Strategic collective action and collective identity reconstruction: parading disputes and two Northern Ireland towns
Year: 2002
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Collective identity is an important component of collective behavior and a \nfactor in intractable conflict situations. Social movement research has focused \nattention on the role of collective identity in the formation and maintenance of \nsocial movement organizations. Less attention has been paid to the relationships \nbetween collective action and collective identity in conflict situations. Social \npsychologists have pointed out that the reconstruction of identity is conducted in \ninteraction between opposed social actors. However, the study of collective \nbehavior has only recently begun to conceptualize such social action as an \ninteraction between actors in a multi-organizational field in which collective \nidentity is mutually reconstructed. Fortunately, scholars studying the potential \ntransformation of conflict have provided analytical tools for classifying the ways \nin which opponents in conflict situations interact with one another, often \nstrategically. \nUsing qualitative data that include interviews, participant observation, and \ndocumentary sources, I examine the conflict methods and tactics deployed by \nparties to disputes over parading in two rural Northern Ireland towns. Parades are \na form of cultural expression through which communities articulate their political \nand religious preferences and beliefs, thus reproducing collective identities. \nParades, however, have often commemorated contested historical events or have \npromoted political views that are offensive to one community or the other, and \nthey have become a central focus of conflict in Northern Ireland since 1995, \nindicative of a shift in conflict methods from violence and coercion toward \npersuasion. \nI contribute to the study of collective action and collective identity by \ndemonstrating how collective action events were designed by loyal institutions \nand nationalist and loyalist residents’ committees to discursively disseminate \npersuasive messages and ideas. Even instances in which one opponent avoids \nanother can have persuasive characteristics. The deployment of collective action \nmethods were executed in a multi-organizational field that included opponents \nand third parties, and the process involved the mutual reconstruction of collective \nidentities as the parties articulated their positions and their perceptions of other \ngroups. Parties to the disputes also developed various responses in attempts to \nreconcile their collective actions, their opponents’ collective actions, and their \nsense of collective identity.
Author: Lee A. Smithey
Language: English
Topic: Irish and British Studies
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1878108572