Abstract
How and when do ordinary citizens in divided societies press beyond group constraints and transform ethnic divisions? This chapter outlines the aims of the book and argues that we need to complement studies of group opposition with study of the equally basic impulse to individual reflexive change away from group constraints. It shows that the Irish cases—Northern Ireland after conflict and the Republic of Ireland—form a sort of natural experiment where the issues can be explored in societies where national and ethnic divisions are historically deep and institutionally embedded. It outlines the context of interview research in twenty-first century Ireland, North and South, and the content of the chapters that follow.
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- 1.
The trends range from evolutionary biologism (criticized by Brubaker 2015) to socially focused analyses of the ontological depth of identity (e.g. see Giddens 1991) and developments in social psychology which hold together an emphasis on depth of identity and on change in it (Bar-Tal 2013; Schwartz et al. 2011; Jaspal and Breakwell 2014).
- 2.
- 3.
The official name of the Republic of Ireland is (currently) Ireland. Because this appears to conflate state, island and nation, I follow common usage in speaking of the ‘Republic of Ireland’, alternating this with the politically neutral term ‘Irish state’, to describe the 26-county society and the state that governs it. I use the official name, Northern Ireland, for the north-eastern six counties of the island. For stylistic variation, and as is common in Northern Ireland, I also distinguish ‘the South’ (the Republic) from ‘the North’.
- 4.
Goertz and Mahoney (2012, pp. 177–191) argue that the capacity to find mechanisms of potentially wider scope is one of the benefits of qualitative study.
- 5.
Map made by Dr. Eoin O’Mahony, University College Dublin, for this volume.
- 6.
In both parts of Ireland, ‘nationality’ is treated as synonymous with ‘national identity’ and I follow this usage in this book.
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- 8.
This converges with Bayat’s (2010) studies of the Middle East and North Africa.
- 9.
Here my argument converges with the schools of thought that see nationality as a frame that is consistent with variation of content and political import (Bonikowski 2016; Malešević 2013; Anderson 1991) and that see religion as resource as much as ideology (Roy 2013; Brewer et al. 2011; Ganiel 2008).
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Todd, J. (2018). Reflexivity and Group Identity in Divided Societies. In: Identity Change after Conflict. Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98503-9_1
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