Division on Ice: Shared Space and Civility in Belfast

Abstract

In Northern Ireland the Good Friday Agreement brought with it top-down political and social approaches to construct and increase intergroup contact and shared spaces in an effort to reconcile divided Nationalist and Unionist communities. In the period following the peace agreement, the Belfast Giants ice hockey team was established, and its games have become one of the most attended spectator activities in Belfast, trending away from the tribalism, single-space, single-class, and single-gender dynamics of modern sport in Northern Ireland. This article utilises the setting of the Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) Arena, home of the Giants, to demonstrate normalisation of interactions occurring between supporters who are willing to purchase a ticket beside someone to whom they are politically opposed. This sport and its supporters choose to enjoy the experience of the hockey game, rather than be caught in the politicised attachment of meaning expected of shared space, offering a challenge to the reconciliation-centric assumptions in post-peace agreement Belfast.

Keywords:

• Belfast
• intergroup contact
• shared space
• reconciliation
• civility

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the editors of JPD and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Thanks to Rebecca Nisbet, Helen F. Wilson, Roger Mac Ginty, and Birte Vogel for comments and advice throughout the writing process. And a special thank you to the supporters of the Belfast Giants who openly welcomed me to the ‘hockey family’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eric Lepp

ERIC LEPP is completing a PhD at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at University of Manchester (UK). His current research, with a focus on Belfast, explores spaces of contact and the construction of communities inclusive of the ‘other’. The product of an interdisciplinary social science education, his research is motivated by a particular interest in unorthodox and unexpected spaces where peace emerges against a backdrop of conflict. Eric holds an MA in International Peace Studies from the Kroc Institute at University of Notre Dame (USA).