Doctoral Dissertation Research: Beyond Sectarianism? Violence After Peace Accords in Belfast, Northern Ireland

在Jane Schneider博士的指导下，研究生Molly Hurley Dupret将研究即使在1998年具有里程碑意义的耶稣受难日和平协议之后，北爱尔兰贝尔法斯特旧的社区分歧仍将继续，新的分歧可能会出现的可能性。研究将集中在贝尔法斯特的界面，划分领土的边界。这些分界线可能是有形的标志，比如贝尔法斯特西部臭名昭著的和平线（Peace Line），它将新教社区和天主教社区分开，但它们也可能是更微妙的、看不见的界限，人们可以通过自己的导航或朋友、亲戚和媒体的故事来了解这些界限。研究人员将采访专业和非专业的边界导航员，包括警察、出租车司机和一个社区的居民，这个社区没有建成的接口，但却有许多看不见的分界线。访谈数据将被用来划定划分，并了解他们对人们日常生活的影响，特别是他们觉得安全的路线。除了采访这些领航员，研究者还将收集他们手绘的心理或认知地图，这是一种有用的认知空间研究技术；并将使用这些地图来吸引受访者讨论他们通常遵循或不遵循的路线。预计该项目不仅将有助于关于心理地图和认知理论的学术辩论，而且还将对贝尔法斯特关于界面的政策讨论产生重大影响，直到最近，这些讨论只关注构建的界面墙，而在很大程度上忽略了不太明显的边界。最后，该项目有可能阐明在战争停止后分裂仍在继续的其他情况下的和平后协议。

Under the supervision of Dr. Jane Schneider, graduate student Molly Hurley Dupret will examine the possibility that even after the landmark 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, old communal divisions in Belfast, Northern Ireland, will continue and new ones may emerge. The research will focus on Belfast's interfaces, boundaries that demarcate territory. These dividing lines may be physical markers, such as the infamous Peace Line that separates Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in west Belfast, but they can also be more subtlet, invisible boundaries that are learned through one's own navigations or the stories of friends, relatives and the media. The researcher will interview professional and non-professional boundary navigators, including police officers, taxi drivers, and residents of one neighborhood that has no built interfaces but nevertheless has numerous invisible dividing lines. The interview data will be used to delineat divisions and to understand their effects on people's daily lives, particularly the routes that they feel safe traveling. In addition to interviewing these navigators, the researcher will also gather their hand-drawn mental or cognitive maps, a useful technique of cognitive spatial research; and will use these maps to engage respondents in disucssion of routes they commonly do or do not follow. It is anticipated that this project will not only contribute to academic debates about mental maps and cognitive theory, but will also have significant implications for Belfast policy discussions regarding interfaces, discussions that, until recently, solely focused on the built interface walls and largely ignored less obvious boundaries. Finally, this project has the potential to shed light on post-peace agreement in other contexts where division continues despite the cessation of warfare.