Case study : addressing the legacy of conflict through arts

Abstract

Based on an ethnographic study of a community art project in the Atlas women Centre in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, this research examines the contribution of community art programmes to conflict transformation processes. Social identity has proved to be a conflictive and somewhat intransitive variable that interplays among people in different contexts of daily life. Although armed conflict in Northern Ireland has ceased, long entrenched opposing identities continues to hinder understanding and respect between people from Catholic and Protestant backgrounds. This unease has longstanding historical antecedents stemming from the system of relationships during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Therefore, if a sustainable peace is to be achieved, government and civil society organisations should engage in exploring and implementing strategies that aim to dissolve those differences. Study participants, by taking part in a community art project, have demonstrably developed certain capacities for peace. Such projects have helped members to engage in constructive change by becoming part of a process that offers the possibility of new experiences in a safe space as well as the time to generate change between themselves. Moreover, such activities help to generate new perceptions of the other and of Irish history by using their imagination for creative ends.