TY - JOUR
AU - Gilmartin, Niall
AB - Abstract∞ Though transitional justice measures are increasingly used to address displacement, particularly restitution programmes and truth-telling initiatives, the issue of addressing the long-term impact of displacement on individuals, communities and wider society represents significant challenges for peacebuilding processes. Based on in-depth interviews with those who suffered displacement in Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’, this article seeks to explore the marginalized and often silenced narratives of those displaced, shedding light on the multi-layered short- and long-term harms and consequences of displacement for individuals, families and community relations. The article’s argument is twofold: first, that experiences of displacement should be considered as a form of conflict-related harm and trauma and those displaced recognized as victims. And second, that ‘storytelling’ and other bottom-up acknowledgement projects are seen by victims and survivors as an effective vehicle to ‘break’ the silence, end the denial and advance their pursuit of recognition and acknowledgement. Introduction The outbreak of ethno-sectarian violence in Northern Ireland during the late Summer of 1969 gave rise to a crisis which, at the time, represented the largest involuntary movement of population in western Europe since the end of the Second World War. The consequences of these traumatic events witnessed a re-drawing of ethno-sectarian boundaries across the region, saw whole communities uprooted and for all intents and purposes gave birth to a conflict that would endure for almost 30 years, costing the lives of over 3,700 people and injuring tens of thousands. While displacement represents one of the most important threads in understanding the outbreak and subsequent trajectory of the ‘Troubles’, remarkably it is an issue marked by a dearth of academic research and discussion. A small but burgeoning body of work has finally begun to address this gap. Though involuntary movement has been covered to various extents within studies related to place, ethnic identity, housing and segregation,1 distinct and context-specific episodes of displacement, such as the mass house burnings which occurred in Belfast in August 19692 and the forced movement and ‘cleansing’ of Protestants around the border region3 and Londonderry city,4 have provided some much-needed in-depth analysis. While Katherine Side’s work examined visual representations of displacement,5 others have taken a broader view while also drawing parallels between Northern Ireland’s historical forced movements and the recent refugee movement across the Mediterranean.6 Based on focus groups across a wide geographical spread, the ‘No Longer Neighbours’7 report documents the sentiments of displacement, the impact of violence on land tenure, as well as housing and redress schemes during and after the conflict in and around Northern Ireland. This article builds upon and adds to these important works, exploring the marginalized and often silenced narratives of the displaced, and shedding light on the multi-layered short- and long-term harms and consequences of displacement for individuals, families and community relations. Based on in-depth interviews with those who experienced forced movement, this article seeks to map issues of legacy, truth-seeking and acknowledgement onto the experiences of forced displacement during the conflict. In considering the narratives of those displaced, the research suggests a strong need to broaden understandings of conflict-related violence in Northern Ireland to include displacement and its long-term impact on individuals and communities as part of its ongoing peacebuilding endeavours. Though there is a growing recognition that refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) have a major stake in the success of transitional justice processes which can shape the stability of post-conflict communities,8 in many cases displaced persons have not been recognized as critical stakeholders in truth-telling processes. Furthermore, truth commissions have often failed to substantively address forced movement as a human rights violation. Despite growing calls for a more adequate and nuanced understanding of displacement and its impact on peacebuilding, the issue has not figured prominently in either the literature or the practice of transitional justice.9 As cogently argued by Megan Bradley,10 Northern Ireland’s peacebuilding process represents yet another case whereby displaced persons have not been recognized as an important category of victims and survivors, and neither have their experiences been acknowledged. There remains a pervasive assumption that once displaced persons have been resettled, their sense of fear, loss and vulnerability has been largely addressed. In sum, while transitional justice measures are increasingly used to address displacement, particularly restitution programmes and truth-telling initiatives, the issue under consideration here is addressing the long-term impact of displacement on individuals, communities and wider society in the context of an ongoing peace process. The article’s argument is twofold: first, that Troubles-related understandings of violence and harm should not be restricted to those synonymous with conventional forms of physical violence; experiences of displacement should be considered as a form of conflict-related harm and trauma, and those who suffered forced movement should be positioned on the spectrum of victimhood. And second, that since displacement is a form of conflict-related violence that does not fit neatly into the category ‘victim/perpetrator,’ ‘bottom-up’ transitional justice practices such as oral histories and public storytelling offer the transformative potential to the displaced in their endeavours for truth, acknowledgement and recognition. Therefore, the article contends that harrowing experiences and memories of displacement are frequently ill-served by the region’s multiple transitional processes that are overly legalistic and remain embedded in forms of justice, accountability and truth-seeking which largely adhere to a ‘victim-perpetrator’ dichotomy. Research methods This research adopts an interpretivist methodological approach using semi-structured, narrative-based interviews with 43 persons. Methodological considerations within the field of refugee studies have led many to concur that qualitative interviewing, specifically narrative/life-history approaches, are an important way of learning from refugees because it permits fuller expression of refugee experiences in their own words. A narrative/life-history data collection method is grounded in the belief that meaning is ascribed through experiences, and furthermore that we can only know about other peoples’ experiences from the expression they give to them.11 Analytically, it distinguishes between life as lived (the flow of events that impact upon a person’s life); life as experienced (how a person perceives and ascribes meaning to what happens); and life as told (how experience is framed and articulated in a particular context).12 In the case of displacement, the use of personal testimony challenges erroneous assumptions regarding the homogeneity of experience among refugees, thus displacing generalized analytical accounts in favour of a more nuanced understanding of the diversity and complexities within those groups forcibly displaced. To transform the interview transcripts into meaningful data, I used an inductive thematic analysis approach using a grounded coding system, otherwise known as open coding.13 Open coding essentially entails scanning each line of transcript, taking note of the essence of portions of data and seeking key events, critical events and themes. Grounded theory research develops analytical categories and theories from the data rather than adhering to preceding concepts or theories; theory is derived from the data and meaning is achieved through reflection upon the data. In other words, it is a specific area of study in which the relevant concepts and theories subsequently emerge. Applying this technique and using NVivo coding software, I then employed a ‘focused coding’ where recurring codes were reviewed and forged into ‘Nodes’, that is, discernible themes and recurring patterns. Linkages between themes and emerging concepts were developed and thus formed the basis of the findings within the article. This article is based on field research conducted by the author between April 2018 and March 2020, collecting 43 in-depth interviews with those who suffered displacement. The interviews occurred in