Skills, Conflict and Spatial Planning in Northern Ireland

The skills to manage sustainable and cohesive communities have placed a particular emphasis on collaborative and consensual methods of working. This paper suggests that in ethnically divided places, the notion of collaboration is largely conceptual and that more agonistic strategies provide a sounder basis for marginal communities to advance their claims and rights. Specifically, it draws on research conducted in Northern Ireland to suggest that situated approaches to territorial competition can place learning, the sharing of knowledge, and the transformation of conflict at the heart of the skills debate.