Murphy Out of Place: Ethnographic Anxiety and its ‘Telling’ Consequences

Liam D. Murphy

ABSTRACT: In , Northern Ireland, as elsewhere, myriad problems of epistemology and research design confront ethnographers entering the field for the first time. While these often remain a permanently taxing wellspring of frustration and anxiety, their apparent resolution through experience can occasionally lull researchers into a false sense of security in the context of social interaction with field respondents. By explor- ing an instance in which the author neglected to apply his understanding of the im- portant Northern Ireland phenomenon of ‘telling’, the article shows how method and epistemology should always be borne in mind during fieldwork situations—even those implicitly discounted a priori as nonethnographic. While such relaxation of self- awareness may precipitate various blunders and ethnographic faux-pas, it also opens up spaces of critical inquiry into the collaborative constitution of selves and others in field situations, and refocuses the ethnographer’s awareness of his positioning as an outsider in webs of social activity.

KEYWORDS: fieldwork, reflexivity, telling, religion, Belfast, Northern Ireland, method, ethnography

Anthropology is an academic discipline whose this socially complex city proved especially practitioners pride themselves on intimate daunting as I began my doctoral fieldwork knowledge of their surroundings, but this is al- among charismatic and evangelical Christians. ways more easily declared than accomplished— Preoccupied with the most immediate con- regardless of where one chooses to conduct cerns of life, epistemology and the issue of self- fieldwork. Even among seasoned ethnographic representation were, of necessity, secondary veterans, the world as we find it often con- considerations to me in those first weeks. Find- founds even the most well considered research ing a flat, providing for my financial security agenda. Mastering the practicalities of every- and getting accustomed to my new neighbour- day living can displace the ambition to ‘really’ hood in south Belfast absorbed me—especially begin one’s research, and can even lull field- as regards the locations of shops, grocers and workers into a sense of false security about launderettes (the pocket-sized booklet of maps their achievement (indispensable though this that I carried with me at all times soon became is). Elements of my own experience in North- dog-eared and ragged). Having visited the city ern Ireland may perhaps serve as a cautionary before on several short trips, I struggled for tale in this regard. some weeks to re-acquaint myself with key As a novice fieldworker, newly arrived in Bel- landmarks, bus routes, main traffic arteries and fast in September 1997, my ambition to ‘know’ intersections, the ‘functional’ distinctiveness of

Anthropology in Action, 13, 1–2 (2006): 78–86 © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action doi:10.3167/aia.2006.131210 Ethnographic Anxiety and ‘Telling’ | AiA different neighbourhoods (economic, govern- and anecdotal remarks have certainly found mental, residential etc.) and the many informal their way into these pages. and quasi-official boundaries that delimit the In addition to in-depth interviewing, in the various residential enclaves and housing es- best ethnographic tradition, participant obser- tates throughout the greater urban area. vation was central to my methodological toolkit. Only with the passage of many weeks did Throughout my time in Belfast, I was fortunate these early preoccupations give way to more to discover the many options that existed for substantive considerations related to my field- pursuing this aspect of fieldwork, as by and work. Even then, those familiar with the com- large, and regardless of religious conviction, plexities of ethnographic research design will those I met were exceptionally gracious in al- doubtless recognise or even identify with my lowing me to participate in the weekly rounds efforts to curtail the bewilderment that threat- of activity. Indeed, by late autumn, 1997, I was ened to engulf me during my first months in becoming increasingly alarmed that there the field. My central concern was to define a might prove too many organisations, churches, community of subjects among who to conduct encounter groups and communities in which I research—a deceptively difficult task—some- might reasonably expect to meet and get to know how much easier in my dissertation proposal religious virtuosi, entrepreneurs and devotees. than it ever proved on the ground. Much trou- As fieldnotes, newspaper clippings, audio- bled by this unresolved issue, I often com- recorded interviews, religious tracts and book- forted myself with the certain knowledge that length testimonies accumulated, my first months ‘my’ choices were almost certain not to be my in the field