Idir Eatarthu is Achrann. The Framing of Women’s Agency in Northern Ireland’s Counterterrorism Legislative Discourse during the Troubles (1968-1998)
Idir Eatarthu is Achrann. The Framing of Women’s Agency in Northern Ireland’s Counterterrorism Legislative Discourse during the Troubles (1968-1998)
Date
2021
Authors
McCall Magan, Ríon
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Global Campus of Human Rights
Abstract
Homer’s pithy phrase that war is comprised of ‘men killing and
man being killed’ aptly illustrates the historically dominant discourse
surrounding armed conflict and political violence, with constructions of
male gender armed with agency and equated with warriors. Subsequently,
the female gender holds a domestic and voiceless role, with any capacity
to exercise agency discounted. The sustained exclusion of women’s
voices and experiences impacts our general understanding of violence,
including political violence, and also how we substantially counter it.
These narratives have also been utilised to justify and legitimise states
involvement in conflict, especially since the era of the War on Terror. In light
of these considerations, this thesis explores how women’s agency has been
framed in the discourse surrounding the Northern Irish counterterrorism
legislation during the Troubles (1968-98). It argues that the government’s
approach to countering the political violence was implemented and can
be seen in three distinct phases, namely: reactive containment (1968-75);
criminalisation (1976-81); and, finally, managerialism (1981-98). Through
employing the methwwodologies of critical discourse analysis and critical
policy analysis, the framing of women’s agency can be seen to evolve in
parallel to these three diverging phases of the conflict. Though women
exercised their capacity to politically and morally challenge power in each
of these phases of the Northern Irish conflict, the British government
framed them as actors who harboured no agency. Rather, within the state’s
discourse, they were framed as illegitimate and invalid actors of political
violence. Hence, the women faced a form of double subjugation in which
they were oppressed for both their political ideology and gender by the
state’s counterterrorism legislative discourse.
Keywords: counterterrorism; women; agency; Northern Ireland; discourse;
power.
Description
Second semester University: University of Hamburg.
Keywords
Northern Ireland,
terrorism,
political violence,
participation