Belfast, Londonderry-Derry, Liverpool, Shannon, Fermanagh, Dundalk and Dublin. Of the 43 interviewees, 24 were male and 19 were female. Nineteen self-identified as a Protestant or unionist, while 22 self-identified as Catholic or nationalist. [AQ: Please check ‘Nineteen self-identified as a Protestant or unionist, while 22 self-identified as Catholic or nationalist’, as this does not add up to 43] Fourteen were adults with young families at the time of displacement, while the remaining 29 were children. Using a ‘snowball’ technique, participants were initially located using a range of separate gatekeepers who provided access to participants in specific geographical areas. As part of the reflective process upon the conclusion of each interview, several participants then recommended others to contact and interview and passed on my contact details accordingly, leading to more participants. To protect the identity of those involved, all participant names have been replaced with pseudonyms. The internationally recognized distinction between ‘refugees’ and ‘IDPs’ is fundamentally premised on the former seeking refuge across a sovereign border while the latter refers to movement within the country of origin. Reflecting on the content of the field research, it was apparent that the issue of crossing a sovereign border or not was an irrelevance to the suffering, hurt and loss of those displaced within the state. Therefore, I use ‘displaced’ and ‘forced displacement’ as catch-all terms that refer to the involuntary movement of persons and their families either within or beyond the state of Northern Ireland, caused by direct and indirect forms of violence, intimidation and perceptions of vulnerability and insecurity due to one’s ethno-religious identity. Levels of Displacement in Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ The armed conflict, often known as the ‘Troubles’, which engulfed Northern Ireland from 1969 until its peace accord of 1998, claimed over 3,700 lives and injured over 22,000 people. While the roots and trajectory of the conflict are historically complex, broadly speaking the state of Northern Ireland represents a contested territory between two competing ethno-national blocs. Typically, the Protestant population, which historically formed the majority population of the state, identify themselves as unionist, loyalist and/or pro-British, while Catholics, a significant minority population, self-identify as Irish, nationalist or republican. Inspired by civil rights marches in the USA, public marches and demands for civil and equal rights for Catholics in the late 1960s were met with brutal state violence and repression. Ethno-religious tensions were exacerbated in the wake of the protests, with Protestants perceiving the civil rights campaign as a front for militant republicanism and other left-wing radicals determined to undermine the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. The inter-communal conflict that erupted in 1969 witnessed widespread violence and the forced displacement of thousands, culminating with the deployment of the British Army in August of that year. While initially welcomed as ‘saviours’ by some Catholics, the subsequent actions of state forces in the following months, including curfews, internment, as well the killing of hundreds of Catholic civilians, alienated many Catholics and emboldened the emerging Provisional IRA, setting Northern Ireland on a course of armed violence for the next 30 years. The primary protagonists in the conflict were Irish republican non-state militaries (with the Provisional IRA being the most significant), various pro-British loyalist non-state militaries (Ulster Defence Association / Ulster Freedom Fighters; Ulster Volunteer Force) and state forces such as the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). While thousands of displaced Catholics crossed the border into the Republic of Ireland, particularly during the years 1969 to 1974, and hundreds of unionists evacuated to Liverpool and Glasgow, the 30 years of armed conflict in Northern Ireland also generated considerable levels of internal displacement whereby people increasingly sought safety within their own ethno-religious groups and residential areas. Displacement in Northern Ireland came in many forms and complexions, aggregated into three broad categories: (1) Direct intimidation including direct attacks on homes through gun attacks, petrol bombs, arson, among others. Many incidents of displacement involved mass house burnings and evacuations, most famously in places such as the Lower Falls, Ardoyne and New Barnsley in Belfast, and Gordon Place in Londonderry. Other forms of direct intimidation involved houses being daubed with threatening or sectarian graffiti, anonymous letters and phone calls threatening attack and physical assaults in close proximity to the home. (2) Indirect forms of intimidation typically occurred in instances where Catholics or Protestants lived as a minority within certain residential areas. Drawing upon John Brewer’s14 work on ‘communal violence,’ members of the ethnic group were targeted not as an enemy combatant, but by virtue of their tokenism as symbols of the ethnic community. With regards to displacement, a direct attack on one family home was interpreted as an indirect attack on all minority residents. In addition, there were also more subtle incidents of exclusion and tension as the conflict intensified. In contrast to the intensity associated with mass house burnings and evacuations, much of the indirect forms of intimidation were akin to a slow grind; months and years of smaller incidents that culminated in a decision by families to leave their homes for fears of safety and vulnerability. (3) Mutual arbitration – there is much evidence in this research and elsewhere of people entering into informal (non-state-sanctioned) forms of ‘house swaps’. This type of movement was prevalent in parts of Belfast where the (re)drawing of sectarian boundaries via physical barriers between communities in the early years of the conflict often meant the partitioning of streets, roads and housing developments. The exact scale of displacement in Northern Ireland is unknown. However, the figures that do exist indicate staggering levels of displacement, particularly given the relatively small geographical size of Northern Ireland and its population of just over 1.5 million at the beginning of the conflict. We know from the Scarman Tribunal that examined the violent events of 12–15 August 1969 that at least 3,500 families were displaced during these tumultuous days.15 As the violence intensified in the early 1970s, a Community Relations Commission survey estimated that some 60,000 persons were displaced in Belfast between 1969 and 1974, representing one in every 10 of the city’s population.16 The city of Londonderry-Derry saw the Protestant population in the city centre’s West Bank decrease from 8,459 to 1,543 in 2001. While the causes of Protestant movement have been the subject of visceral debate and contestation within the city and beyond, it is clear from existing research,17 including my own research here, that while issues of housing and employment were clearly factors for some, the overarching reasons for many were various forms of intimidation. Beyond these urban settings, there were also relatively significant levels of displacement in places such as Whiteabbey and Newtownabbey on the outskirts of north Belfast, towns such Carrickfergus and Craigavon, among others. The border with the Irish Republic also witnessed continuous forms of displacement, mainly involving the Protestant population who interpreted the IRA’s armed actions in these areas as akin to a form of ‘ethnic cleansing’. Given the passage of time, the trademark immediate humanitarian needs of those displaced in Northern Ireland are no longer a pressing concern. Most research participants have long since settled into new homes and new communities. Therefore, this research is primarily concerned with the legacy of displacement, particularly the impact of unaddressed and unacknowledged loss and harm. In doing so, it highlights to transitional scholars and practitioners the importance of recognizing and including the long-term physical and psychological impacts of displacement in all state-led and community forms of truth-seeking, peacebuilding, accountability and reconciliation. The Legacy of Suffering and Loss After Displacement Prevailing understandings of victimhood and loss caused by the Troubles have typically focused on harms caused by shootings, bombings and related physical violence. The construction of meaning with regards to the conventional understandings