1st Edition

Gender, Nationalism and Conflict Transformation New Themes and Old Problems in Northern Ireland Politics

By Fidelma Ashe Copyright 2019
    188 Pages
    by Routledge

    188 Pages
    by Routledge

    Utilising Northern Ireland as a case study, this book presents an analysis of the gender and sexual politics of conflict transformation.



    The book synthesises a vast array of international sources with the author’s empirical and theoretical research to produce a powerful gendered critique of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland. It maps the negative effects of the region’s violent conflict on gender and sexual equality and explores the potential of the conflict transformational processes, set in motion by the 1998 Peace Agreement, to transform relationships between different genders and sexualities. Starting from the feminist proposition that building peace requires the inclusion of issues of gender and sexual equality, the author analyses how the new institutional and semantic structures of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland preserved older conservative narratives about gender and sexuality. As older narratives clashed with progressive forms of sexual and gender politics, the core sites of conflict transformation became arenas of gender and sexual struggles. The book outlines these struggles, and charts the positive and inclusive visions of peace developed by activists throughout the period of conflict transformation.



    This book will be of much interest to students of gender studies, conflict transformation, ethnic conflict, peace studies and Irish politics.

    1. Introduction  2. Gender, Sexuality and Conflict Transformation  3. Gendering the Accord  4. Gender, Sexuality and the New Institutions  5. Masculinities, Power and Transition  6. Gender and Renegotiating the Peace  7. Bodies and Conflict Transformation  8. Conclusions

    Biography

    Fidelma Ashe is a member of the Transitional Justice Research Institute at Ulster University, UK. She is an expert on gender, sexuality and conflict transformation and has written widely on the subject. She is author of The New Politics of Masculinity: Men, Power and Resistance (2007).