Functions of collective victimhood

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orla Lynch ◽  
Carmel Joyce
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Protracted Conflict ◽  
The Social ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
Collective Victimhood

The conflict that played out in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1998 is commonly referred to as the Troubles. Over the course of almost 30 years just under 3,700 people were killed and an estimated 40,000–80,000 injured; it is thought that 80% of the population of Northern Ireland knew someone who had been killed or injured in the violence. The protracted conflict that played out between local communities, the state and paramilitary organisations left a legacy of community division in the region; competing narratives of victimhood emerged and they served to inform intergroup relations. This article will provide a brief overview of the functions of collective victimhood as manifested in the social psychological literature, drawing on the example of the Troubles in Northern Ireland as a case study. In doing so, we will focus particularly on the mobilisation of collective victimhood as both a precursor for involvement in conflict but also as a justification after the event. Additionally, we are interested in the superordinate (broad societal level) re-categorisations of subgroups based on collective identities, including victimhood, and how they can be used as a conflict transformation resource. Ultimately, we will argue that research has tended to overlook how those involved in (as well as those impacted by) the Troubles construct and mobilise victimhood identities, for what purpose and to what end. We argue that in order to understand how collective victimhood is used and to understand the function it serves, both as a precursor for involvement in conflict and as a conflict transformation resource, we need to understand how parties to the conflict, both victims and perpetrators, construct the boundaries of these identity categories, as well as their rhetorical counterpart perpetrators of political violence.

The Northern Ireland Political Collection at the Linen Hall Library

2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 175-177
Author(s):  
John Gray
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Local Community ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers

Despite the social and political divisions of Northern Ireland, a unique archive of materials documenting the ‘Troubles’ has been established. This article briefly examines how the collection was built up, noting some of the difficulties inherent in this process, and discusses the issues to be resolved in cataloguing and indexing this very diverse collection to maximize access for both academic researchers and the local community.

Belfast Blues

Worldview ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
Richard J. Neuhaus
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
White Paper ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The People ◽  
Moments Of Truth

Take or leave a few lives, about 865 people have been killed by political violence in Northern Ireland since the troubles broke out afresh in 1969. It is not improbable that the toll will reach a thousand by March, 1974. The outsider is inclined to view March, 1974, as a kind of moment of truth for Northern Ireland, for that is the date by which, according to the British “White Paper“ of March, 1973, the people of Northern Ireland are to get themselves together around an elected Assembly. What happens if they don't get themselves together by then is unclear, but the alternatives now under discussion are not pleasant to contemplate. An outsider, such as I, might view March, 1974, as the fast approaching moment of truth, but as one Protestant leader there remarked: “Ireland has been undergoing ‘moments of truth,’ ‘definitive crises’ and 'once-and-for-all decisions’ for several hundred years now.

scholarly journals Journeys through the Hidden City: Giving visibility to the Material Events of conflict in Belfast

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 1053-1075 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Coyles
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Inner City ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Government Documents ◽  
Sectarian Conflict ◽  
Foucauldian Analysis

The ‘peace-walls’ of Belfast represent a widely acknowledged architectural legacy of the Troubles, the period between 1969 and 1994 when sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland was most extreme. This paper reveals a further crucial but unacknowledged architectural legacy. It is a Hidden City of unassuming inner-city architecture where everyday pervasiveness masks a capacity to perpetuate conflict-era forces in a post-conflict city. The first half of the paper presents a Foucauldian analysis of declassified government documents revealing the knowledge created through undisclosed systems of power-relations. Here a problematisation of accepted norms reassesses the Troubles-era urban landscape and exposes the latent significance of its socio-material complexity. The second half of the paper illustrates the material consequences of related hidden policy practices on the contemporary post-conflict community. It borrows from Goffman to offer an exposition of the institutionalisation of movement and meaning at play in the Hidden City. A triangulation of interviews, photography and architectural fieldwork is used to theorise the Material Event, a construction of meaning derived from the interaction between people, architecture and the wider systems of power-relations. The paper concludes by demonstrating the complexity of the systemic challenges posed by the Material Events and how these help constrain conflict-transformation practices.

Introduction to The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Johanna Ray Vollhardt
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Psychological Research ◽  
Collective Victimhood ◽  
Level Of Analysis

This chapter introduces the volume and gives a brief overview of its structure and the content of each chapter. The chapter describes the nature of social psychological research on collective victimhood to date, defines the concept, and provides an organizing framework for scholarship on collective victimhood. This framework emphasizes the interplay of structural and individual-level factors that need to be considered, as well as how the social psychology of collective victimhood is studied at the micro-, meso-, and macro level of analysis. In order to avoid a determinist and simplistic view of collective victimhood, it is crucial to consider the different ways in which people actively construe and make sense of collective victimization of their group(s). It is also important to consider the role of power, history, and other structural factors that together shape the diversity of experiences of collective victimization as well as the consequences of collective victimhood.

