Kevin Hearty
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 3081864 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Kevin Hearty |
| PRENOMES | Kevin |
| SOBRENOME | Hearty |
| ASSINATURA | HEARTY K |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Queen's University Belfast |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9702-8859 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 29 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 43 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 29 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2014 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
‘I’m taking the monkey off my back’
This article critically examines the agency of victims who do their ‘victim work’ outside of formal or official transitional justice (TJ) processes and mechanisms. Drawing on the memoirs of victims who privately engaged with non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in the aftermath of political violence, it argues that the decision to do so is driven by a sense of responsibility felt by victims. Developing this argument further, the article posits that vic…
One brother would carry another’
This article critically examines how the emotive experience of political imprisonment is represented in prison memoirs. Using the memoirs of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members who were involved in prison-related protest in the 1970s and 80s as an empirical basis, it goes beyond surface level cultural reproductions (i.e. murals, songs, and posters) to explore how lived experience of political imprisonment is defined by a complex interplay …
Narrating the Consequences of Conflict
Locating itself within narrative criminological scholarship and the criminology of war literature, this article critically examines how the themes of death and survival are understood and represented in the memoirs of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members. Building on the recent ‘autobiographical turn’ in the criminology of war, it identifies how death is storied from perspectives that reflect the nature of armed conflict, capture human loss…
Standing with Soldier F’
This article merges the literatures on crime and punishment, law and performance and transitional justice to critically examine how high-profile prosecutions for historic state violence become contested in societies attempting to address the legacy of prolonged conflict. Drawing empirically from the case study of the prosecution of Soldier F for the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings in the North of Ireland, it demonstrates how legacy case prosecutions …
The Zemiological Afterlife of Wrongful Conviction
Building on the recent global interest in ‘innocence projects’, this article critically examines the various harms experienced by the wrongfully convicted after their release from prison. Locating itself within the zemiology literature, it uses the memoirs of a number of wrongfully convicted persons to conduct a narrative victimological critique of social harms that are often unacknowledged in policy and practice around the reintegration of the w…
Bringing narrative victimology to transitional justice
This article applies a narrative victimological lens of inquiry to the memoirs of those wrongfully convicted of high profile politically violent offences arising from the conflict in the North of Ireland. Using these life stories of wrongful conviction, the article critically examines how nuanced and complex understandings of victimhood and blame emerge from within victims’ own testimony. While on the one hand, victims can ‘story’ victimhood and …
Closing the ranks
This article represents an entry point for the sociological study of protests by British Army veterans opposed to legacy case prosecutions arsing out of the conflict in the North of Ireland. Acknowledging the lack of sociological analysis when compared with recent legal, criminological and political studies, it uses insights from military sociology, the sociology of emotions, and the social movement literature to understand how and why veterans h…
When ideal victims don’t make ideal offenders
This article undertakes a victimological critique of media coverage, social media commentary and parliamentary debate on the prosecution of former British soldier Dennis Hutchings for the death of an unarmed and vulnerable adult in Northern Ireland in 1974. It argues that a careful reframing of events and actors by the media, politicians and veterans’ movement has obfuscated perceptions of victimhood by creating a climate that favours the perpetr…
Naming and framing victims
Drawing from the literature on victimology, memory studies, and transitional justice, this article critically examines how representations of victimhood in post-conflict memory activism are rooted in contemporaneous claims-making. Using the collective remembrance of the events of August 1969 in Belfast as an empirical case study, it argues that memory activism centres on ‘usable’ victims whose victimhood can be seamlessly mapped onto preferred in…
Redressing displacement in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland has been an active site of transitional justice; however, the geographical and spatial implications of violence on housing, land and property issues have remained on the margins of academic, policy and practitioner attention. This is despite mass displacement and housing being key grievances at the outset of the conflict/Troubles in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, this article explores the institutions and redress schemes brought…
Fish swimming in denial
Using the case study of statements of denial issued by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) over an extended 35-year period, this article critically examines how non-state armed groups (NSAGs) use statements of denial when engaging with various audiences across time and space. It posits that these statements are an integral part of how NSAGs communicate with different audiences during their armed campaigns, and subsequently during the process of trans…
