Tells the story of how former members of the Irish Republican Army and Protestant paramilitary groups have joined forces to identify and address the critical economic needs of their working-class communities, healing the wounds inflicted by decades of conflict in the process.
By exploring the development of working relationships among former adversaries in the form of cross-community, grassroots, working-class advocacy, Beyond the Good Friday Agreement differs from most books on the Northern Ireland peace process and offers a new outlook on peace studies. Through more than sixty-five in-depth interviews with individuals engaged in the Northern Ireland peace process, the book emphasizes the central importance of local leaders in peace-making and post-conflict community rebuilding. It explores the peace process through the lens of cross-community efforts and collaborations between Protestant/Loyalists and Catholic/republicans working together. Employing philosopher and anti-fascist activist Antonio Gramscis theoretical model of the "organic intellectual," Cassidy creates a new way of thinking about the role of local activism in Northern Ireland's post-conflict development. Rather than presenting the peace process from the perspective of elites, this book examines the lives of the people who fought in and were most directly affected by the conflict and its aftermath and bears witness to the sustainable peace and economic justice these grassroots leaders and their communities are working to establish.
Arvustused
"Kevin Cassidy's work is part of the now expanding literature on everyday peace building, and he adds to this literature a strong class component. But he keeps theory light and the pleasure of this book lies in its rich empirical material. Cassidy has interviewed over a hundred people involved in conflict in Northern Ireland and he shows how everyday imagination and understanding can make a difference in conflict situations and how group division can in part be overcome by focus on class commonalities." Jennifer Todd, author of Identity Change After Conflict: Ethnicity Boundaries and Belonging in the Two Irelands
Muu info
Tells the story of how former members of the Irish Republican Army and Protestant paramilitary groups have joined forces to identify and address the critical economic needs of their working-class communities, healing the wounds inflicted by decades of conflict in the process.
Acknowledgments
Preface
1. Conceptualizing the Study: Cross-community Projects and 'Organic
Intellectuals'
2. Discovering the Other: Billy McQuiston as Cross-community Worker and
Organic Intellectual
3. The Good Friday Agreement: Its Problematic Nature
4. Working with the Other: Belfast Conflict Resolution Consortium Part I,
Transforming Individuals
5. Working with the Other: Belfast Conflict Resolution Consortium Part II,
Transforming Society
6. Suffolk-Lenadoon Interface Group: Overcoming Sectarianism and Building a
New Economy
7. InterAction Belfast and Roisin McGlone: Creating Citizen Activism and
Building a Political Force
8. Cromac Regeneration Initiative: Shared Needs Overcoming Sectarian
Politics
9. Duncairn Gardens: Practicing Participative Democracy, Awakening Class
Consciousness.
10. Black Mountain Shared Space Project: 'Little Labs of Democracy'
11. Under the Radar: Four Stories of Transforming Mindsets
12. Beyond the Good Friday Agreement: A New Politics of Empathy?
Notes
Bibliographic Essay
List of Abbreviations
Index
Kevin J. Cassidy was Professor Emeritus of Politics at Fairfield University. He was coeditor, with Gregory A. Bischak, of Real Security: Converting the Defense Economy and Building Peace, also by SUNY Press.