posed the nightmarish logistical own, but ‘theirs’. The stark reality of ethno- difficulty of separating the proverbial wheat graphic investigation is that researchers must from the chafe. Running the gamut from large, be somewhat opportunistic about their sources, bureaucratic and impersonal to small and and one’s opportunities are generally made grounded in personal connections and friend- available through the goodwill, or at least in- ships; formal churches to informal ‘para- terest, of those one meets, often by accident. churches’; permanent to ephemeral; and from While I had already been fortunate in being fully charismatic to partially so to ‘disenchanted’ welcomed by members of several prominent rationalists, early on it concerned me not so churches and religious communities, there much that I would fail to engage potential re- were hardly any guarantees that my good for- spondents, but that I might not make informed tune would endure. Still, I found that a cumu- decisions about how best to focus my efforts. lative approach to sampling, in which I eagerly With how many such organisations could I rea- followed up on all potential contacts (a name sonably expect to become familiar during my dropped here, an phone number scribbled lengthy, but ultimately finite stay in Belfast? down there); showed up uninvited and unan- Certainly during the first weeks of my field- nounced at various public events and services work, this was a torturous question to which I of which I had got wind; assiduously culled returned repeatedly as I forged ahead. Through- leaflets, flyers, newspapers and telephone di- out, I hoped fervently that an answer would rectories; and filled my diary and notebooks suddenly present itself—springing fully formed with interviews with any and all who would from the pages of my fieldnotes, as Aphrodite agree to speak to me over a cup of coffee, was from the oceanic foam or Eve from Adam’s rib. more productive and efficient than I had first Perhaps inevitably, such decisions proved expected. In addition to more formal encoun- more analogous to Procrustes’ bed than to any ters, innumerable spontaneous conversations epiphany or revelation on my part. While

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problems of inclusion and exclusion dogged how social encounters are fraught, on all sides, me throughout my sojourn, I eventually found with efforts to simultaneously organise knowl- solace in an eclectic strategy that, while per- edge about selves and others. At times, such haps imperfect in the sense of not exhausting encounters and the anxieties that mark them every possible avenue of research, was never- as significant (scorching them into the anthro- theless comprehensive in terms of the sheer pologist’s awareness to such an extent as to range of practices and perspectives that it al- easily be recalled years later) are provoked by lowed me to collect. Thus, over the course of sophomoric mistakes made by the researchers the year, I spoke, worked, prayed and/or social- themselves. ised with members of some dozen avowedly Consider, for instance, the following anec- religious institutions and programmes of one dote from my own experience in Belfast. On stripe or another.1 the evening of 11 July 2003 (known in North- In all, and with the hindsight of eight or nine ern Ireland as ‘Eleventh Night’), I was invited years, it is clear that I suffered, in those early to accompany a small cohort of students and days, from a stubborn case of ethnographic researchers interested in ‘making the rounds’ ‘performance anxiety’—a persistent worry of a few of South Belfast’s more notorious bon- that I would somehow fail to pull together into fires. Eagerly accepting the invitation, and only a coherent whole the various threads of my ever having observed such spectacles from a research interest, and that, somehow, I would cautious distance, I was anxious to know at never achieve that critical mass of support from first hand what could be expected to happen at field respondents upon which even the most these events, especially given their notoriety. In well respected ethnographers depend. the several weeks leading up to the night itself, Notwithstanding that such concerns linger, I had made a point of traversing the greater ur- painfully, with many anthropologists long af- ban area in search of these fascinating sites of ter they have been initiated into their fieldsites, loyalist culture, here noting the gradual accu- it is important to recall that these anxieties pro- mulation and haphazard stacking of crates and vide a necessary corrective to the overconfi- tyres,2 there observing the playground antics dent and the careless. While I do not propose of preteens and bored youth, climbing about to overindulge what Geertz (1988: 90) has called on the piles of debris and even setting small the ‘diary disease’, let alone advocate a Mali- fires