Law, ‘presentist’ agendas, and the making of ‘official’ memory after collective violence
This article interrogates how law is used to make ‘official’ memory in transitional justice (TJ) contexts. It posits that law performs three key roles in the ‘making’ of memory after conflict and authoritarianism: visibility, definition, and judgement. Using insights from existing academic literature that has addressed TJ processes and mechanisms across geographical sites and time frames, it argues that law is central to memory making by renderin…
Truth Beyond the ‘Trigger Puller’
This article critically examines how existing truth recovery processes have, and how proposed truth recovery processes might, address the issue of shoot-to-kill in Northern Ireland. In contrast to ongoing legacy case prosecutions of British Army veterans, it argues that truth recovery processes should adopt a maximalist conceptualization of truth and responsibility. This, it is argued, necessitates differentiating between legal truth and structur…
Through the looking glass
The legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict continues to weigh heavily on the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s institutional memory and contemporary policing practices. In this paper, we argue that the tension between competing interpretations of organisational memory and the need to ‘police’ the past has contributed to a ‘through the looking glass’ phenomenon as regards the policing past and efforts to ‘deal with’ the legacy of the Northern …
Problematising Symbolic Reparation
In light of the increasing importance of commemoration and memorialisation within the study of transitional justice, this article attempts to stimulate further critical discussion on the right to remember in societies transitioning out of prolonged conflict. Located within a wider exploration of the problematic overlap between the ‘politics of reparations’ and ‘dead body politics’ commonly found in transitioning societies, it argues that any pros…
Victims Who Have Done Nothing or Victims Who Have Done Nothing Wrong
Building on recent victimological interventions in transitional justice, this article critically examines nuanced interpretations of what an ‘innocent victim’ is in transitioning societies without any agreed legal, political or moral base position on past political violence. It suggests that the term refers to two different types of victims: victims who have done nothing that fit traditional victimological understandings of the blameless, passive…
Moral Emotions and the Politics of Blame and Credit during Transitional Justice Moments
This article critically examines how moral emotions are intrinsically tied to the process of apportioning blame and credit in post-conflict societies. In doing so, it draws out the complexity that underpins moral emotions during key junctures in transitional justice. Recognising that moral emotions naturally stem from the making of a judgement about a ‘target’, the article argues that the relationship between those experiencing the moral emotion …
Victims of’ human rights abuses in transitional justice
This article critically examines how multifarious levels of division among victim constituencies have shaped legal and non-legal transitional justice responses to human rights violations. It submits that this division has caused such responses to operate in accordance with the notion of being a ‘victim of’ rather than that of simply being a victim of human rights abuse per se. Expanding from this position, it proffers the theoretical viewpoint th…
A context-based model for framing political victimhood
All societies moving towards peace must establish reparation measures for victims of political violence. This is not an easy task, however; political victimhood is a controversial concept by itself and all victims of this type are mixed up with general politics from both the past and the present. In divided societies, such as Northern Ireland and the Basque Country, controversies about the definition of political victimhood reproduce old division…
Critical Engagement
This book represents the first interdisciplinary study of how memory has driven and challenged the political transition of Irish republicanism from armed conflict to constitutional politics through endorsing policing and the rule of law in the North of Ireland. Locating itself within memory studies, critical criminology and transitional justice, this book uses original interviews with political activists, community workers and former combatants f…
How the ‘suspect community’ became ‘critical engagers
This article is an empirical case study of how the Irish republican narrative on policing in Northern Ireland evolved from an absolutist position of rejection to one of post-conflict ‘critical engagement’. Drawing on previous research by McEvoy and by Mulcahy it evaluates the strategic dimensions to the (re)framing process that aided mobilisation throughout the course of the conflict and into the transition in Northern Ireland. Positing that the …
Discourses of Political Policing in Post-patten Northern Ireland
This article critically examines discourses of political policing in contemporary Northern Ireland (NI). Recognising the post-conflict and post-reform climate that policing now occurs within, it argues that these environmental factors have conditioned discourses of policing that are directly tied to how legitimate political opposition to the political status quo in post-Good Friday Agreement (GFA) NI is policed. The article asserts that political…
Spoiling Through Performative Nonviolence
This article assesses how Violent Dissident Irish Republican (VDR) groups have turned to funerary practice as a spoiling tactic in post–Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland. In doing so it moves the lens of interrogation away from the residual violence exercised by these groups and onto other nonviolent mechanisms and strategies. Locating this discussion within the wider study of the VDR phenomenon, the article asserts that militarized and ritu…
