Symposium: Accessing the

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Symposium Accessing the political in
socio-historical context

• Convenor
• Peter Weinreich
• Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of
  Ulster
• Director, Identity Exploration Ltd,
  www.identityexploration.com
• Conference
• Tearing Down the Walls Rethinking the Political
  in Political Psychology
• Centre for Research in Political Psychology,
  Queen's University Belfast
• Thursday 15 April 2010

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TrademarkTraining, research and evaluation
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Illustrating the use of ISA for exploring the
impact of anti-racist and anti-sectarian work in
Northern Ireland

• Dr Fiona Bloomer

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Trademark

• an ethically based not for profit organisation
  which works towards social change in which the
  principles of social justice, equality, and
  pluralism are actively pursued.
• an official partner of the ICTU

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Trademark

• Academic and practitioner staff
• Ireland North and South
• Core funding from Community Relations Council
• Generate funds from grants and commissions

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Trademark

• Extensive experience in engaging directly with
  issues of sectarianism, the conflict and dealing
  with the legacy of the past, as well as racism
• critical engagement - breaking through the
  denial, avoidance and politeness that often
  characterises this type of work.
• challenging the myths, stereotypes and cultural
  blindness that often characterise ethnically
  exclusive peace and reconciliation activities.

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Trademark

• Research conducted for the Police Ombudsman,
  Equality Commission, Children and Young Peoples
  Commission, Community Relations Council
• In-house research programme

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Focus of This Paper

• Single identity work in a Loyalist estate on an
  interface in Belfast
• Similar work with nationalist community also
  carried out but will not be reported here

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The Highfield Project

• Community Leadership and Political Education
  Programme
• Participants -the Highfield Womens Group.
• The training programme - funded by Belfast City
  Councils Good Relations programme.
• The research was funded through Trademarks own
  resources.

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The Highfield Project

• The training programme was designed to
• Promote and develop respect for diversity in
  ones own, other and shared cultures, beliefs and
  traditions.
• Develop opportunities which facilitate difficult
  conversations in a safe environment which
  challenge sectarianism and racism.

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The Highfield Project

• And to
• Enable groups and communities to effectively
  understand the dynamics of inter group conflict.
• Increase understanding and co-operation between
  different cultural and ethno-nationalist
  community identities by building capacity and
  supporting networks of communication.

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The Highfield Project

• Accredited modules
• Human Rights and Equality
• Anti Sectarianism / Anti Racism
• Non-accredited modules
• Feminism and Womens rights
• History and Identity
• 20th century Irish politics

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The Highfield Project

• Delivered in workshop sessions
• Guest speakers
• Cross border study trips
• Cross community engagement

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The Highfield Project

• Highfield is an urban area close to Belfast city
  centre
• Largely Protestant/ Unionist Loyalist nature
  (PUL), surrounded by Catholic/ Nationalist/
  Republican (CNR) West Belfast.
• It has close connections with the Shankill area
  nearby - Strongly PUL

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The Highfield Project

• Area that witnessed significant conflict
• Interfaces and flashpoints during the parading
  season.
• Intra community conflict has also occurred, the
  most significant being the Shankill feud in 2000

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The Highfield Project

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Research Approach

1. Workshop sessions with staff
2. Focus groups with participants
3. Develop and test identity instrument
4. Participants completed instrument at start of
   programme and again at end
5. Semi-strucrured interviews conducted with
   participants

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Why ISA?

• Its approach to identity development is
  interdisciplinary
• The ISA framework is sensitive to each applicable
  context
• Its places importance on the history of
  communities and biographical experiences
• All concepts used are fully operationalised i.e.
  they are clearly defined and are measurable
• It considers the nature and range of
  identifications for each respondent as an
  individual.

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Why ISA?

• The study begins with the assumption that changes
  in identity are likely to occur  as a result of
  participation in a community development and
  political education project, and that these
  changes, whether positive or negative, can be
  determined through the application of ISA.
• (Bloomer and Weinreich (2004) and Weinreich
  (2003)

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ISA indices

• Positive and negative role models
• Empathetic identification
• Identification conflict
• Core values
• Results from 2 cases studies will be presented

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Key Findings

• Idealistic-identification is the extent of ones
  desire to become like an aspirational other, who
  represents qualities that have become
  incorporated into ones ideal self-image.

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Key Findings

• Idealistic-identification magnitude ranges

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Key Findings

• Paula aged 55
• Sibling imprisoned for 13.5 years
• Hated paramilitaries
• Friends killed in Shankill bomb
• Women looked after family, men drank
• Open to BME community
• Hopeful for the future

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Key Findings

• Diana
• Area impacted by feuding
• Husband shot dead, brother in law unfairly
  imprisoned
• Shankill bomb had impact on sectarianism
• Bad experiences working with black person
• Women play traditional roles
• Not hopeful for the future

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Key Findings

• Contra-identification with another is the
  similarity between the qualities one attributes
  to the other and those from which one would wish
  to dissociate.

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Key Findings

• Empathetic identification is the extent of the
  similarities between the qualities one attributes
  to the other, weather good or bad and those
  of the ones current self image.

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Key Findings

• Empathetic-identification magnitude ranges

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Key Findings

• Conflicted identification with the other is the
  extent to which ones current empathetic
  identification overlaps with ones
  contra-identification

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Key Findings

• Conflicted-identification magnitude ranges

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Key Findings

• Core values -the extent to which the statements
  chosen by the participant are used to judge the
  world around them. A high core value for instance
  indicates that the statement represents an issue
  which the participant uses consistently to judge
  the world around them.

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Key Findings
Core values
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Summary of Findings

• Open minded about issues related to feminism
• Change in how identification BME communities
• Change in her identification with community
  leaders

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Summary of Findings

• ISA was able to provide a quantitative assessment
  of each participants starting point and end
  point
• ISA was able to identify small changes
• ISA allowed trainers to target particular issues
• ISA can be used as an evaluation tool