Queer lives during conflict in Northern Ireland: deconstructing the “two communities” model

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article poses the question of how incorporating the “subjugated knowledge” of queer histories of the Troubles in Northern Ireland affects understandings of the conflict in international relations and security studies. It argues that while the centrality of the “two communities” model drives all other issues to the political margins and perpetuates division, adopting a queer approach can deconstruct the identities of those communities and suggest ways to move beyond that model. It uses Jack Halberstam’s queer methodology as a “scavenger methodology” to draw on existing published interviews, as well as plays and films representing queer experiences during the Troubles, and a queer theoretical approach that seeks to both foreground queer experiences and challenge normative and binary understandings of identity in this context. Focusing on queer lives during the conflict reveals that constructing the identities of the two communities depends on excluding the queer subject, that queer people’s security during the conflict was shaped by their queer identity, and that queerness can and has been mobilized to deconstruct received narratives and the apparently essential identities of the two communities, demonstrating some possibilities for dismantling the unionist/nationalist dichotomy.