ISSN 1653-2244 INSTITUTIONEN FÖR KULTURANTROPOLOGI OCH ETNOLOGI DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY “The City is Yours” Desegregation and Sharing Space in Post-Conflict Belfast By Alec Forss 2018 MASTERUPPSATSER I KULTURANTROPOLOGI Nr 86 To the people of Belfast who gave generously and willingly of their time to talk to me. May you one day live without walls. Abstract This study examines how borders are socially produced and deconstructed in “post-conflict” North Belfast. Twenty years after the signing of the historic Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, a peace model lauded for the resolution of conflicts worldwide, Belfast today remains a highly divided city with the existence of numerous segregation barriers, among them so-called peace walls, physically separating Protestant from Catholic neighbourhoods. Indicating a failure to achieve social accommodation, this thesis seeks to examine how people in North Belfast understand, negotiate, and experience space and borders around them. In particular, it illuminates the processes and agents involved in modifying and transforming borders, as well as the resistance engendered in doing so amidst considerable intra-community debate and competition over place identities and their attendant narratives. Placed firmly within the anthropological study of borders and space, it shows how borders and their regimes are socially constructed and should be understood as practices and imaginations rather than simply as inert objects which render individuals as passive “victims” of their urban environs. It furthermore seeks to challenge prevailing cognitive and analytical constructs of borders and border crossing. Based on ten weeks of fieldwork in Belfast by the author, this study employs extensive participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Keywords: borders, space, ethnicity, peace wall, interface, Belfast, identity, shared space, segregation, Protestants, Catholics, paramilitary Contents Acronyms .................................................................................................................................. 6 1. Arriving in Belfast................................................................................................................ 7 On the Estate .......................................................................................................................... 9 Re-imagining Space and Borders ......................................................................................... 12 Outline of Chapters .............................................................................................................. 14 2. Methodology: Going About Fieldwork ............................................................................ 15 Situational Ethics and Other Considerations ........................................................................ 17 A Note on Terminology ....................................................................................................... 19 3. A Parting of Worlds ........................................................................................................... 20 We Mixed Brilliant in Them Days ....................................................................................... 22 Don’t Go to Dangerous Areas .............................................................................................. 24 Get Him Out of Here ............................................................................................................ 25 Legacy of Segregation .......................................................................................................... 27 4. Parading the Streets ........................................................................................................... 30 Easter Rising Parade............................................................................................................. 32 Shankill Road Parade ........................................................................................................... 34 Symbolic Organization of Space .......................................................................................... 35 Erosion of Neighbourhood Life ........................................................................................... 37 5. Sticking to Your Side ......................................................................................................... 40 Patterns of Movement .......................................................................................................... 41 Be Careful When You’re Going That Way .......................................................................... 42 Border Crossing.................................................................................................................... 45 Alex Park .............................................................................................................................. 46 Understanding the Border .................................................................................................... 49 6. It Was Like World War Three ......................................................................................... 51 “Softening” the Border ......................................................................................................... 52 Sharing a Vision ................................................................................................................... 54 Managing the Border ............................................................................................................ 55 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 57 7. It’s Too Soon to Bring the Wall Down ............................................................................. 59 Contents The Wall Goes Up ................................................................................................................ 62 Attitudinal Barriers ............................................................................................................... 64 Role of Paramilitaries ........................................................................................................... 65 Fear of Community Disappearing ........................................................................................ 66 Political Context ................................................................................................................... 67 Resistance ............................................................................................................................. 67 8. Let’s Start Sharing It ......................................................................................................... 71 Types of Shared Space ......................................................................................................... 72 Contested Terrain ................................................................................................................. 72 It’s Not Capturing Everyone ................................................................................................ 74 Reclassifying Minds and Spaces .......................................................................................... 76 9. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 80 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 85 Appendix I: Images ................................................................................................................ 92 Appendix II: Map .................................................................................................................. 96 Map of Belfast ...................................................................................................................... 96 Acronyms CNR – Catholic Nationalist Republican DUP – Democratic Unionist Party IRA – Irish Republican Army PUL – Protestant Unionist Loyalist RUC – Royal Ulster Constabulary T:BUC – Together: Building a United Community UDA – Ulster Defence Association UVF – Ulster Volunteer Force 6 1. Arriving in Belfast On August 11, 2016, a small group of Protestants and Catholics gathered to witness the demolition of a section of wall between their two communities in an area of North Belfast. Present too was Martin McGuinness, former Irish Republican Army (IRA) commander and then Deputy First Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, who used the hashtag #courage to tweet about the event. Billed as a symbolic step towards reconciliation between the two communities, it was hoped that it would pave the way for the removal of nearly a hundred so- called “peace walls” or segregation barriers dotted across Belfast (Belfast Interface Project). First erected by the British Army at the beginning of the Troubles,1 as the thirty-year period of violence between 1969 and 1998 is commonly termed, the peace walls constitute the most visible manifestation of the physical segregation of working-class Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods. North Belfast in particular, with its mosaic of largely single-identity enclaves, bears the traces of such barriers – built variously out of concrete, brick, and steel. However, the term peace wall is also somewhat of a poignant misnomer, in that while intended as short- term measures by the authorities to prevent cross-community