in anticipation of the main event. Typi- nowskian exegesis on the social functions of cally, the towers to be set alight are erected on anxiety, I do suggest that moments of inner tur- traditional, barren spaces of varying dimen- moil and conflict provide, ex post facto and pref- sions in urban and suburban loyalist enclaves. erably from the comfort of one’s academic Unadorned and desolate for much of the year, ‘safe house’ several years down the line, a con- these sites and their residential hinterlands are ceptual space in which to explore the subtle and transformed annually in anticipation of the not-so-subtle interplay between anthropolo- Twelfth of July. The signs of this metamorpho- gists and the people they work among. As Bour- sis typically begin to appear in early June, as dieu notes, this should not be an exercise in gable walls, curbstones, telephone poles and indulging nostalgia, but rather an effort to at- other bare surfaces3 are festooned with the bright tain reflexivity ‘by subjecting the position of the union jacks and paramilitary flags, bunting and observer to the same critical analysis as that of the murals that are ubiquitous in unionist and the constructed object at hand’ (Bourdieu and loyalist neighborhoods throughout the march- Wacquant 1992: 41). I believe that in examining ing season. On several occasions, as I took photo- the experience of fieldworkers-qua-subjects, graphs, I nervously exchanged waves and good anthropologists may learn a great deal about natured greetings with teenagers who, striking

80 | Ethnographic Anxiety and ‘Telling’ | AiA poses for the camera, stood at full height atop roughly five city blocks between Great Victoria these alarmingly precarious pyres. Protestant Street and Shaftesbury Square just to the east and Catholic friends alike told me that in inter- and a series of small streets that comprise the face areas, these children and teens could be (likewise homogenously Protestant) Linfield expected to take up sentry duty in the final Housing Estate to the immediate west. Unlike nights leading up to 11 July, watching over the those loyalist neighbourhoods of the city’s east, unfinished towers and thus ensuring that they west and north quadrants, it thus lies but a would remain intact until needed. Were it not stone’s throw from Belfast’s shopping, educa- for their vigilance, I was jokingly assured, kids tional, recreational and governmental heart. from the ‘other side’ might be tempted to spoil Despite its proximity to the forces and institu- their fun by prematurely torching these highly tions of state, the neighbourhood is generally combustible structures. For national and inter- held to be a contested space in which patrolling national media consumption, Eleventh Night, police and security forces exercise heightened together with the Twelfth of July itself, is some- alertness, and which convention dictates is uni- times portrayed by loyalist political leaders and formly off limits to Roman Catholics. apologists as a harmless cultural festival, akin An autobiographical note is in order here. in some respects to other internationally known Because many Belfast neighbourhoods, some- events such as the New Orleans Mardi Gras or, times misleadingly called or “urban villages” indeed, the republican Fla—an annual, inter- (cf. Buckley and Kenney 1995: 20), are all but nationally recognised cultural festival held on homogeneous with respect to religion and po- the Falls Road in West Belfast. Closer to home, litical orientation, I was frequently cautioned it is widely recognised that, in sharp contrast to be prudent when wandering about generally, to the family-friendly, light-hearted multicul- and to be especially on my guard should I find turalism of the Fla, Eleventh Night festivities myself (presumably inadvertently) lost in a are invariably contentious. Among others, they staunchly loyalist enclave. In such a situation, are fraught with the possibilities of alcohol- Catholic and Protestant friends alike warned induced street violence (particularly in those me, I might consider introducing myself not as neighbourhoods that abut south Belfast’s Golden Liam (a classically Gaelic, hence Catholic name) Mile bar district), sectarian attacks, gratuitous but rather as William, Billy, or Bill (the Angli- paramilitary activity and displays, and the dam- cised equivalents). In the event, I found with aging effects of long-term environmental and very few exceptions (perhaps, as the Irish say- pollution created by the hundreds of bonfires ing goes, God really does ‘hate a coward’) that that are the Eleventh’s central focus and rally- using my Christian name had little outward ing points. impact on how people regarded me: through- While a number of pyres, of varying degrees out my fieldwork, I was uniformly treated with of craftsmanship, are to be found distributed courtesy, respect, friendliness