Abstract
This chapter argues that three distinct ‘cultures of militarism’ continue to contribute to division and conflict in Northern Ireland: republican, loyalist, and British Armed Forces cultures of militarism. The chapter builds on scholarly feminist critiques, and analysis of interviews with Veterans for Peace (VFP) activists, to argue for the analytical value of the concept of cultures of militarism in post-Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland. A cultures of militarism lens makes us more alert to the violence and military values embedded in Northern Ireland’s ethno-national identities. It allows us to see how the violence and militarism of the past continues to be reproduced through discourses, images, rituals, and symbols, as well as through institutions and structures. Ultimately, the chapter argues that for the transformation of cultures of militarism to take place, the inclusion of women’s perspectives also must be accompanied by changes in power relationships between women and men.
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Notes
- 1.
The pilot study, ‘Decommissioning the Mindsets’, was funded by the Queens Fellows Enabling Fund. In 2016–2017, I interviewed and observed the work of an alliance of former British Army (VFP activists), loyalist, and republican ex-prisoners who delivered seminar-style discussions for young people. The anonymous quotes in this chapter come from two VFP activists.
- 2.
See the interviews reported on in Brewer et al. (2013).
- 3.
- 4.
ECONI was not uniformly pacifist, with some in the organization seeing the use of force as necessary in some circumstances (Ganiel 2008).
- 5.
Todd’s 1987 article in Irish Political Studies is reproduced in this volume, from which the quotation is taken.
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Ganiel, G. (2019). A Gender-Balanced Approach to Transforming Cultures of Militarism in Northern Ireland. In: Armstrong, C.I., Herbert, D., Mustad, J.E. (eds) The Legacy of the Good Friday Agreement. Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91232-5_8
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