of violence and harm not only solidifies its privileged status as an exceptional and therefore paramount existential source of harm, but also diminishes the meaning associated with other forms of violence, such as displacement. Those who experienced displacement represent a group of hidden voices and unrecognized harms that remain largely sidelined within a broader transitional justice framework in Northern Ireland.18 It is important to state that there was no archetypal form or experience of displacement. Some literally fled as their homes they were torched; others quietly left in the dead of night after years of incremental intimidation. While acknowledging the heterogenous experiences among participants, nevertheless there were discernible patterns of commonality. With regards to their individual experiences of displacement, all research participants spoke of the pain, distress and ‘heartbreak’ of losing their family home, their communities, social networks, their places of employment, worship and education. Despite the propensity of conventions to depict war and peace as two distinct temporal forms of social and political action, the emotional impact of violent uprooting is clearly deep-seated and present. Rita and her family were directly intimidated out of their home close to Londonderry-Derry city centre in 1972: I have to tell you it was heart-breaking leaving our wee house, that you had paid for, that you had furnished and done up, built on a bathroom and kitchen; heart-breaking. But it was very very hard to walk away and go live in another house and another area. This was your life; where you were brought up, schooled, churched, brought up three kids. When asked about the actual event of losing their home, many responded that while it was painful, there was an element of ‘making the best of the situation’ but an acute realization that the family had no choice; they were forced to move for their own safety. Despite the sentiments expressing the pragmatism of ‘not dwelling too much on it at the time,’ it was clear that many still felt a visceral sense of pain and loss when recalling these events. Annie was married with three children and living in Ardoyne when in the Summer of 1971 she along with hundreds of others were evacuated to refugee centres in the Republic of Ireland. To this day, she is still shaken by the memories of leaving that day: Later that day the big corporation buses arrived and they were parked around the school and everyone in the school was evacuated and because I was pregnant my husband was saying ‘you have to go; you have to go’ but I didn’t want to go, it was breaking my heart. When I was younger, there was a [television] programme on about Warsaw and the Jews and the Nazis and the series was about a wee girl who was evacuated and she had lost touch with everybody and it was all a big sad thing, awful, and I just thought ‘that’s what is going to happen to me here’ and I had this terrible feeling that you’d never be back again, you’d never see your family again and that the entire place was going to be burnt to the ground; the most horrible feeling ever. Despite rebuilding their lives after their relocation or return, the act of displacement(s) (some respondents were displaced on more than one occasion) continues to instil negative emotions regarding the significance of loss. Joanne and her family were displaced twice from their Ardoyne home in Belfast in the early 1970s. On the first occasion in 1969, they left their family home as rioting and violence intensified but they had no idea that their home and street were eventually burned later that night: We ended up in my aunt’s home in Andersonstown19 so we were able to stay there overnight but we just left with what we were standing in; we thought we were only going for the night. But I remember the next day, we turned on the news and I can still remember my mommy and daddy standing watching the news in my aunt’s living room and they pointed out our house on the news and there was only two walls left; that’s all that was left. Nothing else [pause] and a plate of Our Lady of Lourdes hanging on the wall; that’s how we knew it was our house. Everything was taken from us; everything. We had nowhere to go so [we] ended up in the local school, sleeping there for the next few weeks. All of those displaced through mass house burnings and attacks vividly described the loss of treasured family possessions such as photographs, jewellery as well as clothes and furniture; many stated that ‘all that was left was the clothes we fled in.’ The disruption and debilitating impact of displacement also went beyond these immense losses; many of those who were children at the time recalled leaving friends, of never having the opportunity to say goodbye to neighbours and friends; others spoke about the upheaval in changing schools, particularly those who resettled in other jurisdictions. Martina’s family were forced from their home in Whiteabbey on the outskirts of north Belfast in 1975. The family re-settled in the Republic of Ireland. She described the final moments before her family left their home: [My parents] said they didn’t want any of the neighbours to know that we were moving because they were afraid of being attacked in the lead-up to it so none of my friends knew that I was leaving, you never really got to say goodbye. But everywhere was deserted and we were all in the car and nobody was speaking. I think everyone was just in shock or just worn out and my Dad, god love him, he was closing up the house and he came out with a pint of water and he said ‘who wants the last drink from the house?’ and I was the only one who took the drink. But I turned around and I watched the house as we drove away down the road and watched it until we turned and until it disappeared out of view. Martina’s description of her Dad bringing out the glass of water is a powerful and moving vignette. Because of the clandestine nature of her family’s departure from Whiteabbey, Martina interpreted her Dad’s actions as a gesture to signify the enormity of the moment but doing so in a very quiet and everyday way. The moment of departure for Martina is as significant for her as it is for those who fled burning homes and streets. Moreover, the passage of over 45 years has not diminished the memory and the meaning of her family’s departure. When thinking about displacement during the Troubles, the images most immediately conjured are those of burning streets and rows and rows of gutted houses. While this was clearly the case for many, Martina’s experience like that of many others was more akin to a silent movement, the consequence of a slow grind consisting of years of subtle forms of sectarianism and intimidation. Displacement also profoundly impacted access to resources, education, work and social and familial networks, as well as status and sense of identity. The concept of ontological security draws upon the idea of continuity and levels of certainty and predictability in the lives and social knowledge of individuals and collectives, based on a taken-for-granted knowledge of what to expect and how to ‘be’ in the world.20 While Giddens’ original concept did not have displacement in mind, the concept has been adopted and refashioned by scholars of refugees and conflict into the more pertinent ‘ontological insecurity,’ asking critical questions regarding peace, security and humanitarian assistance. According to Healey, forced movement disturbs an individual’s ontological security – that is, a person’s understanding of their place within their worldview and with which they feel comfortable – through the loss of relative stability in their known world.21 Many respondents were urban dwellers and always had been; in the aftermath of displacement they now found themselves relocated to villages and areas that were essentially rural and, in many instances, underdeveloped. While exile was essentially a necessity to escape insecurity and vulnerability, resettlement brought new forms of isolation and vulnerability. Phyllis and her young family were forced from their homes in the Rosemount area of Londonderry-Derry and were re-housed in a small village called Newbuildings, some seven miles outside the city: It was my husband’s home, he was born and reared there. Prior to 1968 it was a good place to live because you’re not in the city centre but you are in walking distance; your school was local, your church, your butchers, buses, everything on hand and there were no problems in the area. Then we were heading for Newbuildings and while the houses were ready for occupation, there was no roads, there’s no infrastructure, no streetlights, you’re out