and the generos- throughout the several loyalist, residential pock- ity of spirit for which the Irish are justifiably ets that litter the city centre, perhaps the largest well known. Of course, this does not mean that is that reared in Sandy Row—a militantly and I was never regarded with suspicion or spoken unambiguously Protestant neighbourhood (its to without some trepidation on the part of in- colours are in evidence all year round) with terviewees—indeed, there were doubtless oc- strong historical links to loyalist paramilitaries casions on which people wondered about my (most notably the Ulster Freedom Fighters motives and purposes—but what does seem [UFF], a group widely perceived to be nested clear is that Belfast’s residents are by and large within a still larger organisation, the Ulster De- familiar with the sundry activities of social- fence Association [UDA]).4 Sandy Row spans scientist researchers. A review of the cumula-

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tive interdisciplinary literature on one elderly, yet spry, man stole away a female shows that for many years, a bevy of anthro- acquaintance for a dance, another, dignified- pologists, sociologists, political scientists, his- looking septuagenarian in tweed blazer and torians, social psychologists and others, hailing cap greeted me. Having been clearly marked, from both international destinations and closer even from a distance, as a stranger to the area, to home, have been active in Belfast and else- I shook his outstretched hand. Returning his where across Northern Ireland—collecting broad smile, and struggling to hear even my data, administering surveys, conducting inter- own voice above the din, I introduced myself views, pouring through archives and libraries by name as a visitor from California. At this, and snapping photographs. Furthermore, this the man started, cocked his head and gave me observation does not even take into account an odd look which might best be described as the scores of journalists, film-makers, commu- falling between bewilderment and suspicion. nity workers, politicians and the many others Retaining his pleasant demeanour, he said in who have sought to document or report on the an undertone, ‘You’d be the only Liam Murphy lives of Northern Ireland’s people. Not with- here tonight, I can tell you that straight away’. out reason has the region become well known as With that, he turned on his heel and disap- among the most intensively studied societies peared into the expanding throng, leaving me in the world. to wonder whether I had not just made a silly In the event, and while my companions and (and potentially dangerous, given the context) I observed several conflagrations in process (for mistake. instance, in hinterland streets of what is widely Three years later, it is clear that, indeed, my known as ‘The Village’, several dozen residents lack of caution was a mistake on several levels. carefully stoked makeshift pyres in the middle To begin with, I had illegitimately removed my- of the street), the most impressive and dra- self from the field in my own imagination— matic was that held at Sandy Row. Arriving in forgetting where I was and to a certain extent the early evening at the entrance to the public caught up in the drama of the event; I lost sight grounds on which the fifty to sixty foot pyre— of that of which ethnographers should never not yet lit—had been erected, the jovial ambi- lose sight: their own irrevocable status as out- ance was striking. Conspicuous for our obvious siders. In my desire to participate, I set aside all status as outsiders (our group being composed the hard-won ethnographic ‘common sense’ I of visitors from the U.S., Spain and England, had acquired in recent years, giving free rein, among others) and anxious to appear friendly, instead, to my desire for honesty and openness we eagerly, if randomly, struck up conversa- with those around me. Herein lies the lesson. tions with those around us, all of whom ap- Secondly, I had forgotten in that moment all peared to have come to view the event. As my I had learned and observed about the phenom- eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, I saw enon of telling, whereby ethnographic subjects that several hundred residents of the neigh- identify, reproduce and culturally locate them- bourhood, clearly in high spirits and eager for selves in relation to others. This ubiquitous form the night to get underway, chatted amiably of social practice, not limited to Northern Ire- while others danced to the tinny melody of anti- land, but refined there, at least to the status of Catholic folk music barely audible above the a high art, involves the reading of persons as din of conversation and laughter (see De Rosa texts that encode metonymic community alle- 1998 and Radford 2001 for further detail). In giance. While the best known explication of this one corner of the yard, a vendor sold loyalist- phenomenon is that offered by Frank Burton themed hats, CDs and other kitsch, while his (1978), numerous ethnographers have cited tell- neighbour served watery lager from a keg. As ing as a critical folk-diagnostic of identity within