From “former comrades” to “near enemy”
This article critically evaluates how competing discourses on what has been labelled Violent Dissident Republican activity (VDR) can be mapped onto pre-existing narrative templates on “armed struggle” that have featured in internal Irish republican politicking for generations. As such, this article conducts an in-depth dissection of how competing narratives on the utility of VDR, the scale of and support for VDR, and the underlying motivations be…
The Malleability of Memory and Irish Republican Memory Entrepreneurship
This article is a case study of Irish republican memory entrepreneurship that critically examines the collective memory of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’. Critiquing the ‘malleability of memory’, it interrogates attempts at remoulding the memory of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’ in tandem with ‘memory politics’ in modern Irish republicanism and transitioning Northern Ireland. It examines the reinterpretation of the Loughgall memory by Sinn Fein to support thei…
The Great Awakening? The Belfast Flag Protests and Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist Counter-memory in Northern Ireland
This article examines the protest movement that surfaced as a result of the decision taken by Belfast City Council to remove the Union flag from Belfast City Hall in December 2012. This article examines why the issue conflagrated as it did and led to a mobilisation within working-class Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist (PUL) communities on the issue. Examining the flag protests within the context of more general PUL disaffection with the Good Friday A…
Victims of’ human rights abuses in transitional justice
This article critically examines how multifarious levels of division among victim constituencies have shaped legal and non-legal transitional justice responses to human rights violations. It submits that this division has caused such responses to operate in accordance with the notion of being a ‘victim of’ rather than that of simply being a victim of human rights abuse per se. Expanding from this position, it proffers the theoretical viewpoint th…
A context-based model for framing political victimhood
All societies moving towards peace must establish reparation measures for victims of political violence. This is not an easy task, however; political victimhood is a controversial concept by itself and all victims of this type are mixed up with general politics from both the past and the present. In divided societies, such as Northern Ireland and the Basque Country, controversies about the definition of political victimhood reproduce old division…
Legislating Hierarchies of Victimhood and Perpetrators
This article interrogates the premise that the Civil Service (Special Advisers) Act (Northern Ireland) 2013 (SPAD Act) serves victim interests in Northern Ireland. It draws on theoretical literature from the fields of transitional justice and victimology as well as empirical data relevant to the act, to critically evaluate the practical outworkings of the SPAD Act as distinct from the politically charged rhetoric that accompanied its initiation a…
The Political and Military Value of the “Set Piece” Killing Tactic in East Tyrone 1983–1992
The period from 1983 to 1992 witnessed an intensification of the state use of the Special air Services (SaS) in the deployment of the “set piece” killing tactic in Northern Ireland against the Irish Republican army (IRa), a separatist insurgent group embroiled in political conflict in the region. The vast majority of these “set piece” killings occurred within the geographical confines of the East Tyrone region and were directed at the IRa's East …
Truth Beyond the ‘Trigger Puller’
This article critically examines how existing truth recovery processes have, and how proposed truth recovery processes might, address the issue of shoot-to-kill in Northern Ireland. In contrast to ongoing legacy case prosecutions of British Army veterans, it argues that truth recovery processes should adopt a maximalist conceptualization of truth and responsibility. This, it is argued, necessitates differentiating between legal truth and structur…
Problematising Symbolic Reparation
In light of the increasing importance of commemoration and memorialisation within the study of transitional justice, this article attempts to stimulate further critical discussion on the right to remember in societies transitioning out of prolonged conflict. Located within a wider exploration of the problematic overlap between the ‘politics of reparations’ and ‘dead body politics’ commonly found in transitioning societies, it argues that any pros…
Discourses of Political Policing in Post-patten Northern Ireland
This article critically examines discourses of political policing in contemporary Northern Ireland (NI). Recognising the post-conflict and post-reform climate that policing now occurs within, it argues that these environmental factors have conditioned discourses of policing that are directly tied to how legitimate political opposition to the political status quo in post-Good Friday Agreement (GFA) NI is policed. The article asserts that political…
Spoiling Through Performative Nonviolence
This article assesses how Violent Dissident Irish Republican (VDR) groups have turned to funerary practice as a spoiling tactic in post–Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland. In doing so it moves the lens of interrogation away from the residual violence exercised by these groups and onto other nonviolent mechanisms and strategies. Locating this discussion within the wider study of the VDR phenomenon, the article asserts that militarized and ritu…
The Malleability of Memory and Irish Republican Memory Entrepreneurship
