Belfast

Segregation, Violence and the City

Peter Shirlow, Brendan Murtagh

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN:
  9780745324814
  9780745324814
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781849642064
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

Paris, Jerusalem and Belfast are cities that are shaped by political violence, death and the injustices caused by segregated living. But divided cities are becoming places within which policy makers and politicians project an image of normality despite the facts of social injustice, victimhood and harm. It is a commonly held view that the city of Belfast is emerging out of conflict and into a new era of tolerance and transformation. This book challenges this viewpoint. The authors pinpoint how international peace accords, such as the Belfast Agreement, are gradually eroded as conflict shifts into a stale and repetitive pattern of ethnically-divided competition over resources. This book is a vivid portrait of how segregation, lived experience and fear are linked in a manner that undermines democratic accountability. It argues that the control of place remains the most important weapon in the politicisation of communities and the reproduction of political violence. Segregation provides the laboratory within which sectarianism continues to grow.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Even in Death Do Us Stay Apart
• 2 The Belfast Disagreement
• 3 Interfacing, Violence and Wicked Problems
• 4 Between Segregated Communities
• 5 Coasting in the Other City
• 6 Workspaces, Segregation and Mixing
• 7 Ethnic Poker: Policy and the Divided City
• 8 Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index