Global Programs: Belfast, Northern Ireland | Course Details
Leadership and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland: Literary, Historical, and Political Perspectives on Peacebuilding
Course
Students will enroll in Leadership and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland: Literary, Historical, and Political Perspectives on Peacebuilding (CRN:10588)
Northern Ireland has been the site of tremendous polarization and violence over the past several decades, but also the site of remarkable efforts at conflict resolution and peacebuilding. It therefore provides students with a unique context for examining both the dynamics of conflict and strategies for its peaceful transformation. This two-week course in Belfast, Northern Ireland, will explore these dynamics and strategies from multiple perspectives, drawing on the fields of conflict resolution/transformation and Northern Irish literature and history to deepen our understanding of the challenges associated with transforming conflict. Guest lectures by local activists, politicians, religious leaders, former militants, artists, businesspeople, and others, as well as visits to sites with symbolic or institutional importance to the conflict and its transformation—such as Derry/Londonderry (site of the Bloody Sunday protests), divided Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast, and Stormont (site of the Northern Ireland Assembly)—will bring to the surface both key areas of progress and on-going issues of contention. In addition to course discussions, guest speakers, field trips, small-group activities, role-plays, short written assignments, and presentations, we will use poems, plays, short stories, and films as media through which to inhabit multiple perspectives of the conflict and thereby gain a greater appreciation for its complexity and human dimension.
The course will be divided into roughly two week-long modules.
Week One
- Introduction to Northern Irish history and literature
- Introduction to conflict analysis and conflict resolution skills: active listening and feedback, negotiation, and mediation. Students will gain conceptual frameworks and tools not only for thinking about the Northern Ireland case but also for addressing conflict in their own lives.
Week Two
- Use the Northern Ireland case to ground the conflict theory gained in the first module and to bring out, following the historical trajectory of the Northern Ireland conflict, additional topics in the broader field of conflict transformation: violent and nonviolent struggle, cycles of violence, zones of peace, peace processes and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, gender and peace-making, and longer-term peacebuilding processes (DDR, institutional/structural reforms, restorative justice, inter-communal commercial enterprises, etc.).
Field Trips
Corrymeela Centre
The Corrymeela Centre for peace and reconciliation stands on the stunningly beautiful Northern Ireland coast, amid the glens of Antrim. Corrymeela was founded in 1965 as a safe haven for dialogue between members of Northern Ireland's divided Protestant and Catholic communities. At Corrymeela, people of all backgrounds come together and live out what it means to embrace difference and heal divisions. Students will learn about Corrymeela’s approach to conflict transformation and will have the opportunity to talk with Corrymeela staff, volunteers, and community members during their day trip to the center.
Derry/Londonderry
Students will spend a day in Derry/Londonderry, a city about an hour and a half northwest of Belfast and the site of several formative events during the early years of the Troubles, as the most violent years of Northern Ireland’s conflict are often called. The city’s name itself illustrates the Republican/Unionist tensions that persist in Northern Ireland, with most Republicans preferring the name Derry and most Unionists preferring the name Londonderry. In 1969, the city was the site of the famed Battle of the Bogside, which is often credited with marking the beginning of the Troubles. A few years later, in 1972, the city’s vibrant civil rights movement met with violent repression during what has come to be known as Bloody Sunday: thirteen unarmed protesters were killed by British troops there to quell the protest. This moment—and what it says about conflict and the dynamics of nonviolent struggle—will be the focus of our visit to Derry/Londonderry, as we speak with local activists intimately familiar with that part of the city’s history and visit the neighborhood where the protest occurred.
Though sectarian tensions have remained in the city since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 (and the city’s Protestant minority is still largely segregated from the Catholic majority), there have been recent efforts to improve relations between the two communities, including the creation of a new “Peace Bridge” spanning the River Foyle and connecting Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. In another hopeful (or discouraging, depending on one’s perspective) turn of events, Derry/Londonderry has been named the UK City of Culture for 2013 and will be hosting a range of musical performances, theater productions, films, sporting events, and art showings throughout the year to highlight the city’s cultural vitality.
Daily Schedule
8:00am-12:30pm
Leadership and Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland: Literary, Historical, and Political Perspectives on Peacebuilding
12:30pm-2:00pm
Break and Lunch
2:00pm-4:30pm
Leadership and Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland: Literary, Historical, and Political Perspectives on Peacebuilding
4:30pm-6:00pm
Guest Lectures/Site Visits
6:00pm-7:00pm
Dinner
7:30pm-9:00pm
Group and Cultural Activities
9:00pm-11:00pm
Study Hall