Agitating for a design and regeneration agenda in a postconflict city: the case of Belfast

Introduction

Belfast has been a focus of academic attention for the last forty years with most interest centred on various aspects of ‘the Troubles’. Where there has been interest in the built environment, it has largely been about how the ‘security situation’ impacted directly on architecture and on the design and layout of social housing. This paper seeks to go beyond this to explore how the political- administrative culture of ‘the Troubles’ interacted with ‘normal’ market forces to shape the central area of the city, and to consider the responses of a recently formed activist group, known as the Forum for Alternative Belfast (hereafter referred to as the Forum). The paper is written by three of the directors of the Forum.1 Moreover, the empirical research presented here was undertaken by the Forum as part of a campaign to address issues relating to the design, layout and quality of Belfast’s built environment. In the longstanding tradition of participant observation working within an action-research paradigm, the participants have attempted to offer an account that is evidentially and purposefully selfcritical and reflective. It is of course recognised that while this approach offers many positive attributes, such as phenomenological access through immersion in the project, it also has the potential to bring compromise on research detachment and objectivity.2 To address the latter, the authors have attempted
to avoid polemical argument, and to support claims with primary or secondary research evidence. The authors also acknowledge that action-research has a chequered history; however, they would argue
that their approach is faithful to a concept that sees ‘research’ defined as understanding and ‘action’ defined as seeking change. The Forum’s very purpose is to seek change, but to do this requires evidence, collaboration and demonstration. And in this sense, it is a learning process for all participants, including the research activists, government officials, community organisations and students. The authors also recognise the complexity of factors that affect urban management and change, particularly in a city such as Belfast, which has had to cope with political violence for over thirty years. And they appreciate that in the context of conflict, governance is skewed to cope with political realities. Hamdi reminds us, however, that in practice there is an ‘important dialectic between top-down planning, with its formal and designed laws and structures, and bottom-up selforganizing collectivism—those “quantum and emergent systems” which Jane Jacobs argued long ago give cities their life and order.’3

Political Violence and Child Adjustment in Northern Ireland: Testing Pathways in a Social-Ecological Model Including Single- and Two-Parent Families

Moving beyond simply documenting that political violence negatively impacts children, we tested a social ecological hypothesis for relations between political violence and child outcomes. Participants were 700 mother child (M = 12.1 years, SD = 1.8) dyads from 18 working-class, socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, including single- and two-parent families. Sectarian community violence was associated with elevated family conflict and children's reduced security about multiple aspects of their social environment (i.e., family, parent child relations, and community), with links to child adjustment problems and reductions in prosocial behavior. By comparison, and consistent with expectations, links with negative family processes, child regulatory problems, and child outcomes were less consistent for nonsectarian community violence. Support was found for a social ecological model for relations between political violence and child outcomes among both single- and two-parent families, with evidence that emotional security and adjustment problems were more negatively affected in single-parent families. The implications for understanding social ecologies of political violence and children's functioning are discussed.

Testing a social ecological model for relations between political violence and child adjustment in Northern Ireland

Relations between political violence and child adjustment are matters of international concern. Past research demonstrates the significance of community, family, and child psychological processes in child adjustment, supporting study of interrelations between multiple social ecological factors and child adjustment in contexts of political violence. Testing a social ecological model, 300 mothers and their children (M = 12.28 years, SD = 1.77) from Catholic and Protestant working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland, completed measures or community discord, family relations, and children's regulatory processes (i.e., emotional security) and outcomes. Historical political violence in neighborhoods based on objective records (i.e., politically motivated deaths) were related to family members' reports of current sectarian antisocial behavior and nonsectarian antisocial behavior. Interparental conflict and parental monitoring and children's emotional security about both the community and family contributed to explanatory pathways for relations between sectarian antisocial behavior in communities and children's adjustment problems. The discussion evaluates support for social ecological models for relations between political violence and child adjustment and its implications for understanding relations in other parts of the world.

Conflict, Transformation, and Former Loyalist Paramilitary Prisoners in Northern Ireland

Following the 1998 Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland, levels of paramilitary violence have declined substantially. Among loyalists, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and associated Red Hand Commando (RHC) have formally renounced violence, and dissolved their 'military structures', and perhaps the most reticent of all of the major paramilitary groupings, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), has taken on board the central tenets of conflict transformation, and 'stood down' all of its 'active service units' in the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). Thus, paramilitary violence now is mainly confined to the activities of 'dissident' republican groups, notably the Real and Continuity IRAs, although low-level sectarian violence remains a problem. Such dramatic societal and political change has resulted in a focus on the roles of formal party political leadership as agents of social change. This gaze, however, tends to obscure other important events such as the efforts, structures and approaches taken at the grassroots level to uphold and sustain conflict transformation and to maintain a reduction in violence. This article provides analysis of the role played by former loyalist paramilitary combatants in conflict transformation, and draws on material obtained through significant access to those former paramilitaries engaged in processes of societal shifts. In both personal and structural terms there is evidence of former combatants working to diminish the political tensions that remain as a result of the long-term inter-communal hostility developed across decades of violence and conflict.

Resistance, transition and exclusion: Politically motivated ex-prisoners and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland

The landscape of political imprisonment in Northern Ireland was changed due to the general release and reintegration of politically motivated prisoners as part of the Belfast Agreement. This article reflects upon the post-prison experiences of former prisoners and their families, and in particular how the move from a resistant to a transitional framework has facilitated a greater openness and willingness amongs ex-prisoners to acknowledge the personal and familial problems related to incarceration. We also explore the ways in which ex-prisoners have attempted to deal with the continued social, political and civic exclusion which arises as a result of their conflict-related 'criminal' convictions. In the final section of the article, the authors further develop the move from a resistant to a transitional characterization of incarceration and its consequences.