Fluid or frozen? Choice and change in ethno-national identification in contemporary Northern Ireland

Nationalism and Ethnic Politics

Volumn 12, Issue 3-4, 2006, Pages 323-346

  Todd, Jennifer ^a   O'Keefe, Theresa ^a   Rougier, Nathalie ^a   Bottos, Lorenzo Cañás ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNOPOLITICS; IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION; NATIONAL IDENTITY; NATIONALISM;

EURASIA; EUROPE; NORTHERN IRELAND; UNITED KINGDOM; WESTERN EUROPE;

EID: 33748991710     PISSN: 13537113     EISSN: 15572986     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13537110600882429     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity, Vol. II of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997);
2. Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: Sage, 1992);
3. Michael Keating, Plurinational Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
4. Walker Connor, Ethno-nationalism: The Quest for Understanding (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994);
5. Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985);
6. John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary, Explaining Northern Ireland: Broken Images (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995);
7. Daniele Conversi (ed.), Ethno-nationalism in the Contemporary World: Walker Connor and the Study of Nationalism (London: Routledge, 2002).
8. Rogers Brubaker, "Ethnicity without Groups," Archives Europénnes de Sociologie, Vol. 42, No. 2 (2002);
9. Connor; Richard Jenkins, Social Identity (London: Routledge, 1996);
10. Joseph Ruane and Jennifer Todd, "The Roots of Intense Ethnic Conflict May Not in Fact Be Ethnic: Categories, Communities and Path Dependence," Archives Européennes de Sociologie, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2004), pp.209-32.
11. Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, "Beyond "Identity,"" Theory and Society, Vol. 29 (2000).
12. See Doug McAdam, Sidney G. Tarrow and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
13. Francisco J Gil-White, "How thick is blood? The plot thickens...: If ethnic actors are primordialists, what remains of the circumstantialist/ primordialist controversy?," Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 22, No. 5 (1999);
14. Rogers Brubaker, Mara Loveman and Peter Stamatov, "Ethnicity as Cognition," Theory and Society, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2004).
15. Connor; Conversi (ed.); Ruane and Todd, "The Roots of Intense Ethnic Conflict."
16. Richard D. Ashmore, Kay Deaux and Tracy McLaughlin-Volpe, "An Organizing Framework for Collective Identity: Articulation and Significance of Multidimensionality," Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 130, No. 1 (2004).
17. See Ruane and Todd, The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, Conflict, and Emancipation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
18. John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary, The Northern Ireland Conflict: Consociational Engagements (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004);
19. McGarry and O'Leary, Explaining Northern Ireland.
20. Robin Wilson and Rick Wilford "A Route to Stability: The Review of the Belfast Agreement," in Democratic Dialogue Discussion Paper (Belfast: Democratic Dialogue, 2003), http://www.democraticdialogue.org/working/agreview files/agreview.pdf.
21. Maurna Crozier (ed.) Cultural Traditions in Northern Ireland: Varieties of Irishness (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast, 1989);
22. John Coakley, "Mobilizing the Past: Nationalist Images of History," Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 10, No. 4 (2004);
23. Joseph Ruane, "Ireland, European Integration and the Dialectic of Nationalism and Postnationalism," Etudes Irlandaises, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1994).
24. E.E. Davis and Richard Sinnott, "Attitudes in the Republic of Ireland Relevant to the Northern Ireland Problem," in Working Paper no. 97 (Dublin: Economic and Social Research Institute, 1979);
25. Kurt Bowen, Protestants in A Catholic State: Ireland's Privileged Minority (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1983).
26. Edward Moxon-Browne, Nation, Class, and Creed in Northern Ireland (Aldershot: Gower, 1983);
27. Colin Coulter, Contemporary Northern Irish Society: An Introduction (London: Pluto Press, 1999);
28. Ruane and Todd, The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland.
29. Karen Trew, "The Northern Irish Identity," in A. Kershen (ed.), A Question of Identity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998);