in the country area so no shops; I think there was one post office but you had to go wherever you are sent, and I never got over it; people took that to the graves with them. For those who were parents and adults such as Phyllis, the relocation and rehousing experience was a mixture of relief tempered by the precarious nature of post-displacement life. The impact therefore went beyond the immediate loss of home and possessions; in all cases, it led to the disruption of social networks and structures that form the foundations of ontological security. These experiences reveal a dissonance between the idea that resettlement brings safety and security and the reality that for many, the years of post-displacement were marked by new forms of insecurity and precariousness as they found themselves and their families living in new and unfamiliar housing developments and communities. Many spoke of losing jobs or being forced to terminate employment due to their movement. At a time when means of communication were rudimentary, many lost contact with friends and neighbours permanently. Other issues such as the practicalities of grocery shopping, education and attending church also presented many new challenges. Despite the passage of time and physical changes to the landscape, there is an unaddressed legacy regarding the ‘long-term’ impact of exile. The research here indicates that the loss and heartache associated with displacement are not spatially or temporally bounded. While the memories, and the meanings associated with those memories, can and do change across time, testimonies here indicate that experiences of displacement have taken on increased significance in the years since the ending of the Troubles. As Annie stated, ‘at the time you can’t really fathom it and you just get on and forget about things.’ Avoidance and distraction are considered short-term protective devices during the initial stages of trauma exposure to enable people to get on with basic survival tasks such as fleeing.22 Moreover, much of the large incidents of displacement occurred in the early to mid-1970s, a time when the conflict in Northern Ireland was at its most intense. Many of the communities affected by displacement were also those that disproportionately suffered the worst incidents of violence. Several research participants stated that the intensity of the conflict precluded any space for reflection. As many respondents recalled, there were daily bombings, shootings, arrests and funeral after funeral, and so there was no time or space for reflection. Most respondents stated that the memories of their displacement have become more persistent and taken on more importance in the years of the peace process, describing an array of psychological harms over the intervening decades, including anger, resentment, nightmares, isolation, vulnerability and, in some instances, feelings of shame and guilt for leaving. The rich descriptions of the chaos, suffering and intensity of violence as a backdrop to displacement invoke critical questions regarding the (in)actions of the state. The role of the state, or lack thereof, generated a mixture of perspectives that generally adhered to ethno-religious identities. Most Catholic participants contend that the state stood idly by and allowed mass burnings and intimidation to occur; some accused state forces of aiding and abetting loyalists in doing so. Many Protestant respondents believed that the state was unable or in some instances unwilling to provide protection to Protestants, particularly in IRA strongholds such as Derry city and the infamous rural hinterland that housed the contested border with the Irish Republic. Perceptions regarding the lack of protection and defence were a central spur for the emergence and growth of the Provisional IRA, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and other paramilitaries in the early 1970s. The collective upheaval of displacement in Catholic communities in 1969 became the initial raison d'être of the Provisional IRA. To this day, their logo and motto draw succour from the traumatic events of 1969: ‘Out of the ashes rose the Provisionals’. Equally, the widely held belief in working-class Protestant areas that the state was unable to defend their communities against what they perceived to be a republican onslaught to ‘cleanse’ Protestants was central to the formation of thousands of vigilante groups that would quickly coalesce as the UDA, the largest Protestant paramilitary force. Therefore, the state not only stands accused of failing to protect its citizens, but its perceived inaction bequeathed a vacuum that was readily filled with paramilitary recruits willing to take matters into their own hands. For many, the experience of losing their homes and of forced exile caused significant and enduring suffering that should be recognized as a form of conflict-related harm and victimhood in the context of endeavours to deal with and address the legacy of armed conflict in Northern Ireland. Though there were differences among participants as to whether they ‘qualified’ as victims, all were united in their belief that their suffering and loss has not been recognized by the state and wider society. The violence of the Troubles has typically been measured using standardized assessments (e.g., number of deaths, injuries, economic impact), with much of the transitional focus, understandably, centring on the needs and interests of those who lost loved ones or those physically and psychologically harmed through shootings and bombings. Imposing a reductive framework that ‘measures’ violence solely by limited and crude forms such as body counts, injuries and other forms of physical harms is of course wholly contingent upon the trivialization and concealment of multiple forms of violence and insecurity situated outside the boundaries of seemingly orthodox understandings of violence and harm. Though there is a growing appreciation internationally for the inclusion of refugees and those forcibly displaced to be incorporated as active participants in processes of peacebuilding and transitional justice, displacement in Northern Ireland has been virtually absent from academic research, policy endeavours and the wider public conversation regarding legacy and reconciliation. Truth, Denial and Acknowledgement Despite the cursory commitments to addressing the issue of victims in the 1998 Belfast or Good Friday Agreement (hereafter the GFA) peace accord, no centralized, formal structure or process was stipulated or established. If anything, in the intervening years the state has been zealous in removing itself from direct involvement in devising comprehensive transitional approaches. Furthermore, not only did the GFA not put in place any mechanisms for victims, but it also failed to define the term ‘victim.’ The consequences of this omittance (deliberate or not) have reverberated over the last 20 years, with real-world consequences and impacts for those who continue to live with the harms of the Troubles. For instance, in 2009 the proposed inclusion of paramilitary members in a £12,000 ‘recognition payment’ for all those killed during the Troubles in what was known as the Eames-Bradley Report into dealing with legacy, sparked a wave of anger and protestations, resulting in the shelving of what was broadly considered to be a comprehensive package on dealing with the past.23 The chasm created by the lack of an overarching, comprehensive ‘truth and justice’ mechanism has led to what Christine Bell has called a ‘piecemeal approach’ to dealing with the past in Northern Ireland.24 The disparate and numerous approaches by state and non-state actors have thus far included public legal inquiries, an Historical Enquiries Team (HET), establishment of a police ombudsman, community and grassroots initiatives, legal challenges such as private prosecutions and civil actions, policing initiatives, victim-centred state-led initiatives, among others. The persistent exaltation of Northern Ireland as a ‘model of conflict resolution’ withers in the face of a society imbued with many forms of unresolved and, in this instance, unacknowledged harms. Despite the tenacious framing of Northern Ireland as a ‘post-conflict’ society, broader interpretations of violence and transitional justice pave the way for a more critical consideration of dealing with the legacy of displacement in a meaningful and holistic way. Transitional justice refers to a set of measures that seek to redress the legacies of massive human rights abuses that occur during conflict and under abusive regimes, primarily by giving force to human rights norms that were systematically violated. Broadly, it