Conflict Studies - 10ECTS
SOU44012 Conflict Studies
Learning Objectives:
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On successful completion students will:
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understand the nature of peace agreement in Ireland (GFA),
• locate the GFA in relation to debates about armed conflict and peace agreement elsewhere,
• recognise that alongside any physical conflict there is also an interlinked intellectual and theoretical meta-conflict about the conflict: who is to blame [the perpetrators] and who has suffered [the victims]
• reflect on the limits of social science, social theory and social research to comprehend and arbitrate the legacy of conflict [crisis of reconciliation] and the enduring meta-conflict [crisis of representation],
• in view of the crisis of representation in the social sciences and the crisis of reconciliation in Ireland, assess the pros and cons of reflexivity, and personal narratives based in the lived experience of political violence [oral history, auto-ethnography, memoir, auto fiction]
Lectures & Tutorials/ Contact hours:
Recommended Texts/ Key Reading:
• Finlay, A. (2011) Governing Ethnic Conflict, Routledge (Ch1 Introduction and 5) [eBook tcd library accessible from home]
• O’Leary, B (2022) A Treatise on Northern Ireland, Volume I
• Alexander, J. [et al] (2004) Cultural Trauma, polity [chapter 1]
• Finn D. (2019) One Man's Terrorist: A Political History of the IRA, Verso
• McAtackney, L and Ó Catháin M [eds] (2023) The Routledge Handbook of the Northern Ireland Conflict and Peace. Routledge.
• Mamdani, M. (2020) Neither Settler nor Native, Harvard University Press, [Introduction and conclusion] [eBook tcd library]
Assessment