Neighborhoods across the globe are becoming increasingly ‘divers’, yet we still find their urban encounters reproduced through negotiating differences that escalates moods of social inequality and spatial imbalances. Research on ethnic division also stresses the spatial aspects of their production as shared urban spaces are mostly signified in the literature as ethnic ‘enclaves’. Memory and territoriality, in this sense, have a wide impact on the people’s everyday encounters while experiencing segregation. These historical narratives have produced communities that exhibit high levels of intracommunity relations and localized networking. This paper will investigate how youngster generations in Northern Ireland perceive, accept and respond to their differences, or perhaps how they act against it, to push the boundaries towards more diversity. In fact, the spatial and temporal encounters that occur among one community and the ‘Other’ signify a sort of negotiations and being more constructive about the future. The argument maintains that territoriality and place attachment has a wide impact on the young people’s everyday experiences. Building on social identity theories, I explain how people in Northern Ireland have presented their own intertextual attachment references as a cause of routine survival, allowing them to be more constructive about their future but with strong links to memories of past conflicts. They also established their own sense of belonging, of who they are, based on their group memberships which eventually became an important source of pride and self-esteem.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)