aims to provide recognition for victims, foster civic trust and strengthen the rule of law through a range of mechanisms including but not limited to: criminal prosecutions; reparations programmes; restitution programmes; truth-telling initiatives; and justice-sensitive security sector reform.25 Throughout its development, the field has been continuously vexed by the pursuit of two seemingly irreconcilable elements – the idea of justice and the idea of change through time – thus generating challenging questions of whether it is possible to define transitional justice as a form of special justice or if, instead, it has to be regarded as a form of normal justice.26 Though initially concerned with the pursuit of individual accountability for human violations through criminal and legalistic trials, the aftermath of the Cold War witnessed a discernible shift towards alternative strategies, thus eschewing criminal trials in favour of a new institutional mechanism – the truth commission – essentially establishing a dichotomy between truth and justice. The departure from retributive forms of justice to the advocacy of issues such as healing, reconciliation and peace, whereby accountability and justice were reframed as restorative rather that retributive, essentially juxtaposed the pursuit of justice with the task of peacebuilding and reconciliation.27 Thus, the pursuit of truth and justice became primarily a vehicle for victims to reconcile and recover from past harms, whereby transitional justice became a dialogue between victim and perpetrator.28 While one of the principal goals of transitional justice is to avoid a reoccurrence of violence, many also contend that it is a necessary component of sustainable peacebuilding processes in post-conflict societies, particularly in those that remain deeply divided along entrenched lines of religious or ethnonational identity.29 Furthermore, transitional justice approaches are often cited as being ‘victim centred,’ and the importance of victim participation is increasingly recognized as an important departure in positioning victims as active rather than passive.30 Prevailing approaches to justice and accountability in Northern Ireland, however, tend to be embedded in legalist and positivist understanding,31 with justice essentially equated to legal, individual accountability through the medium of juridical practices and processes. Constructions of ‘victim/perpetrator’ frameworks are premised on individualistic approaches to truth recovery and accountability, while overlooking the fluidity and plurality of social identities and experiences during armed conflict. Whether transitional justice approaches promote retributive forms of justice or reconciliation-based approaches which focus on truth, restoration and forgiveness, invariably the focus is often centred on individuals who committed crimes.32 While displacement in other regions such as Guatemala, Timor-Leste, Sierra Leone and Liberia have attempted to address the legacy of forced movement through truth commissions and reparations,33 the issue in Northern Ireland is first, that displacement has not been recognized by the state or much of society as a salient form of conflict-related harm, and second, that the significant passage of time precludes the implementation of transitional staples such as a truth commission, trials, right of return or reparation payments. The case of displacement in Northern Ireland therefore represents challenges for transitional justice approaches. If transitional justice measures are applied in contexts where displacement has occurred, a question arises as to what extent these measures can meaningfully engage with displaced persons, through avenues such as consultation, participation and access.34 All respondents were cognisant that there will be no state-led historical investigations, formal truth commissions, arrests or criminal prosecutions of those involved in various forms intimidation and attack. Despite this, the commonality across most participants was the quest for public acknowledgement and recognition – by the state, by representatives of the ‘other’ community and, in some instances, by members of their own communities. A range of arguments support the imperative to acknowledge or ‘vindicate’ victims in order to right the wrongs visited upon them during conflict, including the ability to restore dignity and self-esteem, recognize loss, while also holding the potential to build relationships based on trust and mutual accountability.35 Therefore, acknowledgement is decisive in the transitional dynamic. Acknowledgement, particularly through hearing one another’s stories, validates experiences and feelings and represents the first step towards restoration of the person and the relationship. While accountability via a judicial court case can in some instances mitigate feelings of anger and animosity regarding past injustices,36 public acknowledgement can be effective in repairing many broken relationships in Northern Ireland by conferring public recognition of pain, trauma and loss. Such public expressions can be symbolic forms of reparations, including apologies, museums and monuments. The need to tell, record and publicly disseminate their stories of displacement emerged as the overarching demand among participants; in other words, acknowledgement, recognition and validation. Perceptions that many episodes of displacement are being denied, diminished or at best deliberately obfuscated have compounded the sense of loss and pain, at both an individual and collective level. Denied the public space for trials, truth recovery and physical sites of commemoration, many of those displaced seek public acknowledgement and recognition of their experiences, through storytelling, oral testimony and the public dissemination of displacement narratives and experiences. Far from being a matter solely of individual experience, memory is a social phenomenon. What and how we remember is shaped and moulded by our experience and interaction with significant others, our participation in social discourse and our interactions with meaningful symbols, surroundings and landscapes. Nor is memory purely a record of the past. While memory is indeed about the past, perhaps its defining feature is its presentism.37 As an active and dynamic process, recalling and narrating past experiences is shaped and filtered in light of the present, and moreover, the content of what is recalled or not is situational and contingent on the audience and narrator and the power relationship between them. Testimonies of tumultuous and violent ‘life experiences’ such as forced displacement should therefore be considered constructions and products of active agents and ‘experiencing subjects’ seeking to make sense of violence and turbulent change, paying particular attention to the ways in which experience is framed and articulated.38 Thus the caveat here is that stories and recollections cannot be seen as simply reflecting life as lived through some rational, objective, value-free lens; on the contrary, narrations should be seen as creative constructions or interpretations of the past, generated and shaped in specific contexts of the present.39 In the context of a region transitioning from protracted armed violence, recollections of the past are also embedded in a wider, adversarial framework of ‘memory politics’ as the social action of collecting and recording stories become sites of struggle and resistance regarding legitimacy, morality, blame and culpability. Ruti Teital contends that recollective accounts generated in transitional times are never autonomous and are often anchored in national narratives; therefore, transitional truths are socially constructed within processes of collective memory.’40 [AQ: Please add opening quote mark for quote ending ‘memory’. Please check editing of this sentence and change as necessary for the parts which are in the quote] Notwithstanding this, the opportunity and ability to narrate one’s own story, as a means to secure recognition, have become associated with a transition from the condition of being a (passive) victim into that of an (active) survivor.41 The agency and cathartic outcomes of articulating conflict-related harms are of course tempered by the reality that such endeavours have the potential to exacerbate or reignite feelings of pain, loss and hurt, as well as the obvious danger of exacerbating already polarized conflict narratives.42 The growth in giving testimony has also been linked to the evolving culture of rights internationally, with some arguing that the collection of stories of violation and the development of publicly accessible archives could