially significant, meaning cross-community relations and mutual respect. Gradually, in three chapters, the thesis unveils the theoretical concept of post-conflict reconstruction with a special attention to social sphere and culture. Moreover, it refers to the milestones of history and comes to the conclusion where it evaluates the current situation in society in disputed areas. Main idea of the thesis is to assess the hypothesis if the adopted measures do have an effect on current development and if a change in society could influence the perception of the roots of the conflict mainly in the question of interpersonal relations.

With a subpoena in one hand and a donor agreement in the other, what choice should an ethical archivist make? Since the legal battle over the Belfast Project—a collection of oral histories from Northern Irish paramilitaries about their involvement in the Troubles—at Boston College erupted in 2011, such a scenario has become a reality. With U.S. attorneys demanding access in the name of truth and justice, and historians advocating denial for the sake of scholarship and honor, the archival profession is facing some troubling legal and ethical issues. Regardless of the ultimate fate of the Belfast Project, the archival field will have to adapt to a new reality. This reality will have to consider the effects of the law and oral history practices on archives. Should archives be granted privilege recognized within the legal system? Should there be oversight for oral histories? Should archives offer privacy protections for third parties? How can the archival community address these issues? This thesis will use the Belfast Project to analyze legal and ethical issues facing archivists and explore what this means for the future of the profession. / text

Ireland had, by the year of 1998, been an island of war and conflict to some extent for almost 1000 years. The northeast part of the island, called Northern Ireland, had been under British domination for over 25 years when “the Troubles” ended by the year of 1998. This essay aims towards explaining how the first generation after “the Troubles” has been shaped in terms of political and religious beliefs and attitudes in the society of Belfast. Furthermore, this study seeks to understand the complex nature of the peace agreement and the political consociational power-sharing system that permeates Belfast and it’s people. By conduct interviews with six, picked young persons from Belfast, this essay will, in a qualitative and theoretical way, explain what, and even more so, why the prevailing attitudes exists, and which influences they are derived from. By a socialisation and Marxist theory, these articulated attitudes will be explained, compared and analysed on a deep level.

The aim of the project is to understand urban constraints through analysis of sites’ deep context and to arrive with a relevant spatial solution. Moreover, we hope that the problems investigated and communicated will be once tackled. The object of analysis is the today image and urban structure of the unappreciated area of Holylands. The proposal is to recognize the favors and the wealth of the neighbourhood. Built originally for the middle-class, the neighbourhood used to be a welcoming area of the city with a strong culture of community and public activity. The analysis of the problem starts with the acknowledging the initial values and follows with the adaptation to the today situation. The scheme is the architectural intervention corresponding to the syntax of the area. The project investigates the neighbourhood in architectural terms and emphasizes the values and need of the community, public space, openness and clarity in the living environment.

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To understand the complexity of life in a city one needs to consider a spectrum of experience. Belfast has a history of conflict and division, particularly in relation to the Troubles, reflected in comprehensive academic studies of how this has affected, and continues to affect, the citizens. But this is a particular mode of representation, a vision of life echoed in fictional literature. People's quotidian lives can and do transcend the grand narratives of the Troubles that have come to dominate these discourses. Anthropology has traditionally accorded less epistemological weight to fleeting and superficial encounters with strangers, but this mode of sociality is a central feature of life in the city. The modern stranger navigates these relationships with relative ease. Communicating with others through narrative – personal stories about our lives – is fundamental to what it is to be human, putting storytelling at the heart of anthropological study. Engagements with strangers may be brief encounters or build into acquaintanceship, but these superficial relationships are not trivial. How we interact with strangers – our public presentation of the self to others through the personal stories we share – can give glimpses into the private lives of individuals. Listening to stories of quotidian life in Belfast demonstrates a range of people's existential dilemmas and joys that challenges Troubled representations of life in the city. The complexity, size and anonymity of the city means the anthropologist needs different ways of reaching people; this thesis is as much about exploring certain anthropological methodologies as it is about people and a place. Through methods of walking, performance, human-animal interactions, my body as a research subject, and using fictional literature as ethnographic data, I interrogate the close relationship between method, data and analysis, and of knowledge-production and knowledge-dissemination. I present quotidian narratives of Belfast's citizens that are Not-the-Troubles.

