The Northern Ireland ‘Culture Wars’ symposium
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 15:41:00 GMT
On 22 November 2013, the group board of the Political Studies Association Specialist Group on Britishness, comprising ABIS members Professor Jim McAuley, Dr Andrew Mycock, Dr Catherine McGlynn and Dr Shaun McDaid, organised a one day symposium in Belfast exploring Northern Ireland’s on-going ‘culture wars’. The event was kindly hosted by our colleagues at the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS), University of Ulster.
The event was funded by the Political Studies Association and the Institute for Research in Citizenship and Applied Human Sciences. Speakers and discussants included leading academic researchers and also representatives from civil society organisations including the Northern Ireland Youth Forum, Northern Ireland Council of Ethnic Minorities, Teaching Divided Histories Project and the Community Relations Council.
Papers were presented by Jim McAuley and by Catherine McGlynn with PhD student Gavin Hart. Andrew Mycock provided an overview of the term ‘Culture wars’, whilst Shaun McDaid was discussant for the ‘Politics, Culture and Society’ panel.
Podcasts from the event will feature on the popular ‘Slugger O’Toole’ political blog. The first session, which has already generated much debate, can be accessed here. Plans are already underway to follow up the event with further academic outputs. The group would like to thank Dr Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Dr Jonny Byrne from IRiSS, and political bloggers Mick Fealty and Alan Meban from Slugger O’Toole for their support.