help cement and consolidate human rights in the present and ensure non-repetition in the future.43 While the article contends that displaced persons need to be considered within the spectrum of victimhood and harm, it is important to look beyond the ‘passive’ connotations often associated with victimhood and to highlight that many respondents are agents seeking individual recognition, truth and restoration and, in some instances, also seeking to engage in processes which advance wider societal healing through various forms of inter-communal dialogue and engagement. With regards to enhancing community relations, respondents in this research stressed the need for members and representatives of the ‘other community’ to hear their stories, acknowledge them and seek to address the hurt through dialogue. Some of the research participants from the Protestant community in Londonderry-Derry, such as Peter below, have been active in the community sector for many years and have engaged with nationalists and republicans on the issue of Protestant displacement, but are often confronted with a sense of denial: [It’s] not only because of the physical attacks and murders and intimidation but the lack of recognition; almost like a cruel thing that that movement and the impact and trauma of that has never been recognized never mind appreciated or dealt with. Derry has been a model of good practice in so many ways and like there is this idea then of celebrating diversity and culture, and so if you’re Chinese or Romanian, you are welcome here but if you’re a Protestant ‘fuck off.’ The Exodus, as we call it, runs very deep in the DNA of Protestants in this city and we felt that we got a raw deal in terms of how that has been dealt with or not addressed and the things thrown at us is ‘oh you’re just whinging Protestants’ or ‘we don’t believe you’ and that is why it is so important to have an honest narrative. And you’re not attacking anything; you’re just saying ‘this is my story and this is my truth.’ Denial (i.e., repressing or reinterpreting information that is too threatening or disturbing to be publicly acknowledged) is inherent to the practice of social exclusion44 – denial of others’ suffering creates the framework for legitimizing violence against the other. All respondents articulated a view that denial and downplaying of intimidation have impacted negatively on community relations despite the advancements of the last 25 years of the peace process. For Lederach, reconciliation is not a process or a policy, but a social space where encounters can take place between former enemies to engage in issues of truth, justice, mercy and peace.45 For reconciliation to be effective, the humanity of the ‘other’ group must be recognized; a new moral order needs to be created that reflects cooperation between two competing groups; stereotypes and generalizations need to be adjusted; and communicative purposes that build trust and facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation are required.46 Many Protestant participants believe that the nationalist and republican community will not countenance an acknowledgement of the loss and trauma caused by intimidation and displacement; an acknowledgement would signify as admission of culpability, thereby undermining republican narratives of the nature of the conflict.47 While some respondents stated that an acknowledgement from the ‘other’ community was unlikely, most continued to invest much energy into communicating their displacement narratives through the means of storytelling. Philip’s family lived close to the nationalist Bogside area of Londonderry-Derry but left in 1972 after years of growing fears for their safety as a Protestant family. He has devoted a lot of time and work into documenting and communicating Protestant stories of displacement both within his community but also to Catholic communities through a variety of methods, including books, plays and inter-communal workshops, which he contends is an effective way of communicating displacement narratives. While respecting the diversity of memories, meanings and needs of the research participants, all contended that ‘storytelling,’ ‘oral testimony’ and ‘putting our stories on the public record’ were their overarching preference for ending the silence and marginalization regarding their displacement experiences. Cillian McGrattan, however, situates the recent rush towards ‘storytelling’ as a deliberate political act to displace highly contentious legacy issues away from the formal political arena into the more amicable community setting of oral testimony. While acknowledging the important role of testimony, the emphasis on ‘grassroots’ truths’ may work to hamper the stated policy goals of transparency, proportionality and accountability in this area of dealing with the past. In other words, the traditional law-and-order apparatus of due process and forensic evidence will be substituted with an approach to justice based on relative and subjective forms of ‘truth,’ that intuitively feel to be (in)correct, regardless of facts and evidence.48 Localized forms of truth recovery nonetheless do play an important role in transforming societies emerging from conflict, and Northern Ireland’s vibrant civil society has widely used storytelling, oral recordings and archives, as well as witness programmes, as important means in the quest for public acknowledgement. Many victims have regarded the telling of such stories as essential, either in terms of their recovery and healing or in terms of bearing witness to atrocity so that future atrocities can be avoided, and so storytelling offers effective and practical ways of dealing with the horrors of the past.49 The opportunity and ability to narrate one’s own story, as a means to secure recognition, has become associated with a transition from the condition of being a (passive) victim to being an (active) survivor.50 As articulated by Philip, most of the research participants look towards various communicative platforms for ‘storytelling,’ including direct dialogue, oral testimony, plays, books and documentaries, not only as a means of seeking acknowledgement but also to give voice to the displacement experience. For the Protestant community in Londonderry-Derry, the exodus has emerged as a central conduit of communicating the collective Protestant experiences of the Troubles in the city with a view to seeking recognition and acknowledgement as part of a suite of measures to address the individual and collective legacy of forced displacement. Narratives are critical for peacebuilding processes because they are the primary way in which people make sense of the world, produce meanings, articulate intentions and legitimize actions. When people who have experienced conflict or violence narrate their everyday stories, they articulate the type of loss they suffered, the myriad ways such loss affects their lives and how they are coping. In doing so, their narratives reveal individual interpretations of conflict and peace and illuminate the differentiated requirements that people need for justice or reconciliation to take place.51 Despite the slippery nature of the concept, according to Lederach52 reconciliation suggests meaningful engagement and discernible changes in previously adversarial relationships. Reconciliation, therefore, requires an acknowledgement of trauma, in all in its manifestations, and genuine endeavours to seek truth recovery in ways that build towards healing that trauma. To marginalize or deny (and that includes silence) is to increase social exclusion, and thus denial becomes a practice that re-enforces harm. However, many of Northern Ireland’s endeavours to address the past, though by no means all, are embedded in processes of assigning culpability and blame, rather than of reconciliation and transformation. According to Daniel Bar-Tal, groups in conflict tend to form selective ‘collective memories’ of violence, ones that ‘focus mainly on the other side’s responsibility for the outbreak and continuation of the conflict and its misdeeds, violence, and atrocities,’ while simultaneously focusing on their own self-justification, self-righteousness, glorification and victimization.’53 [AQ: Please add opening quote mark for quote ending ‘victimization’. If the deleted comma after ‘glorification’ is part of the quote, please reinstate it] Therefore, the potential benefits of sharing personal and communal stories of past violence are also weighed against the likely prospect of denial. The focus on reconciliation rather than retribution through an array of mechanisms is fraught with the danger of encountering animosity and antagonistic