The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the use of the past in Stewart Parker's dramatic work for the stage. A recent historian Hayden White formulated that the work of a historian is in fact similar to the work of a historical fiction writer - the difference lies mainly in the extent of their invention. In that respect, Parker's work can be regarded as a fictional alternative to the official depiction of history. In his plays, Stewart Parker often deals with the Troubles and Northern Irish history and politics. Apart from using real historical events around which Parker revolves the plot of his plays, he often explores the effects of personal pasts of his characters and uses it as leading dynamics in the plays. The main motto of his plays is 'coming to terms with the past'. His plays also often feature ghosts which can be regarded as a reflection of the past. In my thesis, I examine their role and Parker's use of the past in Spokesong, Catchpenny Twist, Nightshade, Pratt's Fall, Northern Star, Heavenly Bodies and Pentecost.

In Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement brought with it a great deal of attention and initiatives to construct and increase intergroup contact and shared spaces in an effort to reconcile divided nationalist/Catholic and unionist/Protestant communities. In the time following this peace agreement, the Belfast Giants ice hockey team was established, and in their 16 years as a team they have become one of the most attended spectator activities in Belfast, trending away from the tribalism, single-space, single-class, and single-gender dynamics of modern sport in Northern Ireland. This thesis research followed the supporters of the Belfast Giants throughout the 2015-2016 ice hockey season to better understand the encounters across historical divisions that are occurring in the Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) Arena. The research of this PhD thesis is directed by the concepts of social capital, intergroup contact, and civility. These concepts, when placed within the context of divided society, contribute to the thesis' guiding analytical framework, which offers thematic guideposts in areas of prejudice and anxiety, tolerance and trust, space and identity. Influenced by in-depth qualitative research that seeks to access local voices, this research takes the conceptual and analytical guidance into the stands of the SSE Arena. In this way, the unique 'side-by-side' methodology, which involved conducting interviews with the person in the seat to my left or right at Belfast Giants ice hockey games while immersing myself in the supporter community, emerged as not only a contribution to unearthing new voices in this oft-studied region, but also as an innovative contribution to qualitative methodological literatures. Beyond the methodological contribution, this thesis makes two further contributions to existing academic literatures on post-peace agreement relationships. The first of these is through the clear relationship between identity and space that are evident in its findings. Between the poles of conflict and reconciliation are the complex and simple interactions, which when placed in the SSE Arena at a Belfast Giants game illustrate the multi-layered and fluid nature of identity. The thesis finds the hockey arena is a space where a shared identity, 'the hockey family', materialises and includes nationalist and unionist populations. This shared identity is deeply connected to a physical place and activity that are situated outside the all-encompassing nature of division in present-day Belfast. However, within the unusual setting of an ice hockey arena in Northern Ireland there emerges ordinariness in encounter across historical cleavage, and from these mundane interactions comes the final contribution 'side-by-sidedness'. Influenced by supporters' willingness to sit side-by-side those on the opposite side of a historical division who they may not be willing to live beside, this theme is framed as a lightened encounter that challenges assumptions inherent in post-peace agreement settings. The research findings frame the SSE Arena as a site of sanctuary from polarised sectarian identities and activities, as well as a site of resistance from overarching peace agendas that push shared space and seek reconciliation. Side-by-sidedness exists in the everyday between these two poles. In highlighting this space between, this theme challenges the assumptions of 'face-to-faceness' that are inherent across the three concepts informing this thesis and through utilising notions of everyday peace and everyday division to include the relational, the spatial and the metaphorical, this thesis' meta-theme frames a new way of 'getting on with it' in the shadows of conflict.

No description available.