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Women and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland Amanda E University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2013 "Wee Women's Work:" Women and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland Amanda E. Donahoe University of Denver, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Recommended Citation Donahoe, Amanda E., ""Wee Women's Work:" Women and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 167. This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “WEE WOMEN’S WORK:” WOMEN AND PEACEBUILDING IN NORTHERN IRELAND __________ A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies University of Denver __________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy __________ by Amanda E. Donahoe August 2013 Advisor: Tim Sisk ©Copyright by Amanda E. Donahoe 2013 All Rights Reserved Author: Amanda E. Donahoe Title: “WEE WOMEN’S WORK:” WOMEN AND PEACEBUILDING IN NORTHERN IRELAND Advisor: Tim Sisk Degree Date: August 2013 ABSTRACT International norms on intrastate conflicts, such as United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, call for women to participate in peace processes in countries emerging from conflict and civil strife, including those divided by identity-based conflict. However, scholars of post-war recovery in international relations and comparative politics have raised questions about the extent and effect of women’s participation in peace processes, and in politics more generally, in divided societies given underlying social, economic, and political barriers that impeded access to decisive or authoritative political decision-making. A critical question in the literature on women’s participation in post-conflict reconciliation-related dialogue and joint action relates to whether intra- group “community development” focusing principally on social and economic concerns can contribute to fostering women’s participation in intergroup reconciliation and peacebuilding. This study explores the experiences of community development in Northern Ireland with the research question: How and under what conditions do women contribute to peacebuilding? The research represents formal interviews with experts in the community and voluntary sector and the women’s sector, informal focus groups, and six months of ethnographic field research based primarily in Belfast. Northern Ireland is a case of protracted social conflict in which the society is still deeply divided, despite successful implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. Women played a significant ii role in the peace process by forming their own political party—the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition—and yet are poorly represented in political institutions today. Instead, women dominate the field of community development contributing to peace through capacity-building and other bottom-up practices. Women pursue community development in this case for two broad reasons: first, because it is not political in the formal institutional sense; second, in an environment where women are expected to play traditional roles, community development is interpreted as an extension of these roles allowing women to navigate through the constraints of a gendered public space and employ their roles as women to seek change that does not threaten the political status quo. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, thank you to the women of Northern Ireland who shared time, stories and ideas with me. I am grateful for your trust and hope that I have done well by you in these pages. Thanks also to Queens University Belfast, the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy and Yvonne Galligan for sponsoring my project. The list of people who deserve my gratitude is long and I hope that my gratitude has been appropriately given elsewhere. To my mentors and support system at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies: Martin Rhodes, Susan Rivera, Tamra d’Estree and Jack Donnelly, thank you for your networks, your advice and your kind words. Thank you to Tim Sisk for being both a positive and pragmatic dissertation director. Thank you to Mari Fitzduff for participating on my committee and for being supportive not just of this project but of me and my family. And to Nicole Nicotera who chaired my defense in the summer. Special thanks to Greg Durbin and Jeff Miller for your role in facilitating this adventure to Belfast. Also thanks to Melinda Rhodes for editing a draft of the writing, residual errors are of course mine. I also want to thank Rebecca Otis, Nick Bowen, Regina Nockerts, Roni Kay O’Dell and Joel Day for their camaraderie in this process, I hope I have been as supportive to you as you have been to me. Finally, to my fellow adventurers: Connor and Nichole your energy and smiles brought balance to this process; and Derek, what do you say about a partner who puts his life on hold to move across an ocean, live in a tiny apartment, get rain-drenched for six months of a life of poverty . and tries to convince me it was his idea? There is nothing to say except thank you. I simply could not have done this without you. iv CONTENTS Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Methodology ......................................................................................................... 10 Design of the Dissertation ..................................................................................... 20 Chapter One: Conceptual Orientation ............................................................................... 21 Peacebuilding ........................................................................................................ 21 UNSCR 1325 ............................................................................................ 32 Political Activity ................................................................................................... 41 Civil Society .......................................................................................................... 53 Chapter Two: Setting the Scene ........................................................................................ 62 Gender in Northern Ireland ................................................................................... 62 Using the Language of Identity ................................................................. 67 Troubles: the Gendered Past ................................................................................. 72 Chapter Three: The Agreement and The Divide ............................................................... 90 The Coalition and the Peace Process .................................................................... 90 Benign Apartheid: a Tour of Belfast ................................................................... 109 Attitudes of Sectarian Divide .............................................................................. 116 There Is No Peace Here .......................................................................... 119 Chapter Four: The Development of Community Development ..................................... 125 A Framework ...................................................................................................... 129 Community Building .......................................................................................... 137 Community Development ................................................................................... 144 From Para-Military to Para-Community Worker................................................ 152 Representative vs. Participative Politics ............................................................. 160 Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 166 Chapter Five: Wee Women’s Work ................................................................................ 167 Women’s Groups and Community Development ............................................... 167 Women’s Centres ................................................................................................ 170 Umbrellas ............................................................................................................ 190 The Work of the Women’s Sector ...................................................................... 205 Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 220 Chapter Six: The Big Lads .............................................................................................. 224 Women in Politics ............................................................................................... 226 Parties .................................................................................................................. 238 Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 247 Chapter Seven: Overt Peacebuilding .............................................................................. 250 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 260 v Findings ..............................................................................................................
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