82 | Ethnographic Anxiety and ‘Telling’ | AiA shifting networks of spatially contexted social an individual) both of which are set atop the relations (see Aretxaga 1997: 35ff.; Bryan 2000: pyres before they are lit, and which generally re- 12ff.; Kelleher 2003: 11ff.; and Lanclos 2003: ceive a torrent of cheers as they are consumed. 127ff.). More simply, as Kelleher has phrased it, In all cases, the ‘web of signification’ (Geertz telling involves ‘reading the bodies of strang- 1973) instantiated by these symbols, perceived ers to tell whether they are Catholic or Protes- to receive historical legitimacy by the revered tant’ (2003: 12). The characteristics and traits to events of the late-seventeenth century (in par- be ‘read’ include, but are not limited to, the way ticular the Battle of the Boyne), gives substance one says one’s alphabet (specifically, how one and encouragement to an active, rather than pronounces ones h’s [Buckley and Kenney 1995: latent, anti-Catholic enmity that frequently finds 7–8]), the colour of clothing one wears, where expression in acts of exclusionary discourse, one attends school, the neighbourhood or street petty vandalism and thuggery, and sometimes one is observed moving into or out of, and the more violent activity. provenance of one’s forename and surname. On past occasions where I had thought my- As these and others suggest, and as I should self to be potentially at risk (if not in body, then have recalled, even in the superficially innocu- at least of an ethnographic ‘cold shoulder’ from ous act of naming myself, I had established that potential interviewees), I had introduced my- although I was an American, and hence an self as William or Will. This tactic has, thank- outsider, the Irish Gaelic-derived name Liam fully, remained a gambit of last resort: the vast Murphy also marked me as a probable Roman majority of my Protestant and loyalist friends Catholic, or at least of a Catholic background.5 and acquaintances draw on many cultural re- As noted, even at the best of times, Sandy Row sources in forming interpretations of those is an unwelcome landscape for Catholics, who, around them, and only (very) rarely have I felt as discussed above, are linked categorically myself under such scrutiny that I have decided, and indiscriminately in popular Protestant always with great reluctance, to obfuscate this rhetoric and metaphor to the political ideologies aspect of my background. Nevertheless, on this of nationalism and republicanism. This thinly occasion, my opting for transparency was ill- veiled hostility is dramatised in the colourful suited to the context. Accordingly, my inter- displays of British patriotism and religious sym- locutor had responded to my declaration of bolism that together generate a meaningful en- identity in an appropriate and culturally mean- vironment: they turn the streets into a unified ingful way; on the basis of my Christian name, narrative of identity which anyone familiar with I had in all likelihood been interpreted as ‘mat- the character of social relations in Northern Ire- ter out of place’ (to employ Mary Douglas’s well land may readily interpret. During the march- worn expression [1966]). My presence could ing season, which reaches its ceremonial apex hardly be accounted for in terms of participa- on the Twelfth of July, this perception of out- tion in the prevailing discourse of Protestant- side threat is sharpened by a barrage of pop- unionist-loyalist triumphalism (although this ulist activity in the form of parades (those not word is perhaps overused in Northern Ireland), marching are in many neighbourhoods cheer- because no-one with the name Liam could be ing on the paraders or in some cases straggling logically associated with this set of related dis- alongside them as they walk)6 and, on Eleventh courses and practices. In fact, the presence of Night, bonfires. These conflagrations are pro- this ‘Murphy out of place’ could hardly be ex- vided with symbolic shape and context in part plained at all according to much of the conven- by the ubiquitous practice of immolating ei- tional logic of loyalist culture. ther an Irish tricolour or an effigy of the pope In my view, it is the ultimately conflicted (represented as a category of person, rather than and inconsistent nature of such discourses that

