When conflict, competing identities, and segregation collide; Identity, Segregation and Peace-building in Northern Ireland explores the implications for peace-building in Northern Ireland, and across the globe.

When conflict, competing identities, and segregation collide; Identity, Segregation and Peace-building in Northern Ireland explores the implications for peace-building in Northern Ireland, and across the globe.

Examines segregation and its impact on social divisions and the peace process.

Since the troubles began in the late 1960s, people in Northern Ireland have been working together to bring about a peaceful end to the conflict. Building Peace in Northern Irelandexamines the different forms of peace and reconciliation work that have taken place. Maria Power has brought together an international group of scholars to examine initiatives such as integrated education, faith-based peace building, cross-border cooperation, and women's activism, as well as the impact that government policy and European funding have had upon the development of peace and reconciliation organizations.

This book incorporates recent research that emphasizes the need for civil society and a grassroots approach to peacebuilding while taking into account a variety of perspectives, including neoconservatism and revolutionary analysis. The contributions, which include the reflections of those involved in the negotiation and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, also provide policy prescriptions for modern conflicts.

This book examines the role of local peacebuilders in Northern Ireland and some of the challenges they face. The work explores the perspective and experiences of local peacebuilders in Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic of Ireland about their analysis and critique of liberal peacebuilding, their hopes, and concerns, and how they are aligned with external funders. It features interviews with a plethora of civil society organization workers, funding agency community development officers, and civil servants adjudicating the International Fund for Ireland and the European Union Peace and Rconciliation Fund, which highlight the participants’ local wisdom, practices, and values regarding creating sustainable livelihoods, peacebuilding insights, receiving recognition for their work, dissonance with internal and external actors, conflict transformation efforts, and and engagement with partners and allies. The rich empirical qualitative exploratory case study, situated in post-peace accord Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic of Ireland, speaks to the respondents’ ideas about the creation, delivery, and efficacy of peacebuilding-funded initiatives as well as their hopes and dreams for the future. In exploring this central argument, the work offers an overarching structure in which to analyze the theory and praxis of conflict and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. More generally, it offers an important contribution to our understanding of local peacebuilders, and how economic assistance impacts on a divided society. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, sociology, and British and Irish politics.

This volume brings together perspectives on social identity and peace psychology to explore the role that categorization plays in both conflict and peace-building. To do so, it draws leading scholars from across the world in a comprehensive exploration of social identity theory and its application to some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as intrastate conflict, uprising in the middle east, the refugee crisis, global warming, racism and peace building. A crucial theme of the volume is that social identity theory affects all of us, no matter whether we are currently in a state of conflict or one further along in the peace process. The volume is organized into two sections. Section 1 focuses on the development of social identity theory. Grounded in the pioneering work of Dr. Henri Tajfel, section 1 provides the reader with a historical background of the theory, as well as its current developments. Then, section 2 brings together a series of country case studies focusing on issues of identity across five continents. This section enables cross-cultural comparisons in terms of methodology and findings, and encourages the reader to identify general applications of identity to the understanding of peace as well as applications that may be more relevant in specific contexts. Taken together, these two sections provide a contemporary and diverse account of the state of social identity research in conflict situations and peace psychology today. It is evident that any account of peace requires an intricate understanding of identity both as a cause and consequence of conflict, as well as a potential resource to be harnessed in the promotion and maintenance of peace. Understanding Peace and Conflict Through Social Identity Theory: Contemporary Global Perspectives aims to help achieve such an understanding and as such is a valuable resource to those studying peace and conflict, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, public policy makers, and all those interested in the ways in which social identity impacts our world.