Dr Dominic Bryan
Dr Dominic Bryan
For the year of this fellowship, I propose to develop a longer term, sustainable, Irish Studies research agenda within the Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities.
My research has focused upon the symbolic landscape as a lived experience for the people of Northern Ireland. I am interested in how identities are constructed within public space through participation in rituals and the displays of symbols. Publications have looked specifically at the processes of conflict and negotiations arising from parades and demonstrations and particularly the territorialisation of space using flags. Whilst, this research has been rooted in anthropology it is necessarily interdisciplinary, drawing upon history, political science, social psychology, sociology, geography and law. The research has been funded by three ESRC research grants, looking at the use of symbols in Northern Ireland (2002-2005), the changing nature of public space in Belfast (2007-2010), and the influence of crowd participation on identity (2010-2012). In addition, five years (2006-2010) funding from the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister allowed the development of research into the use of flags with direct policy impact.
Central to this research are the policy implications of the way public space is utilised and how it influences people identity. As such, the outcomes of the research have implications for conflict resolution and understanding why violent conflict has been such a part of Northern Ireland’s recent history and why violence has diminished.
Select Publications
Bryan D. (2012), 'Titanic town: Living in a landscape of conflict' in Belfast 400: People, Place and History. Connolly, S.J. (ed.) Liverpool UP.
Bryan, D. , Templer, S. & Kelly, L. (2011), ‘The failed paradigm of “terrorism”' in Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 1, pp. 1-17.
Bryan, D. (2011), ‘Des droits civils au carnival: anthropologie de l’espace public à Belfast’ in Ethnologie Française, 41, pp. 289-300
Bryan, D. & Stevenson, C. (2009) ‘Flagging Peace: Struggles over Symbolic Landscape in the New Northern Ireland’ in: Culture and belonging in divided Societies: Contestation and Symbolic Landscapes. Ross, M. H. (ed.). University of Pennsylvania Press.
Connolly, S. & Bryan, D. (2009), ‘Identity, Social Action and Public Space: Defining Civic Space in Belfast’ in Theorizing Identities and Social Action (Identity Studies in the Social Sciences). Wetherell, M. (ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
Bryan, D and G. McIntosh (2007) 'Symbols and Identity in the "New" Northern Ireland' in Devolution and Constitutional Change in Northern Ireland pp. 125-137 (eds) Paul Carmichael, Colin Knox R.Osborn. Manchester University Press.
O’Kelly, C and D. Bryan (2007) ‘The Regulation of Public Space in Northern Ireland’ Irish Political Studies Vol 22, No.4 pp.565-584.
Bryan, D (2007) Between the national and the civic: Flagging peace in, or a piece of, Northern Ireland? in Flag, Nation and Symbolism in Europe and America (eds) Thomas Hylland Erikson and Richard Jenkins. London: Routledge.
Flagging Identities: Assessing the Display and Regulation of Political Symbols Across Northern Ireland in 2006 in Shared Space, iv (2007)
Bryan, D (2006). ‘Traditional Parades, Conflict and Change: Orange Parades and Other Rituals in Northern Ireland 1960-2000’ in Political Rituals in the United Kingdom, 1700-2000 (ed) Michael Schaich, London: German Historical Institute for London.
Bryan, D (2006). ‘New Colours for the Orange State?: Finding Symbolic Space in a Devolved Northern Ireland’ pp.95-109, Devolution and Identity pp95-110 (eds) J Wilson and K Stapleton, Aldershot: Ashgate.
Bryan, D (2006) ‘The Politics of Community’ Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. Vol.9 No.4 pp.603-617.
Michael Hamilton and Bryan, D (2006) ‘Mediation and the Law: The Parades Commission in Northern Ireland’ Ohio State University Journal of Peace Studies. Vol.22 Issue 1, pp133-187.
'Parading Protestants and Consenting Catholics in Northern Ireland: Communal Conflict, Contested Public Space, and Group Rights' in Chicago Journal of International Law, 5 (1), (2004).
'Rituals of Irish Protestantism and Orangeism: The Transnational Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland' in European Studies - An Interdisciplinary Series in European Culture, History and Politics, 19, (2003).
'Belfast: Urban Space, 'Policing' and Sectarian Polarization' in Jane Schneider and Ida Susser (eds), Wounded Cities: Destruction and Reconstruction in a Globalized World, (Berg, 2003)
'Drumcree: Marching Towards Peace in Northern Ireland?' in Jorg Neuheiser and Stefan Wolff (eds) Peace at Last: The Impact of the Good Friday Agreement, (Berghahn, 2002).
Orange Parades: The Politics of Ritual, Tradition and Control (London: Pluto Press, 2000).