Abstract
This paper uses a case study of a largely religiously non-practising group, working class loyalists in Northern Ireland, to explore the relationship between religion and ethnicity in divided societies. It finds that loyalists often turn to religion habitually in times of insecurity to provide justification for conflict. But religion does not just prop up deeper ethnic identities. Religion has meaning and content itself that is sometimes tension with oppositional ethnic identities and, in some cases, can transform them totally. This produces a complex set of relationships in which religion and ethnicity push and pull against one another in the lives of individuals, neither dominating fully over the other.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 53-69 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Ethnopolitics |
| Volume | Volume 9 Issue 1 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2010 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- History
- Cultural Studies
- Political Science and International Relations