This article is a case study of Irish republican memory entrepreneurship that critically examines the collective memory of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’. Critiquing the ‘malleability of memory’, it interrogates attempts at remoulding the memory of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’ in tandem with ‘memory politics’ in modern Irish republicanism and transitioning Northern Ireland. It examines the reinterpretation of the Loughgall memory by Sinn Fein to support thei…
A Shared Narrative
This article critically examines the difficulty with creating a shared narrative in post-conflict Northern Ireland. Using the legacy of policing as a case study for drawing more general conclusions about creating a shared narrative, the article interrogates how disagreement over where to start and end the discussion and exclusivist approaches to victimhood are obstructing attainment of a shared narrative. The article analyses competing policing n…
When ideal victims don’t make ideal offenders
This article undertakes a victimological critique of media coverage, social media commentary and parliamentary debate on the prosecution of former British soldier Dennis Hutchings for the death of an unarmed and vulnerable adult in Northern Ireland in 1974. It argues that a careful reframing of events and actors by the media, politicians and veterans’ movement has obfuscated perceptions of victimhood by creating a climate that favours the perpetr…
Naming and framing victims
Drawing from the literature on victimology, memory studies, and transitional justice, this article critically examines how representations of victimhood in post-conflict memory activism are rooted in contemporaneous claims-making. Using the collective remembrance of the events of August 1969 in Belfast as an empirical case study, it argues that memory activism centres on ‘usable’ victims whose victimhood can be seamlessly mapped onto preferred in…
Fish swimming in denial
Using the case study of statements of denial issued by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) over an extended 35-year period, this article critically examines how non-state armed groups (NSAGs) use statements of denial when engaging with various audiences across time and space. It posits that these statements are an integral part of how NSAGs communicate with different audiences during their armed campaigns, and subsequently during the process of trans…
Law, ‘presentist’ agendas, and the making of ‘official’ memory after collective violence
This article interrogates how law is used to make ‘official’ memory in transitional justice (TJ) contexts. It posits that law performs three key roles in the ‘making’ of memory after conflict and authoritarianism: visibility, definition, and judgement. Using insights from existing academic literature that has addressed TJ processes and mechanisms across geographical sites and time frames, it argues that law is central to memory making by renderin…
Victims Who Have Done Nothing or Victims Who Have Done Nothing Wrong
Building on recent victimological interventions in transitional justice, this article critically examines nuanced interpretations of what an ‘innocent victim’ is in transitioning societies without any agreed legal, political or moral base position on past political violence. It suggests that the term refers to two different types of victims: victims who have done nothing that fit traditional victimological understandings of the blameless, passive…
Moral Emotions and the Politics of Blame and Credit during Transitional Justice Moments
This article critically examines how moral emotions are intrinsically tied to the process of apportioning blame and credit in post-conflict societies. In doing so, it draws out the complexity that underpins moral emotions during key junctures in transitional justice. Recognising that moral emotions naturally stem from the making of a judgement about a ‘target’, the article argues that the relationship between those experiencing the moral emotion …
How the ‘suspect community’ became ‘critical engagers
This article is an empirical case study of how the Irish republican narrative on policing in Northern Ireland evolved from an absolutist position of rejection to one of post-conflict ‘critical engagement’. Drawing on previous research by McEvoy and by Mulcahy it evaluates the strategic dimensions to the (re)framing process that aided mobilisation throughout the course of the conflict and into the transition in Northern Ireland. Positing that the …
From “former comrades” to “near enemy”
This article critically evaluates how competing discourses on what has been labelled Violent Dissident Republican activity (VDR) can be mapped onto pre-existing narrative templates on “armed struggle” that have featured in internal Irish republican politicking for generations. As such, this article conducts an in-depth dissection of how competing narratives on the utility of VDR, the scale of and support for VDR, and the underlying motivations be…
The Political and Military Value of the “Set Piece” Killing Tactic in East Tyrone 1983–1992
The period from 1983 to 1992 witnessed an intensification of the state use of the Special air Services (SaS) in the deployment of the “set piece” killing tactic in Northern Ireland against the Irish Republican army (IRa), a separatist insurgent group embroiled in political conflict in the region. The vast majority of these “set piece” killings occurred within the geographical confines of the East Tyrone region and were directed at the IRa's East …
A Shared Narrative
This article critically examines the difficulty with creating a shared narrative in post-conflict Northern Ireland. Using the legacy of policing as a case study for drawing more general conclusions about creating a shared narrative, the article interrogates how disagreement over where to start and end the discussion and exclusivist approaches to victimhood are obstructing attainment of a shared narrative. The article analyses competing policing n…
