Northern Ireland in Transition
HC 434 - WINTER 2008
T/Th 12:00-1:20
Chapman 307

Prof. David Frank
dfrank@uoregon.edu
Chapman  212    Tel 6-4198

Prof. Shaul Cohen
scohen@uoregon.edu
Condon 107G Tel 6-4500
 

This course will use Northern Ireland as a primary case to focus on social conflict, territorial disputes, and options for moving toward political accommodations.  It will touch upon a range of issues that reflect the broad impact of zero sum conflicts, and examine the ways in which they have been changing in recent years.   The course will explore structural elements that are part of the Catholic-Protestant/Republican-Nationalist-Unionist-Loyalist struggle, as well as the narratives that stem from and contribute to the encompassing dispute.  In lecture and discussion we will move among several different scales as we incorporate the experience of the individual, the community, and the nation(s) and attempt to identify strategies that help mitigate or transform the zero sum situation that has characterized much of Northern Ireland through the period of the Troubles.

Requirements:
Regular attendance and participation in discussions is essential for the success of the course.  Reading material should be prepared in advance of our meetings.  You will be graded on a "position paper", a mid-term examination, an in-class presentation (as part of a working group) weeks 8, 9 and 10 of the term,  and a final paper.  Each of these will be worth 25% of the grade.  You must also learn a list of terms, people, and places in Northern Ireland in order to allow for discussion of course issues (look under the Assignments section on Blackboard).  We are happy to accommodate students with special-ed needs, please contact us at the beginning of the term to make the necessary arrangements.

Readings:
Much of our reading material has been collated on the CAIN website(Conflict Archive on the INternet) which can be found at cain.ulster.ac.uk , and has an enormous collection of original and secondary sources relating to the conflict in Northern Ireland.  For an ongoing discussion of current events in Northern Ireland, plus commentary on various bits and pieces, you can browse the Slugger O'Toole blog.  Additional weekly readings will be available through Blackboard.

Week 1
Read John Darby's introduction to the conflict on the CAIN website, http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/peace/darby03.htm .  Darby is a former director of INCORE, the center for conflict resolution at the University of Ulster - Magee in Derry/Londonderry.

Week 2
Read Claire Mitchell's 2003 "Protestant Identification and Political Change in Northern Ireland,"  Ethnic and Racial Studies 26(4):612-631, and her 2005 piece  "Catholicism and the Construction of Communal Identity in Northern Ireland" in Irish Journal of Sociology 14(1):110-130, both available as pdfs in Blackboard.

Week 3
Read Peter Shirlow's 2003 "Ethno-sectarianism and the Reproduction of Fear in Belfast" in Capital and Class #80:77-93, available on Blackboard.  Slugger O'Toole assignment due Thursday.

Week 4
Terms Test on Tuesday!
Read Sheena McGrellis' "Pure and bitter spaces:  Gender, identity and territory in Northern Irish youth transitions," in Gender and Education 17(5), and Cohen's "Winning while losing:  The Apprentice Boys of Derry walk their beat" in Political Geography 26(8), both available on Blackboard.

Week 5
 Read Fealty et al.'s 2003 A Long Peace:  The Future of Unionism in Northern Ireland available on Blackboard (and not nearly as long as it looks!)

Week 6
Read Graham and Nash 2006 "A Shared Future:  Territoriality, Pluralism, and Public Policy in Northern Ireland," Political Geography 25:253-278, available on Blackboard.

Week 7

Week 8
Tuesday - Presentations

Week 9
Tuesday - Presentations

Week 10
Tuesday - Negotiation Wrap Up