Masculinities in Transition? Exclusion, Ethnosocial Power, and Contradictions in Excombatant Community-based Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

Abstract

This study critically examines how masculinities and intersecting ethnonational and social class identities underscore the social and political agencies of excombatants in Northern Ireland and in the specific context of community-based peacebuilding. The authors draw on interviews with female and male leaders in grassroots and governmental organizations, which illustrate how state-led practices of exclusion reshape such intersectional identities and increase the instrumentality of hypermasculinist, pseudo-paramilitary practices in maintaining excombatants' status and control on neighborhood levels. The research documents how structural dynamics of excombatants' social class locations and political disaffection help shape their social agencies of "resistance," underscored by desires for autonomy and recognition, and channeled by ethnogendered scripts rooted in both violent cultures of paramilitarism and nonviolent peacebuilding masculinities. The implications on women of male excombatants' takeover of leadership roles in the community sector are also discussed.

“Social workers by day and terrorists by night?” Wounded healers, restorative justice, and ex-prisoner reentry

“…16 These opportunities were especially important given the fact that many former political prisoners experienced financial problems and institutionalized barriers to employment as a result of stigmatization and economic disadvantage in their local neighborhoods (Jamieson et al, 2010). Holland and Rabrenovic (2018), for example, have noted that state sponsored exclusion rendered ex-prisoners dependent upon the voluntary sector for income and status. Having these positions available therefore not only contributed to desistance processes, but more generally mitigated against discriminatory policies and eased reentry.…”

“…Beyond their own working-class communities, many were viewed with a generalized mistrust that essentially portended that prisoners would not "change their paramilitary spots" (Gormally, 2001: 16). They also still had to transition to life outside of prison and were forced to deal with the long-lasting impacts of incarceration on family relationships, their physical and mental health, and institutional challenges related to systemic denials of opportunity (Holland and Rabrenovic, 2018;Jamieson and Grounds, 2005). 8 This was compounded by the historic lack of services and opportunities within working-class communities-and particularly nationalist communities-which were economically and socially excluded by the state and experienced substantial poverty and violence (Leonard, 2004;Hargie et al, 2011).…”

“…However, the involvement of ex-prisoner practitioners at CRJI inevitably created suspicions in certain spheres and was often utilized as a method of critique. Detractors could be found within the government, who wished to uphold the state's control over the justice arena (Ingram, 1997; Northern Ireland Office, 1998); from other restorative justice agencies, who believed the ex-prisoner-led model would tarnish the restorative justice “brand” (Criminal Justice Review, 2000); and from some community members, who disliked the ex-prisoners’ affiliation with the Republican Movement (McEvoy and Eriksson, 2008; Maginness, 2006). These opponents accused CRJI of acting as a “front organization” for the IRA, of circumventing principles of due process, of promoting vigilantism, and of imposing “terrorist” control over communities (Criminal Justice Review, 2000; McGrattan, 2010).…”

Tiocfaidh Ár Lá, get the brits out, lad: masculinity and nationalism in Irish-language rap videos

“…Ireland's history of being framed as the appropriate (female) partner to the (masculine) coloniser Britain led to an assertion of Irish masculinity as part of the resistance to colonisation (Banerjee 2012). The gendered dynamics of national and ethnic identities in the North of Ireland mean that proving one's manhood is often framed in terms of protecting one's own (Irish-Catholic or British-Protestant) community (Holland and Rabrenovic 2018;Ashe 2012).…”

Seguridad, afectos y familias. Obstáculos en el proceso de reintegración de personas desmovilizadas de grupos armados en Santander, Colombia

“…El concepto de "masculinidad hegemónica" es primordial en la investigación ya que permite analizar las transformaciones vividas por las personas que se reconocen como hombres en el proceso de reintegración a la vida civil. En transición hacia la paz, las masculinidades están en muchos aspectos en una etapa liminal, como lo afirman Holland & Rabrenovic (2018), y requieren hacer un tránsito hacia "masculinidades reconstituidas no violentas" (Ashe, 2009, p.36).…”