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allowed this gentleman, and perhaps others vacuo. Rather, they are made by residents act- we met that evening, to make sense of my pres- ing within spatial and temporal ‘homelands’, in ence. While local Catholics are not welcome which such symbols are both anticipated and at such events, regional and international visi- readily deployed by those same social agents tors—journalists, tourists and others—are a in a reflexive process of enforcement and elab- staple of the festivities surrounding the cycle oration. Whatever other effects this process of Twelfth activities. Indeed, media institutions, might have on the creation of identity, symbol- curious visitors and ‘culture vultures’ have in laden activities such as those that inscribe mean- recent years become integral to how the tourist ing into the very streets of Sandy Row certainly industry in Northern Ireland promotes the re- have the effects of marking and circumscribing gion abroad, despite the undeniable sectarian environments in which individuals and net- associations of such events (see Bryan 1998 works of individuals live and move. That is to and 2000: 163ff.). Still, relative to the other im- say, the ongoing social constitution of such ex- pressive displays I witnessed that evening— clusionary neighbourhoods depends for its via- including a rushed paramilitary fusillade and bility on the participation of many, not a few. It the drama of the towering inferno itself—it was is the rank-and-file of such Northern Ireland this simple exchange of greetings with a resi- communities, represented in this anecdote by dent that proved most telling (so to speak), and the man I met, rather than those high-profile to me, almost haunting for what it revealed exponents of culture, religion and nationality, about the exclusionary politics of ritual prac- who are most deeply implicated in the ongoing tice in Belfast. Perhaps the significant point to production and maintenance of the many sym- be made about the many symbols of inclusion bols of belonging and exclusion. Moreover, it is and exclusion (be they bonfires, murals or per- precisely because the boundaries of these sonal names), bolstered and legitimised during homelands (particularly in urban environments) the summer months, is that none are created ex are not fixed in nature (for instance, set at a nihilo, nor do they affect solely the principal spatial distance from the wider community) but agents acting in the institutional arenas of for- at best conventions and by-products of socio- mal ritual (members of loyalist and republican political practice, that they are held as fragile— fraternal organisations), politics (the various in need of defence against invasion. formally organised parties together with their As I indicated above, however, the revela- activists), or paramilitarism (the roughly one tory potential of such encounters lies not in their dozen large and small outlawed armies that confirmation of well known facts about Bel- are motivated by political and other ideologies fast’s ‘urban villages’ and the various symbols and goals).7 Rather, these concrete expressions of of identity deployed therein. Rather, such epi- collective identity and will, support for which sodes should alert ethnographers to the risks is crystallised in an elaborate array of words, that inhere in placing oneself outside the field images, sounds and actions, provide an intel- of subject interaction, however ephemerally. lectually and emotionally compelling teleol- They are cautionary tales which suggest that ogy of belonging to which many people refer the sundry anxieties anthropologists suffer in in organising and interpreting the significance their first exposure to the field may be neces- of events around them. The myriad features of sary, if they are to avoid the pitfalls of the over- religious, political and social identity, in other confident. words, comprise cultural resources out of which an elaborate and seamless bricolage of meaning Liam D. Murphy is Assistant Professor of is erected. Such interpretive practices are not, Anthropology at California State University, of course, agentless, nor do they take place in Sacramento. His email is [email protected].

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Notes this volume]) in stoking intercommunity enmity, hostility and violence. Often, such public dis- 1. Among others, these included the Lamb of God plays of support for loyalist ideology are exac- Community, Christian Fellowship Church, erbated by the consumption of alcohol (Bryan Alpha Programme, Cornerstone Community, 2000: 93). Divine Healing Ministries, Centre for Contem- 7. Since the outbreak of the modern Troubles in porary Christianity in Ireland (formerly 1969, the most conspicuous of these on the re- ECONI—the Evangelical Contribution on North- publican side have been the Provisional Irish ern Ireland), Forthspring Community Centre Republican Army (PIRA), Official Irish Repub- and Springfield Methodist Church, Gateway lican Army (OIRA) and the Irish National Lib- Church, Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE), Mar- eration Army (INLA), and on the loyalist side, tyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church, Rose- the UDA and its doppelganger, the UFF, the mary Presbyterian Church, Ulster Temple and UVF and (from the late 1990s) the Loyalist Vol- Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle. unteer Force (LVF). 