Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism, and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland

(Paperback)

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Presents a feminist ethnography of the violence in Northern Ireland, providing an analysis of a political conflict through the lens of gender. The case in point is the Catholic resistance to British rule in Northern Ireland. During the 1970s, women in Catholic/nationalist districts of Belfast organized themselves into street committees and led popular forms of resistance against the policies of the government of Northern Ireland, and, after its demise, against those of the British. This text argues that these practices were an integral part of the social dynamic of the conflict and had important implications for the broader organization of nationalsit forms of resistance and gender relationships.

Reviews

"An important book. Through clearly-written, thoroughly-grounded, and conscientious ethnography, Aretxaga urges readers away from the pat caricature of a brutal and male-dominated Northern Ireland, and toward an informed understanding of the complexity and poignancy of the lives and history of its subjects."--Das Historisch-Politische Buch

Author Bio

Begoa Aretxaga is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University.