This thesis examines middle-class social relations in nineteenth-century Dublin and Edinburgh, giving particular attention to how the cities’ inhabitants dealt with sectarian conflicts. These cities occupied an unusual position within the UK as they were both stateless capitals, towns that no longer possessed a national parliament, but still performed many of the administrative functions of a capital city. Being a stateless capital affected Dublin and Edinburgh in contrasting ways and this distinction shaped the wider character of each city and middle-class social relations within them. The thesis adopts philanthropy as a vantage point from which to explore these issues as charitable institutions occupied a unique place in nineteenth-century towns, being a junction between voluntary association and official government activity. Presbyterian Edinburgh and predominately Catholic and Anglican Dublin were both home to vibrant philanthropic associational cultures based on similar middle-class values. Contrary to older analyses, Presbyterianism did not promote a greater interest in participating in voluntary activity any more than Catholicism discouraged it. There were, however, differences between the cities. Edinburgh was a more ostensibly successful city by contemporary middle-class standards. Its organisations helped it to overcome social divisions to a greater extent than their counterparts in Dublin. The contrasting nature of state-charity relations in each city partly explains this difference. Overt central state intervention in Edinburgh’s philanthropic institutions was rare, hence Edinburgh was seen as a society trying to manage its own problems. Dublin by contrast, appeared to be a dependent city as its charities received substantial parliamentary aid. Hence, Edinburgh could present itself as a self-confident capital city whereas Dublin, although a more overt centre of power, sometimes appeared to be simply an intermediary through which London influenced the rest of Ireland. Although both cities were part of the UK mainstream associational culture, charitable activity also emphasised their Irish or Scottish characteristics. These national attributes were not perceived as equally attractive. Philanthropy associated Edinburgh with Enlightenment and education, by contrast it connected Dublin with poverty and dependency.

Since the Irish island was partitioned in the 20th century general civil unrest has been constantly present. This has led to Northern Ireland being a segregated society and to some degree, this continues even today. During the 60’s up to the 90’s violence was widespread.Paramilitaries committed acts of violence and terror against each other and civilians were often the victims. The conflict is perpetuated by two blocs in Northern Irish society. These blocs have historically been defined by sectarian identities; this remains to this date to some extent. However, these identity boundaries have expanded to things beyond christianity. Today class, income and other various types of communities factor into the creation of individual identity. Because of this change, the use of a common history has slowly become irrelevant to modern day catholics or protestants in Northern Ireland. Instead of the previous injustices committed against the group in question, general socio-economic issues are central. Religion, identity and politics in Northern Ireland go hand in hand. As many other states around the world, the state in Northern Ireland is separated from the church. Despite this, christian communities, both catholic and protestant, are deeply involved in policy creation. Parliamentary politics are tied to sectarian and societal identity also. Surveys have shown that voters usually vote within their communities. It is rare for catholics to vote for loyalist protestant parties and vice versa. Ethnic nationalism in Northern Ireland takes a different shape today. The armed volunteers inparamilitary groups have been substituted by career politicians that use democratic means to further the political struggle. There are two main actors behind the loyalist and republican movements in contemporary Northern Irish society, the DUP and Sinn Féin. These parties try to move away from violent extremism through politicizing the ethnonationalist movements that is republicanism and loyalism. This change is thanks to a difference in many aspects of humansocialization in Northern Ireland. Individuals have a new way of viewing their identities and communities.

No description available.

