Gallantry on the Shankill road: the British ‘soldier-hero’ and state-media relations in Northern Ireland, 1969-1979

Lord, Matthew

doi:10.1080/13619462.2020.1764355

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Although different narratives might take different temporal views of the causes of the conflict, there is nonetheless a consensus in all these narratives that the events of August 1969 represented an epoch in the descent into political violence. Even here, though, explanations of what happened are enmeshed in the ‘frames war’ between political actors competing for narrative control over why violence broke out and who the aggressor was (Lord, 2020).…”

Section: Contesting August 1969mentioning

confidence: 99%

Naming and framing victims: Identity, ‘usable’ victimhood, and the spectral turn in transitional justice

Hearty

2023

International Review of Victimology

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Drawing from the literature on victimology, memory studies, and transitional justice, this article critically examines how representations of victimhood in post-conflict memory activism are rooted in contemporaneous claims-making. Using the collective remembrance of the events of August 1969 in Belfast as an empirical case study, it argues that memory activism centres on ‘usable’ victims whose victimhood can be seamlessly mapped onto preferred interpretations of the past in furtherance of post-conflict claims-making. Acknowledging the recent ‘spectral turn’ in transitional justice, the article explores how selective remembering and forgetting and the instrumentalization of selected identities through memory activism can transform otherwise problematic spectral figures into ‘usable’ victims. Once they have become ‘usable’, these victims become embedded in grassroots memory activism because they speak to claims-making over post-conflict truth and justice, the causes and consequences of past violence, and the post-conflict treatment of certain constituencies.

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Section: Contesting August 1969mentioning

confidence: 99%

Naming and framing victims: Identity, ‘usable’ victimhood, and the spectral turn in transitional justice

Hearty

2023

International Review of Victimology

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“…The self-image of British troops being benign peacekeepers was cultivated, and then sustained, by the colonial lens through which the British ‘imagined community’ has always viewed its armed forces (Hearty, 2020; McGovern, 2019), and, in the North of Ireland more specifically, how the state sought to control the public narrative that Operation Banner was a peacekeeping mission premised on restraint and respect for human rights (Lord, 2020). When veterans like Hutchings stand over their past record in NI, then, their self-image mirrors the British Army's institutional way of ‘seeing’ its NI campaign.…”

Section: Veteran Sense Of Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Closing the ranks: Bondedness, sense of self and moral injury during legacy case prosecutions

Hearty

2022

Irish Journal of Sociology

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This article represents an entry point for the sociological study of protests by British Army veterans opposed to legacy case prosecutions arsing out of the conflict in the North of Ireland. Acknowledging the lack of sociological analysis when compared with recent legal, criminological and political studies, it uses insights from military sociology, the sociology of emotions, and the social movement literature to understand how and why veterans have mobilised against these prosecutions. It argues that veterans have resorted to taking collective action for three reasons: out of loyalty to the handful of veterans currently facing prosecution; because these prosecutions challenge their self-image as peacekeepers; and because of their sense of betrayal by the British government. In making this argument, the article highlights how political and moral contestation over past political violence touches on collective and individual identities constructed during that violence, social solidarity within groups impacted by that violence, and different expectations of post-conflict justice in its aftermath.

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Militär und Medien

Virchow

2023

Militärsoziologie – Eine Einführung

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Gallantry on the Shankill road: the British ‘soldier-hero’ and state-media relations in Northern Ireland, 1969-1979

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

Naming and framing victims: Identity, ‘usable’ victimhood, and the spectral turn in transitional justice

Naming and framing victims: Identity, ‘usable’ victimhood, and the spectral turn in transitional justice

Closing the ranks: Bondedness, sense of self and moral injury during legacy case prosecutions

Militär und Medien

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