The Malleability of Memory and Irish Republican Memory Entrepreneurship
This article is a case study of Irish republican memory entrepreneurship that critically examines the collective memory of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’. Critiquing the ‘malleability of memory’, it interrogates attempts at remoulding the memory of the ‘Loughgall Martyrs’ in tandem with ‘memory politics’ in modern Irish republicanism and transitioning Northern Ireland. It examines the reinterpretation of the Loughgall memory by Sinn Fein to support thei…
Legislating Hierarchies of Victimhood and Perpetrators
This article interrogates the premise that the Civil Service (Special Advisers) Act (Northern Ireland) 2013 (SPAD Act) serves victim interests in Northern Ireland. It draws on theoretical literature from the fields of transitional justice and victimology as well as empirical data relevant to the act, to critically evaluate the practical outworkings of the SPAD Act as distinct from the politically charged rhetoric that accompanied its initiation a…
The Great Awakening? The Belfast Flag Protests and Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist Counter-memory in Northern Ireland
This article examines the protest movement that surfaced as a result of the decision taken by Belfast City Council to remove the Union flag from Belfast City Hall in December 2012. This article examines why the issue conflagrated as it did and led to a mobilisation within working-class Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist (PUL) communities on the issue. Examining the flag protests within the context of more general PUL disaffection with the Good Friday A…
From “former comrades” to “near enemy”
This article critically evaluates how competing discourses on what has been labelled Violent Dissident Republican activity (VDR) can be mapped onto pre-existing narrative templates on “armed struggle” that have featured in internal Irish republican politicking for generations. As such, this article conducts an in-depth dissection of how competing narratives on the utility of VDR, the scale of and support for VDR, and the underlying motivations be…
Spoiling Through Performative Nonviolence
This article assesses how Violent Dissident Irish Republican (VDR) groups have turned to funerary practice as a spoiling tactic in post–Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland. In doing so it moves the lens of interrogation away from the residual violence exercised by these groups and onto other nonviolent mechanisms and strategies. Locating this discussion within the wider study of the VDR phenomenon, the article asserts that militarized and ritu…
Moral Emotions and the Politics of Blame and Credit during Transitional Justice Moments
This article critically examines how moral emotions are intrinsically tied to the process of apportioning blame and credit in post-conflict societies. In doing so, it draws out the complexity that underpins moral emotions during key junctures in transitional justice. Recognising that moral emotions naturally stem from the making of a judgement about a ‘target’, the article argues that the relationship between those experiencing the moral emotion …
Victims of’ human rights abuses in transitional justice
This article critically examines how multifarious levels of division among victim constituencies have shaped legal and non-legal transitional justice responses to human rights violations. It submits that this division has caused such responses to operate in accordance with the notion of being a ‘victim of’ rather than that of simply being a victim of human rights abuse per se. Expanding from this position, it proffers the theoretical viewpoint th…
A context-based model for framing political victimhood
All societies moving towards peace must establish reparation measures for victims of political violence. This is not an easy task, however; political victimhood is a controversial concept by itself and all victims of this type are mixed up with general politics from both the past and the present. In divided societies, such as Northern Ireland and the Basque Country, controversies about the definition of political victimhood reproduce old division…
Critical Engagement
This book represents the first interdisciplinary study of how memory has driven and challenged the political transition of Irish republicanism from armed conflict to constitutional politics through endorsing policing and the rule of law in the North of Ireland. Locating itself within memory studies, critical criminology and transitional justice, this book uses original interviews with political activists, community workers and former combatants f…
How the ‘suspect community’ became ‘critical engagers
This article is an empirical case study of how the Irish republican narrative on policing in Northern Ireland evolved from an absolutist position of rejection to one of post-conflict ‘critical engagement’. Drawing on previous research by McEvoy and by Mulcahy it evaluates the strategic dimensions to the (re)framing process that aided mobilisation throughout the course of the conflict and into the transition in Northern Ireland. Positing that the …
Discourses of Political Policing in Post-patten Northern Ireland
This article critically examines discourses of political policing in contemporary Northern Ireland (NI). Recognising the post-conflict and post-reform climate that policing now occurs within, it argues that these environmental factors have conditioned discourses of policing that are directly tied to how legitimate political opposition to the political status quo in post-Good Friday Agreement (GFA) NI is policed. The article asserts that political…
Problematising Symbolic Reparation
In light of the increasing importance of commemoration and memorialisation within the study of transitional justice, this article attempts to stimulate further critical discussion on the right to remember in societies transitioning out of prolonged conflict. Located within a wider exploration of the problematic overlap between the ‘politics of reparations’ and ‘dead body politics’ commonly found in transitioning societies, it argues that any pros…