30. Karen Trew, "National Identity," in Richard Breen, Paula Devine, and Lizanne Dowds (eds.), Social Attitudes in Northern Ireland: The Fifth Report (Belfast: Appletree, 1996);
31. Moxon-Browne.
32. The interviews ranged over the local political spectrum, and there was a representative gender- and religion-distribution: The middle class was over-represented in this sample and the youngest cohort (under 25) underrepresented. Respondents are identified as JM2PWB1, with the letters signifying the interviewer; the gender of the interviewee; the generation; the religion; the broad category of work; the place; and the number of the interview.
33. This study covered a very wide range of diverse social categories. Respondents are identified by interviewer, place of interview and number of interview: O'Keefe D5
34. The interviewers were J. Todd and J. Ruane. These interviews were not taped but the interviewers recounted them onto tape immediately afterwards and transcribed this account subsequently. The individuals were representative in gender, political and religious distribution and in terms of social background.
35. See Harry Goulbourne, Ethnicity and Nationalism in Post-Imperial Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
36. Raphael Samuel (ed.), Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity (London: Routledge, 1989).
37. Jennifer Todd, "Two Traditions in Unionist Political Culture," Irish Political Studies, Vol. 2 (1987);
38. John Whyte, Interpreting Northern Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 67-71.
39. See Life and Times, Community Relations Module, 1999, http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt.
40. Joseph Ruane and Jennifer Todd, "Old and new Irish Nationalisms: Reading the Belfast Agreement," in Joseph Ruane, Jennifer Todd, and Anne Mandeville (eds.), Europe's Old States and the New World Order: The Politics of Transition in Britain, France and Spain (Dublin: UCD Press, 2003). Examples in our study include O'Keefe A14 and NF2NWC14.
41. LM2NPH1. Another example is JF2PMB02.
42. JM3CSB01.
43. NF1FWP01. Other examples of change include JF2PMB01 and O'Keefe's A7 and A20.
44. NM3NTC10.
45. See for example LF3OCY1, OKeefe A14, A15 and several of the 1988 interviews by Todd and Ruane.
46. There are very clear examples in the 1988 interviews. For a parallel difficulty of category shift, see O'Keefe, D 54 and JM2PBD01.
47. LM2EPY1.
48. Richard Rose, Governing Without Consensus: An Irish Perspective (London: Faber & Faber, 1971), p. 209.
49. O'Keefe, A6. Similar cases, if less extreme, are A16, A7 and A9.
50. Moxon-Browne.
51. Karen Trew, "The Northern Irish Identity"
52. O. Muldoon, K. Trew, J. Todd, N. Rougier and K. McLaughlin, "The Nature and Meaning of Identity in Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement," Political Psychology (forthcoming);
53. "Northern Ireland Life & Times," Young Life and Times Survey, http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt.
54. Ashmore, Deaux and McLaughlin-Volpe call this the "group story," p. 96.
55. Ibid., p. 96, call this the "collective identity story" and hypothesize that this narrative will be highly elaborated in those cases where being national matters.
56. See JF2CD01 and Todd, "Identity, Identity Change and Group Boundaries in Northern Ireland," unpublished manuscript.
57. JM1CMD01, JF1CHD01 and also see Cañás Bottos and Rougier in this volume.
58. NF1FWP01, JF1PWB01 and LM2OPY1.
59. LM1OCY1. See also LF3SCY5.
60. NF2NHC04
61. NM1NRC06.
62. Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995);
63. Roger Dale Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-century Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002);
64. Sudhir Kakar, The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
65. Jenkins; Michèle Lamont, The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration (New York, London: Russell Sage Foundation; Harvard University Press, 2000).
66. LM2NPH1.
67. O'Keefe, A16. The incident was one of a series that had essentializing effects for both communities. See Adrian Millar, The Constitution of Republican Identity in Belfast: A Lacanian Psychoanalytic Approach (PhD Thesis, University College Dublin, 1999).
68. See McLaughlin et al., in this volume.
69. JF2CMB01, JF1PSD01.
70. The first example is from one of Todd's 1988 interviews;
71. also LM2EPY1;
72. JF2PMB01.
73. LM2OC01.
74. Todd, "Identity, Identity Change and Group Boundaries in Northern Ireland" Geary working paper 2006/6. (Dublin: Geary Institute, UCD, 2006). See www.ucd.ie/geary.
75. Connor; McGarry and O'Leary, Explaining Northern Ireland.
76. NF2NMC07.