scholarly journals 'Making Strange': Defamiliarising Perspectives on the Troubles

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Stephanie Schwerter ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Medbh Mcguckian ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
New Vision ◽  
Literature History

In Irish literature a substantial number of writers turn to different cultures and histories in order to contemplate on their own environment through the lens of otherness. In particular, poets from Northern Ireland draw upon contrasting literary traditions to articulate their personal experience of political violence through an international framework. In the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin and Medbh McGuckian a noticeably strong link between Northern Ireland and pre- and post-revolutionary Russia can be discerned. Through allusions to Russian literary figures, politicians and social conflicts, the three poets attempt to reconsider established power structures ingrained in Northern Irish society and challenge conventional interpretations of the Troubles. Employing Victor Shklovsky’s technique of defamiliarisation, Heaney, Paulin and McGuckian take Russia as a point of comparison and contrast. In so doing, they attempt to generate a new vision of the Northern Irish situation and work against the traditionally one-sided discourse of the conflict. In the following article I analyse the different ways in which the three writers establish links to Russian literature, history and culture in order to give voice to their individual perceptions of contemporary Northern Ireland. In this context, I shall shed light on the reasons why they feel compelled to look outside their own culture in order to come to terms with the Northern Irish Troubles.

scholarly journals The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Caste System ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
Psychological Consequences ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Psychological Experience ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Victimhood

This book provides an overview of current social psychological scholarship on collective victimhood. Drawing on different contexts of collective victimization—such as those due to genocide, war, ethnic or religious conflict, racism, colonization, Islamophobia, the caste system, and other forms of direct and structural collective violence—this edited volume presents theoretical ideas and empirical findings concerning the psychological experience of being targeted by collective violence in the past or present. Specifically, the book addresses questions such as: How are experiences of collective victimization passed down in groups and understood by those who did not experience the violence personally? How do people cope with and make sense of collective victimization of their group? How do the different perceptions of collective victimization feed into positive versus hostile relations with other groups? How does group-based power shape these processes? Who is included in or excluded from the category of “victims,” and what are the psychological consequences of such denial versus acknowledgment? Which individual psychological processes such as needs or personality traits shape people’s responses to collective victimization? What are the ethical challenges of researching collective victimization, especially when these experiences are recent and/or politically contested? This edited volume offers different theoretical perspectives on these questions and shows the importance of examining both individual and structural influences on the psychological experience of collective victimhood—including attention to power structures, history, and other aspects of the social and political context that help explain the diversity in experiences of and responses to collective victimization.

The United States and the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, 1967–1998

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cooper
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
American Interest ◽  
The Social ◽  
Problematic Issue ◽  
Sectarian Conflict ◽  
Irish Question

The relationship between the United States and the island of Ireland combines nostalgic sentimentality and intervention in the sectarian conflict known as the “Troubles.” Irish migration to the United States remains a celebrated and vital part of the American saga, while Irish American interest—and involvement—in the “Troubles” during the second half of the 20th century was a problematic issue in transatlantic relations and for those seeking to establish a peaceful political consensus on the Irish question. Paradoxically, much of the historiography of American–Irish relations addresses the social, economic, and cultural consequences of the Irish in America, yet the major political issue—namely the United States’ approach to the “Troubles”—has only recently become subject of thorough historiographical inquiry. As much as the Irish have contributed to developments in American history, the American contribution to the Anglo-Irish process, and ultimate peace process, in order to end conflict in Northern Ireland is an example of the peacemaking potential of US foreign policy.

Digital Resource: Conflict Textiles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsie Doolan
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
South America ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Shining Path ◽  
Dirty War ◽  
Resource Conflict ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Digital Resource ◽  
The Government ◽  
Made In

The Conflict Textiles website is a digital resource that allows users to learn more about how individuals who have experienced or been impacted by political violence have used textiles to respond to and recount their experiences. Some of the textiles on the website were made in response to the wars and conflicts in South America in the 1970s and 1980s (including the Dirty War in Argentina, the Pinochet regime in Chile, and the conflict in Peru between the government and the Shining Path), while others have emerged as a response to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The majority of the textiles were created by women, though in some instances, men have also contributed to their creation. Conflict Textiles is the name of both the digital resource and a physical collection of textiles. Originating from the Art of Survival International and Irish Quilts in 2009 in Derry, Northern Ireland, this collection and online repository highlights the prolific use of textiles as a medium through which individuals are able to express themselves and the overarching nature of this medium as a form of expression. These two entities, the website and the physical collection, coexist, with the Conflict Textiles website documenting the textiles present in the physical collection and events that occur, or have occurred, in association with the collection. In this way, the Conflict Textiles website serves as an online repository of the physical Conflict Textiles collection and allows users internationally to learn more about a collection that includes textiles from dozens of different countries including, but not limited to, Chile, Northern Ireland, and Argentina.

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