Victims Who Have Done Nothing or Victims Who Have Done Nothing Wrong
Building on recent victimological interventions in transitional justice, this article critically examines nuanced interpretations of what an ‘innocent victim’ is in transitioning societies without any agreed legal, political or moral base position on past political violence. It suggests that the term refers to two different types of victims: victims who have done nothing that fit traditional victimological understandings of the blameless, passive…
Truth Beyond the ‘Trigger Puller’
This article critically examines how existing truth recovery processes have, and how proposed truth recovery processes might, address the issue of shoot-to-kill in Northern Ireland. In contrast to ongoing legacy case prosecutions of British Army veterans, it argues that truth recovery processes should adopt a maximalist conceptualization of truth and responsibility. This, it is argued, necessitates differentiating between legal truth and structur…
Through the looking glass
The legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict continues to weigh heavily on the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s institutional memory and contemporary policing practices. In this paper, we argue that the tension between competing interpretations of organisational memory and the need to ‘police’ the past has contributed to a ‘through the looking glass’ phenomenon as regards the policing past and efforts to ‘deal with’ the legacy of the Northern …
Fish swimming in denial
Using the case study of statements of denial issued by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) over an extended 35-year period, this article critically examines how non-state armed groups (NSAGs) use statements of denial when engaging with various audiences across time and space. It posits that these statements are an integral part of how NSAGs communicate with different audiences during their armed campaigns, and subsequently during the process of trans…
Law, ‘presentist’ agendas, and the making of ‘official’ memory after collective violence
This article interrogates how law is used to make ‘official’ memory in transitional justice (TJ) contexts. It posits that law performs three key roles in the ‘making’ of memory after conflict and authoritarianism: visibility, definition, and judgement. Using insights from existing academic literature that has addressed TJ processes and mechanisms across geographical sites and time frames, it argues that law is central to memory making by renderin…
Bringing narrative victimology to transitional justice
This article applies a narrative victimological lens of inquiry to the memoirs of those wrongfully convicted of high profile politically violent offences arising from the conflict in the North of Ireland. Using these life stories of wrongful conviction, the article critically examines how nuanced and complex understandings of victimhood and blame emerge from within victims’ own testimony. While on the one hand, victims can ‘story’ victimhood and …
Closing the ranks
This article represents an entry point for the sociological study of protests by British Army veterans opposed to legacy case prosecutions arsing out of the conflict in the North of Ireland. Acknowledging the lack of sociological analysis when compared with recent legal, criminological and political studies, it uses insights from military sociology, the sociology of emotions, and the social movement literature to understand how and why veterans h…
When ideal victims don’t make ideal offenders
This article undertakes a victimological critique of media coverage, social media commentary and parliamentary debate on the prosecution of former British soldier Dennis Hutchings for the death of an unarmed and vulnerable adult in Northern Ireland in 1974. It argues that a careful reframing of events and actors by the media, politicians and veterans’ movement has obfuscated perceptions of victimhood by creating a climate that favours the perpetr…
Naming and framing victims
Drawing from the literature on victimology, memory studies, and transitional justice, this article critically examines how representations of victimhood in post-conflict memory activism are rooted in contemporaneous claims-making. Using the collective remembrance of the events of August 1969 in Belfast as an empirical case study, it argues that memory activism centres on ‘usable’ victims whose victimhood can be seamlessly mapped onto preferred in…
Redressing displacement in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland has been an active site of transitional justice; however, the geographical and spatial implications of violence on housing, land and property issues have remained on the margins of academic, policy and practitioner attention. This is despite mass displacement and housing being key grievances at the outset of the conflict/Troubles in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, this article explores the institutions and redress schemes brought…
Standing with Soldier F’
This article merges the literatures on crime and punishment, law and performance and transitional justice to critically examine how high-profile prosecutions for historic state violence become contested in societies attempting to address the legacy of prolonged conflict. Drawing empirically from the case study of the prosecution of Soldier F for the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings in the North of Ireland, it demonstrates how legacy case prosecutions …
Political science (26 obras) · Sociology (25 obras) · Law (21 obras) · Politics (21 obras) · Law (19 obras) · Criminology (14 obras) · Irish and British Studies (12 obras) · History (11 obras) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (10 obras) · Economic Justice (9 obras)