opposition. Nonetheless, it also offers potential not only for individual restoration and well-being but also for the advancement of repairing societal harms. Additionally, it is now widely recognized that telling stories can repair the ruptures to refugees’ and IDPs’ identities, thereby assisting them to recreate new and more acceptable self-identities, restore order in the aftermath of disruption, gain control of their present lives and find meaning in the incomprehensible.54 Annie’s family were displaced a number of times by loyalists in north Belfast, and she believes it is time that the experiences of displacement be heard: Yes we are victims, of course we are. Like the trauma I went through thinking that you’d never see your husband, your family and your house, and the fear. You need to listen to people’s stories and if you don’t that trauma is never going to go away. The connection between the two aspects of storytelling – as a private tool for processing and a public tool for reshaping collective memories – is what may allow the practice of recording oral testimonies to act not only as a historical document, but also as a mechanism for transition out of conflict through its creation and dissemination.55 Acknowledging and listening to overlooked or marginalized perspectives and experiences can only enhance our comprehensions regarding conflict and its many harms, and furthermore challenge some of the orthodoxies within conventional or accepted narratives, thus forcing us to revaluate our understandings of violence, legacy and our endeavours for addressing it. Furthermore, some participants have used art and drama as practices for both dealing with and communicating the loss and non-recognition of displacement. The development of the arts in transitional justice reflects a broader trend in peacebuilding scholarship and practice where the arts have gained increasing attention as an instrument to promote dialogue, reconciliation and conflict transformation.56 It has been noted that some displacement service providers use innovative therapeutic projects such as ‘theatre of the oppressed’ or ‘art therapy’ when talk therapies have been less successful, involving enacting one’s life story through body movements or via the medium of art, respectively. According to service providers, non-verbal devices could be more culturally familiar and hence more acceptable, or can circumvent the need to be exposed to emotional turmoil in order to hear.57 Martina has conceived and created a number of public art exhibitions that document her visualization of displacement through a variety of media including paint, print, found objects and short films, which she contends is about exploring layers of personal memories and ‘represents my wish to acknowledge, to state, this movement of community, and the individuals within.’ By communicating their experiences to the ‘other community’ and wider society through oral testimony, plays, drama, documentaries, workshops, as well as the production of art and short films, many participants see the restorative and healing potential of such endeavours. The reality is that despite the pain and loss, all research participants were keen to speak about their experiences through this research. For some it was the first time articulating their memories; others had spent much of their adult lives endeavouring to process, record and communicate what they see as ‘silenced voices.’ Many believe they are forgotten victims of the Troubles; indeed, to date there has been no state-led recognition of Northern Ireland’s mass displacement during the Troubles. The legacy of diminution and denial of displacement by sections of opposing communities remains a formidable issue within inter-communal relations in Northern Ireland. For peacebuilding to be a truly transformative process whereby society moves towards sustainable relations, the legacy of displacement and the needs of its many survivors must be incorporated as part of the peacebuilding process. While the notion of oral testimony is tempered by the reality that conventional forms of justice, guilt and accountability are effectively dispensed with, in certain instances such as historical displacement the role of ‘storytelling’ and other bottom-up acknowledgement projects is seen by victims and survivors as an effective vehicle to ‘end the silence’, challenge denial and offer a counter-narrative for those displaced during the conflict. Conclusion While displacement has gradually been incorporated into transitional justice and peacebuilding processes in places such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guatemala,58 the voices and long-term impact of forced displacement in Northern Ireland have yet to be recognized as an important part of peacebuilding, reconciliation and truth-seeking. Though the experiences, needs and interests of those displaced are heterogenous, the thread of commonality running throughout was a quest for public recognition of their longstanding losses. The visceral sense of being silenced, ignored or marginalized is the outcome of reductive discourse and policy outputs that continue to frame loss, suffering and victimhood solely as those acts associated with conventional forms of physical, armed violence, thus cultivating a hierarchy of harms and victims. The article therefore offers some recommendations to address the dearth of attention and quest for recognition. First, it is clear from this research and others that those who suffered displacement during the ‘Troubles’ should be considered victims and be situated on the spectrum of victimhood. There is a strong need to raise awareness in policy circles and the wider public of the importance of listening to and recognizing their standpoints and experiences as those of victims. Second, the article suggests that oral testimony, public dissemination and the creation of an historical archive offer an effective means for recovering the silenced voices of displacement. Such an archive could come in the form of a stand-alone project or as part of the proposed Oral History Archive, which forms an important pillar of the 2014 Stormont House Agreement, which set out a range of strategies and frameworks for dealing with the legacy of conflict. While storytelling processes are of course vexed and complicated by the perennial epistemological battle between positivist and constructivist accounts of armed violence, they were consistently identified by participants as an effective mechanism capable of addressing what they feel have been ‘forgotten victims’ of the Troubles. Finally, there is a pressing need for a wider debate regarding forms of symbolic reparation. Given the vast levels of forced movement, the state and wider Northern Irish society should consider additional forms of symbolic reparation to symbolize and acknowledge the suffering and loss. While the UN ‘Basic Principles’ categorize reparation as rehabilitation, restitution, satisfaction and assurances of non-repetition of harm, symbolic forms of reparation are increasingly looked to as a form of justice and redress for victims of complex, protracted armed conflicts. Kris Brown contends that symbolic reparations are seen to have the greatest salience when they take the form of the renaming of public spaces, the construction of museums, processes of physical memorialization, public apology and atonement, the rededication of places of detention into sites of memory and the establishment of commemorative events.59 Given the state’s abject failure to prevent past displacement, and moreover its continuing failure to address its legacy in the present, any future state-led endeavours to address the legacy of conflict need to incorporate displacement as a source of harms, and should consider some form of symbolic acknowledgement as an important means of recognizing the high levels of displacement experienced by its citizens. Public acknowledgement of forced displacement is therefore more than simply being mindful or knowing about past hurts; it is about conferring public recognition on an injustice that was committed in the name of a specific political unit or collective. In doing so, it validates the hurt and suffering of those forcibly uprooted and has the potential to establish new relations and understandings regarding conflict-related harms and their long-term impacts. Footnotes ∞ This research is funded by the Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme and the Busteed Postdoctoral Scholarship, Institute of Irish Studies, at the University of Liverpool. The author wishes to express his gratitude to all those participants who generously gave their time to share their stories for this research, including Michael Liggett and Stephen Andrews in Belfast and Brian Dougherty and all those at the Newgate Arts Centre in Londonderry-Derry for their support and assistance. The author is grateful for the constant support of Colin Coulter, Peter Shirlow and Mervyn Busteed throughout this research. 