In this dissertation, I will explore how 1990s and 2000s British, Irish and South Asian historical films represented the violent legacy of partition on the island of Ireland and in South Asia, respectively. I contend that a cross-regional and cross-national examination of the relationships between national memory, national cinema and minority will reveal that partition had a similar effect on Irish, South Asian and Northern Irish societies: the alignment of a normative national identity with a particular religious identity. This study will explore how key Irish, British and South Asian cinematic texts, despite being produced in disparate production contexts, similarly represent the brutal marginalization of gendered and religious minorities as a central legacy of partition. In my engagement with these films, I have two central areas of exploration. The first is how these films challenge state or majoritarian histories by presenting themselves as historical texts that correct the historical record. I will show how state histories (Michael Collins), majoritarian narratives (Hey!Ram), repressed gendered minority histories (Khamosh Pani, The Magdalene Sisters) and post-conflict narratives (Five Minutes of Heaven and Fiza) contest majoritarian or colonial histories. The second, and ancillary, area of exploration is how the international trauma film genre influences the films' respective representations of atrocity. I argue that trauma theory can help us understand minorities' relationship to the state and the ongoing impact of particular historical events on community and nation. To ground my comparative analysis, I draw from postcolonial theory, poststructuralism and trauma theory. In conclusion, I will contend that these films' minority figures remind us of the dangers of nationalism's limited imaginative boundaries and the role that cinema plays in helping us to think beyond its limitations.

The thirty years of sectarian violence between the Catholic and Protestant communities (known as the Troubles), left the Northern Ireland society deeply suspicious of the 'other'. Since the sighing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Northern Ireland has moved through a tentative peace process. At the time of writing the issues that hold the peace process in stasis include the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons and policing. Similarly the release of political prisoners as part of the Good Friday Agreement has been a difficult reality to face foa significant number of victims of sectarian violence. During the Troubles two approaches prevailed in attempting to reconcile tohe two main communities iand bring an end to the conflict. These were the structural approach and the cultural approach. The structural approach saw the roots of the Northern Ireland conflict as lying within its institutional frameworksand looked for ways to address this. Alternately, the cultural approach saw hat thte conflict was sustained through the belief systems of the two main communities, with the perpetuation of thnegative myths about the 'other'. Resolution of the conflict was seen to be possible by challenging these belief systems through either cross-community work, which brought together Cathoics and Protestants in face to face meetings, or community developemtn work, which focussed on single identity work, empowering the identites of each community so that the two main communities could come together as equals,. It was generally acknowledged that the structural and cultural approaches nneded to be used in tandem, in the effort to reconcile the two main communities. The thesis focuses particularly on the cultural approach, by examining what role, if any, community arts played in reconsiling the two main communities in Norther Ireland between 2001 and 2002, four years af the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. The assumptions that informed this research were: i) reconciliation, the restoration of relationships, can be facilitated through the creation of a safe environment wherein people can express their stories of living through a period of violent conflict, to and with one another, in a non-threatening space; ii) community arts can assist in the creation of these safe spaces by producing opportunities for people to create and express these stories in different and less threatening ways. In examining the role of community arts, the thesis highlights three approaches community arts organisations adopted in their work: an arts for arts sake approach, a cross-community approach and a community development approach. By using these approaches, the thesis shows that whilst community arts has helped in a significant number of ways, a large number of people in Northern Ireland have not been ready to talk about reconciliation, and significant sections of the Protestnant community have been reluctant to engage in community arts activities, both within their own community and with members of the Catholic community.

This thesis argued that the Jain community in the diasporic context of the USA has invented a new form of Jainism. Sectarian negotiations are the distinguishing marks of the diaspora Jain community and their invented form of Jainism. Based on ethnographic study that is, interviews and observations conducted at four different sites (Jain temples/communities) from June-August 2016, the thesis examined the sectarian negotiations among the diaspora Jain community in the USA and the invented Jain tradition that is resulting from these negotiations. The central questions of the research on which this thesis is based were: 1) what are the levels, processes and results of sectarian negotiations within the Jain diaspora community in the USA, and 2) what is the nature and characteristic of the new form of Jainism, the invented tradition; and how do Jains in the USA experience and use it.

Sectarianism has shaped Lebanese culture since the establishment of the National Pact in 1943, and continues to be a pervasive roadblock to Lebanon’s path to development. This thesis explores the role of religion, politics, and Lebanon’s illegitimate government institutions in accentuating identity-based divisions, and fostering an environment for sectarianism to emerge. In order to do this, I begin by providing an analysis of Lebanon’s history and the rise and fall of major religious confessions as a means to explore the relationship between power-sharing arrangements and sectarianism, and to portray that sectarian identities are subject to change based on shifting power dynamics and political reforms. Next, I present different contexts in which sectarianism has amplified the country’s underdevelopment and fostered an environment for political instability, foreign and domestic intervention, lack of government accountability, and clientelism, among other factors, to occur. A case study into Iraq is then utilized to showcase the implications of implementing a Lebanese-style power-sharing arrangement elsewhere, and further evaluate its impact in constructing sectarian identities. Finally, I conclude that it is possible to eliminate sectarianism in Lebanon and move towards a secular state. While there are still many challenges to face in overcoming a long-established system of governance, I highlight the anti-sectarian partisan movements that are advocating for change, and their optimistic path to success.

