The intra-Traveller debate on ‘Traveller ethnicity’ in the Republic of Ireland. A critical discourse analysis

This dissertation assesses from an under-explored angle the enduring contention over Travellers’ ethnic recognition in the Republic of Ireland, particularly over the last decade. The novelty of this study concerns not only its specific focus on and engagement with the debate on ‘Traveller ethnicity’ among Traveller activists. It also pertains to the examination of Travellers’ arguments for and against ethnicity in light of critical theorisations as well as insights from identity politics. Furthermore, the adoption of a Critical Discourse Analytical framework offers new perspectives to this controversy and its potential implications. Finally, this thesis’ relevance extends beyond the contention on ‘Traveller ethnicity’ in itself. It also draws attention to the complex dynamics of colonisation and appropriation between the global and the local. Particularly, it points to the interplay between international human rights discourses and the local ones, formulated by NGOs struggling for equality. In this way it sheds light on more general issues such as the dialectical potential of human rights discourses: the benefits and pitfalls of framing recognition claims in the legalistic terms of human rights. In this study it is argued that the contention on ‘Traveller ethnicity’ defies a simplistic polarisation between Irish Travellers and the Irish State since it has been simultaneously played out within the Travelling community. Specifically, this study explores how ‘Traveller ethnicity’ has been introduced, embraced, promoted and contested within Traveller politics to the point of becoming a hotly debated and divisive issue among Traveller activists and at the heart of the community itself. Putting Traveller activists centre-stage, their discourses for and against ‘Traveller ethnicity’ are examined and assessed against one another and their potential implications for Traveller politics, policies and identities are pointed out. Contending discourses are historically contextualised as the product of specific structural, material and discursive configurations of power and socio-economic relations within Irish society. Discourses for and against ‘Traveller ethnicity’ are assessed as being significant beyond the representational level. They are regarded as contributing to dialectically constitute Travellers’ ways of being, representing and acting. Furthermore these discourses are considered as sites and means of power struggles, whose stakes are not only words, but relate to issues of power and leadership within the Travelling community; adjudications over material resources; the adoption of certain policy approaches over others; and, finally, the consolidation of certain subject positions over others for Travellers to draw upon and relate to mainstream society. This study highlights an ongoing ideological struggle for the naturalisation of ‘Traveller ethnicity’ as a self-evident ‘fact’, which involves no active choice by Travellers themselves. Overall, ‘Traveller ethnicity’ appears to constitute an enduring source of dilemmas for the Travelling community. These revolve around the contradictory potential of ethnicity claims-making —both its perils and advantages— and its status as a potent political strategic resource that can both challenge and reinforce existing power relations, policies and identities.

The legitimation of risk and democracy: A case study of Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh, India

This thesis explores the inter-related attempts to secure the legitimation of risk and democracy with regard to Bt cotton, a genetically modified crop, in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. The research included nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, extensive library and newspaper research, as well as university attendance in India, undertaken between June, 2010 and March, 2011. This comparative study (involving organic, NPM and Bt cotton cultivation) was conducted in three villages in Telangana, a region which was granted secession from Andhra Pradesh in July, 2013, and in Hyderabad, the state capital. Andhra Pradesh is renowned for its agrarian crisis and farmer suicides, as well as for the conflict which Bt cotton represents. This study adopts the categories of legitimation developed by Van Leeuwen (2007; 2008) in order to explore the theory of risk society (Beck, 1992; 1994; 1999; 2009), and the Habermasian (1996: 356-366) core-periphery model as means of theoretically analysing democratic legitimacy. The legitimation of risk and democracy in relation to Bt cotton refers to normative views on the way in which power should be exercised with regard to risk differentiation, construction and definition. The analysis finds that the more legitimate the exercise of power, the lower the exposure to risk as a concern for the collective. This also has consequences for the way in which resources are distributed, knowledge constructed, and democratic praxis institutionalised as a concern for social and epistemic justice. The thesis argues that the struggle to legitimate risk and democracy has implications not only for the constitution of the new state of Telangana and the region’s development, but also for the emergence of global society and the future development of humanity as a whole.

A history of the Irish Red Cross Society, 1939-1971

This research is concerned with assessing from a national perspective the role, work and historical impact of the Irish Red Cross Society (IRCS) between 1939 and 1971. During this period the IRCS discharged three primary functions: it provided first aid services both in war-time and peace-time; it pioneered public health and social care services; and acted as the State’s main agency for international humanitarian relief measures. Although primarily a national organisational history of the Society, it is not a history in isolation. A broader perspective demonstrates that the work undertaken by the IRCS has relevance to the medical, social, religious, cultural, political and diplomatic history of twentieth century Ireland. This study assesses the impact of a number of significant public health and social care initiatives which the IRCS implemented and developed since its inception and how most of these were subsequently developed independently by the State. During the early 1940s, the Society’s formation of a national blood transfusion service ultimately laid the foundations for the establishment of a national blood transfusion service. The Society’s steering of a national anti-tuberculosis campaign in the 1940s brought the issue of the eradication of TB to the fore and helped to change public attitudes towards the disease. The concept of caring for the needs of the elderly in Ireland was largely unknown until the IRCS began addressing the issue in the 1950s and, for more than two decades, was effectively the only organisation in the State that campaigned and introduced innovative services for the aged. The IRCS made a significant impact in terms of its commitment to the needs of refugees and the provision of international humanitarian relief from Ireland. The Society’s donation in 1945 of a fully equipped hospital to the population of Saint-Lo in France, its war-time overseas relief efforts and its post-war work for child refugees earned Ireland significant international recognition and prestige and, more importantly, justified Ireland’s war-time policy of neutrality. With Ireland’s admission to the UN, the government became more dependent on the IRCS to consolidate that position.