1 Peter Shirlow and Brendan Murtagh, Belfast: Violence, Segregation and the City (London: Pluto Press, 2006). 2 Michael McCann, Burnt Out: How the Troubles Began (Cork: Mercier Press, 2019). 3 Graham Dawson, Making Peace with the Past? Memory, Trauma and the Irish Troubles (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007); Neill Southern, ‘Protestant Alienation in Northern Ireland: A Political, Cultural and Geographical Examination,’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33(1) (2007): 159–180. 4 Ulf Hansson and Helen McLaughlin, Protestant Migration from the West Bank of Derry / Londonderry 1969–1980 (Derry: Pat Finucane Centre, 2018); Peter Shirlow, Brian Graham, Amanda McMullan, Brendan Murtagh, Gillian Robinson and Neil Southern, Population Change and Social Inclusion Study (Derry/Londonderry: OFMDFM, 2005). 5 Katherine Side, ‘Visual and Textual Narratives of Conflict-Related Displacement in Northern Ireland,’ Identities 22(4) (2015): 486–507. 6 Brendan Ciarán Browne and Casey Asprooth-Jackson, ‘From 1969 to 2018: Relocating Historical Narratives of Displacement during ‘the Troubles’ through the European Migrant Crisis,’ Capital and Class 43(1) (2019): 23–38. 7 Luke Moffett, Cheryl Lawther, Kevin Hearty, Andrew Godden and Robin Hickey. ‘No Longer Neighbours’: The Impact of Violence on Land, Housing and Redress in the Northern Ireland Conflict. (Report by Reparations, Responsibility & Victimhood in Transitional Societies project at Queen’s University Belfast, 2020). 8 Jacqueline Parry, ‘Constructing Space for Refugee Voices in National Peacebuilding Processes,’ Peacebuilding 8(2) (2020): 159–177. 9 Roger Duthie, ‘Transitional Justice and Displacement,’ International Journal of Transitional Justice 5(2) (2011): 241–261. 10 Megan Bradley, ‘Truth-Telling and Displacement: Patterns and Prospects,’ in Displacement and Transitional Justice, ed. Roger Duthie (New York: Social Sciences Research Council, 2012). 11 Maria Eastmond, ‘Stories as Lived Experience: Narratives in Forced Migration Research,’ Journal of Refugee Studies 20(2) (2007): 248–264. 12 Ibid. 13 Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (London: Sage, 1990). 14 John D. Brewer, Peace Processes: A Sociological Approach (Cambridge: Polity, 2010). 15 McCann, supra n 2. 16 Paddy Devlin, Straight Left: An Autobiography (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1993), 117. 17 Niall Ó Dochartaigh, From Civil Rights to Armalites: Derry and the Birth of the Irish Troubles (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Shirlow et al. supra n 4; Marie Smyth, Two Policy Papers (Derry and Londonderry: Templegrove Action Research, 1996); Southern, supra n 3. 18 Browne and Asprooth-Jackson, supra n 6. 19 Andersonstown is a large, predominantly Catholic residential area in West Belfast. 20 Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity (New York: Polity Press, 1991). 21 R.L. Healey, ‘Asylum-seekers and Refugees: A Structuration Theory Analysis of Their Experiences in the UK,’ Population, Space and Place 12(4) (2006): 257–271. 22 Teresa Puvimanasinghe, Linley A. Denson, Martha Augoustinos and Daya Somasundaram, ‘Narrative and Silence: How Former Refugees Talk about Loss and Past Trauma,’ Journal of Refugee Studies 28(1) (2015): 69–92. 23 Cheryl Lawther, Truth, Denial and Transition: Northern Ireland and the Contested Past, (New York: Routledge, 2014). 24 Christine Bell, ‘Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland,’ Fordham International Law Journal 26(4) (2003): 1095–1147. 25 Bradley, supra n 10. 26 Claudio Corradetti and Nir Eisikovits, Theorizing Transitional Justice (London and New York: Routledge, 2015); Ruti T. Teital, ‘Transitional Justice Genealogy,’ Harvard Human Rights Journal 16 (2003): 69–94. 27 Brandon Hamber and Patricia Lundy, ‘Lessons from Transitional Justice? Toward a New Framing of a Victim-Centered Approach in the Case of Historical Institutional Abuse,’ Victims & Offenders 15(6) (2020): 744–770. 28 Teital, supra n 26 at 80. 29 Nevin T. Aiken, ‘Learning to Live Together: Transitional Justice and Intergroup Reconciliation in Northern Ireland,’ International Journal of Transitional Justice 4(2) (2010): 166–188. 30 Hamber and Lundy, supra n 30; Rachel Kerr and Eirin Mobekk, Peace and Justice: Seeking Accountability After War (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007). 31 Kieran McEvoy, ‘Beyond Legalism: Towards a Thicker Understanding of Transitional Justice,’ Journal of Law and Society 34(4) (2007): 411–440; Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern, ‘Whose Justice? Rethinking Transitional Justice from the Bottom Up,’ Journal of Law and Society 35(2) (2008): 265–292. 32 Ibid. 33 Bradley, supra n 10. 34 Duthie, supra n 9. 35 Sarah Jankowitz, ‘Sociopolitical Implications of Exclusive, Intergroup Perceptions of Victims in Societies Emerging from Conflict,’ Peacebuilding 5(3) (2017): 289–304. 36 Nigel Biggar, Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice after Civil Conflict (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001). 37 Barbara Misztal, Theories of Social Remembering (Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press, 2003). 38 Eastmond, supra n 11 at 249. 39 Ibid., 250. 40 Teital, supra n 26 and n 70. 41 Dawson, supra n 3 42 Priscilla B. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenge of Truth Commissions (New York and London: Routledge, 2001). 43 Brandon Hamber and Gráinne Kelly, ‘Practice, Power and Inertia: Personal Narrative, Archives and Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland,’ Journal of Human Rights Practice 8 (2016): 25–44. 44 Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), 25. 45 John Paul Lederach, Building Peace. Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997). 46 Donald G. Ellis, Transforming Conflict: Communication and Ethnopolitical Conflict (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2006). 47 Typically, republicans are accused by unionists and others of attempting to ‘rewrite’ history to justify their violence as non-sectarian and a ‘war of liberation.’ Many nationalists and others accuse the British state, unionists and loyalist paramilitaries of concealing their role in the conflict, particularly committing human rights violations and social exclusion against Catholic citizens. For an insightful overview of this complex debate, see Kieran McEvoy and Kirstin McConnachie, ‘Victims and Transitional Justice: Voice, Agency and Blame,’ Social and Legal Studies 22(4) (2013): 489–513. 48 Cillian McGrattan, ‘The Stormont House Agreement and the New Politics of Storytelling in Northern Ireland,’ Parliamentary Affairs 69 (2016): 928–946. 49 Claire Hackett and Bill Rolston, ‘The Burden of Memory: Victims, Storytelling and Resistance in Northern Ireland,’ Memory Studies 2(3) (2009): 355–376. 50 Dawson, supra n 3. 51 Parry, supra n 8. 52 Lederach, supra n 45. 53 Daniel Bar-Tal, ‘Collective Memory of Physical Violence: Its Contribution to the Culture of Violence,’ in The Role of Memory in Ethnic Conflict, ed. Ed Cairns and Michael D. Roe (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 78. 54 Puvimanasinghe et al., supra n 22. 55 Michelle E. Anderson, ‘Community-Based Transitional Justice Via the Creation and Consumption of Digitalized Storytelling Archives: A Case Study of Belfast’s Prisons Memory Archive,’ International Journal of Transitional Justice 13(1) (2019): 30–49. 56 Tiffany Fairey and Rachel Kerr, ‘What Works? Creative Approaches to Transitional Justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina,’ International Journal of Transitional Justice 14(1) (2020): 142–164. 57 Puvimanasinghe et al., supra n 22 at 83. 58 Bradley, supra n 10. 59 Kris Brown, ‘Commemoration as Symbolic Reparation: New Narratives or Spaces of Conflict?’ Human Rights Review 14 (3) (2013):273–289. © The Author(s) (2021). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. 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TI - ‘Ending the Silence’: Addressing the Legacy of Displacement in Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’
JF - International Journal of Transitional Justice
DO - 10.1093/ijtj/ijaa027
DA - 2021-04-11
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/ending-the-silence-addressing-the-legacy-of-displacement-in-northern-FMtMexEVEf
SP - 1
EP - 1
VL - Advance Article
IS - 
DP - DeepDyve
ER -