Falun Gong as it began to establish itself in China during the early 1990’s was a reaction to the Qigong bloom from the late 1970’s during a period of recent newfound religious as well as cultural revival after Mao Zedong's death in 1976. The Chinese Government continued their cultural revival with a new constitution that was created 1982, which gave the people of China the rights to practice their religion as well as be under the protection of the government when affiliating with different kinds of religious organizations. That will say, as long as the Chinese government can control it. Falun Gong did not however find its place being under the government's control and found itself soon enough in the violence of the Chinese government which has from the year 1999 criticized the movement and their use of systematic violence upon the movement was drawn to the edge of persecution. The Chinese government's reaction can as we will see be understood within the context of the Chinese religious history. As Falun Gong stands out as and been branded as a offspring from the folk sectarian movement White Lotus and all other affiliations of messianic rebellion and millenarian movements which had occurred from the early Ming dynasty 1338 until the fall of the Qing dynasty 1911

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After the invasion of Iraq and the destruction of Saddam regime in 2003, the US administration undertook the complete remaking of Iraq as a national-state. The initial steps of the US administration were the quasi eradication of the old Iraqi State. Then, this nation-building endeavor has been based on a federal constitution promoting an Ethno- sectarian power sharing and the attempt to transform what was once a centralized economy into a comprehensive market driven society. However, the post-2003 period had been marked by the rising of identity politics, the constant delegitimisation of the new political order and successive episode of massive violence. Obviously, the question of violence and its apex in 2006-2007, is central to understand the post-2003 period in Iraq. For the first time in Iraqi history, waves of ethno-sectarian violence seriously challenged the possibility of a common life for all the diverse components of the Iraqi society. The Iraqi nation seemed to have been consumed in an existential conflict between components and communal identifications once relatively integrated. Therefore, there is a need to render an analytical account of the aggressive rise of identity politics, the outbreak of violence and finally the episodes of civil war in 2005-2007 in Iraq. This study aims to answer these questions by tracking the different political and social processes that have been at play during the American occupation of Iraq and that lead to the events of 2005-2007. In order to do so, I will consider the dynamical relations that link political institutions, violence and self-identifications in regard to the Iraqi society and Iraq as a National State. This research is built as a case study based mostly on qualitative analysis and the collection of empirical data, interviews, and fieldwork observations as well as primary and secondary sources. I set out to identify actors and processes and determine a complex chain of reactions (a trajectory) that led to the current state of affairs in Iraq. This trajectory could be summarized in few sentences: The destruction of the old Iraqi State and the brutal implementation of Neo-liberal rationality and re- regulations policies by the US occupation ended into a dystopian economy and the creation of an "absent state" (Davis, 2011). Since its very first day, this US lead nation-building endeavor has been flawed by a complete lack of legitimacy and its substitution with coercion by the US and the New Iraqi "State" security apparatus. Meanwhile, the imposition and the institutionalization of Ethno-sectarian affiliations as a principle of political legitimacy contributed to transform the different communities of Iraq into main avenues for access and control of scarce economic and political resources. In a way, US occupation and new Iraqi elites were deflecting the political question of right following a movement similar to what Mamdani and Brown describe as a "Culturalisation of Politics" (2004, 2006). The result was a failure to establish a legitimate and functional political and economic order. This led to the rise of a System of Violence, organized around networks of violence. Within the System of Violence, Culturalisation of Politics would be translated into Culturalisation of Violence. This would contribute to the sectarianisation of space in Baghdad and other localities of Iraq, as well as "manufacturing" (Gregory, 2008) and essentialising sectarian representations and identifications within the society.