2. Every year, firefighters respond to multiple episodes of out-of-control bonfires, and in their References aftermath, the air is polluted with the fumes of sulphur dioxide, among other toxic substances Anonymous 2003a. ‘Warnings as Bonfires Reach (Bryan 2000: 138; Anon. 2003a). In 2003, North- New Heights’, Irish News, 11 July: 1. ern Ireland firefighters were called to respond Anonymous 2003b. ‘90 Per Cent Increase in Call- to 327 bonfires, many of which also contributed outs’, Belfast News Letter, 14 July: 3. to traffic problems in urban areas (Anon. 2003b), Anonymous 2003c. ‘£10,000 Bonfire Bill’, Belfast and some of which resulted in significant prop- Telegraph, 18 July: 3. erty damage (Anon. 2003c). Aretxaga, B. 1997. Shattering Silence: Women, Na- 3. In fact, many different types of surfaces are tionalism, and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ire- used to host the Union Jack colours, including land, Princeton: Princeton University Press. fuse boxes, hydrants, fences and virtually any Bell, D. 1990. Acts of Union: Youth Culture and Sec- other publicly accessible surface that (as Bryan tarianism in Northern Ireland, London: Macmillan. phrases it) ‘might take a lick of paint’ (see Bourdieu, P. and L. Wacquant 1992. Invitation to a Bryan 2000: 129 ff. and 137–138). Similar dis- Reflexive Sociology, Chicago: The University of plays, based on the Irish Tricolour, are held in Chicago Press. Republican neighbourhoods at various signifi- Bryan, D. 1998. ‘“Ireland’s Very Own Jurassic cant dates throughout the year (cf. Aretxaga Park”: The Mass Media and the Discourse of 1997: 43–50; Jarman 1997: 232 ff.). “Tradition” on Orange Parades’, in A. Buckley 4. A number of anthropologists have written, di- (ed.) Symbols in Northern Ireland, Belfast: Insti- rectly or indirectly, about loyalist and republi- tute of Irish Studies, 23–42. can paramilitary activity through the years of ——— 2000. Orange Parades: The Politics of Ritual, the recent Troubles; among them, Jenkins (1983), Tradition and Control, London: Pluto Press. Sluka (1989), Bell (1990), Feldman (1991) and Buckley, A. and M. Kenney 1995. Negotiating Identity: Aretxaga (1997). Rhetoric, Metaphor, and Social Drama in Northern 5. As has been observed, the surname Murphy Ireland, Washington: Smithsonian Institution can occasionally be connected to Protestant fam- Press. ilies as, for instance, in the notorious case of Burton, F. 1978. The Politics of Legitimacy: Struggles Lenny Murphy, leader of the dreaded mid- in a Belfast Community, London: Routledge and 1970s (UVF) splinter cell Kegan Paul. known as the ‘’ (Dillon 1989). De Rosa, C. 1998. ‘Playing Nationalism’, in A. Liam, by contrast, is a name that I have only Buckley (ed.) Symbols in Northern Ireland, ever heard connected to Catholic boys and men. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 99–115. 6. Anthropologists have commented on the role of Dillon, M. 1989. The Shankill Butchers, New York: so-called ‘coat-trailers’ (young men and women Routledge. who make their way along parade routes along- Douglas, M. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of side the Orange lodges and especially fife-and- the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London: drum bands [see Nagle, Bryan and Witherow, Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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Feldman, A. 1991. Formations of Violence: The Narra- Kelleher, W. 2003. The Troubles in Ballybogoin: Mem- tive of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ire- ory and Identity in Northern Ireland, Ann Arbor: land, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. The University of Michigan Press. Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures, New Lanclos, D. 2003. At Play in Belfast: Children’s Folk- York: Basic Books. lore and Identities in Northern Ireland, New ———— 1988. Works and Lives: The Anthropologist Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. as Author, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Radford, K. 2001. ‘Drum Rolls and Gender Roles Jarman, N. 1997. Material Conflicts: Parades and Vi- in Protestant Marching Bands in Belfast’, British sual Displays in Northern Ireland, Oxford: Berg. Journal of Ethnomusicology 10 (2): 37–59. Jenkins, R. 1983. Lads, Citizens and Ordinary Kids: Sluka, J. 1989. Hearts and Minds, Water and Fish: Working-class Youth Life-styles in Belfast, London: Support for the INLA in a Northern Irish Ghetto, Routledge and Kegan Paul. Greenwich, Conn.: AI Press.

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