Abstract

Exploring the complex dynamics of twenty-first century spatial sociality, this volume provides a much-needed multi-dimensional perspective that undermines the dominant image of Northern Ireland as a conflict-ridden place. Despite touching on memories of “the Troubles” and continuing unionist-nationalist tensions, the volume refuses to consider people in the region as purely political beings, or to understand processes of placemaking solely through ethnic or national contestations and territoriality. Topics such as the significance of friendship, gender, and popular culture in spatial practices are considered, against the backdrop of the growing presence of migrants, refugees and diasporic groups.

Milena Komarova is a Research Officer at the Centre for Cross Border Studies, Armagh and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen's University Belfast. Her research spans the fields of conflict transformation, urban sociology and border studies, exploring the intersections between place, identities and bordering practices within and without ethno-nationally “divided” cities.

“A very welcome and timely contribution… This is a book that manages to be both detailed and insightful in its elaboration of fascinating empirical data whilst also being very strong in its conceptual and methodological contribution.” • Katy Hayward, Queen's University Belfast

“This volume will set a new benchmark for the ethnographic study of life in the north of Ireland today. Focusing on practices and discourses of placemaking, it explores many of the nooks and crannies of everyday life that are perhaps less than visible to the outsider… It is a pleasure to read and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the place in question, and its people, but also to the wider anthropology of the contemporary world.” • Richard P Jenkins, Sheffield University

“[This book] represents a valuable addition to the literature on Northern Ireland due to the manner in which it integrates the new with the established, the perspectives of the majority communities with those of the new minority communities and in the way that it foregrounds women's perspectives.” • Neil Jarman, Queen's University Belfast

Maruška Svašek is Reader in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen's University, Belfast, and Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. Recent major publications include Anthropology, Art and Cultural Production (2007), Emotions and Human Mobility: Ethnographies of Movement (2012), Moving Subjects, Moving Objects: Transnationalism, Cultural Production and Emotions (2012), and (with Birgit Meyer) Creativity in Transition. Politics and Aesthetics of Cultural Production Across the Globe (2016).