Echoes of suffering

: An ethnography of trauma, violence and social work in post-conflict Belfast

Abstract

Since the commonly accepted ‘end’ of the latest Northern Irish conflict in 1998, processes of care in segregated working-class areas of Belfast have been heavily focused on dealing with violence and trauma. ‘Violence’ and ‘trauma’ are two concepts that are still lively debated and contested both in the academic and policy-oriented discourses. The aim of this study is to expand existing knowledge of these two concepts by focusing on how they are understood in post-conflict health and social care. The thesis argues that, in Northern Ireland, there is a co-presence of contemporary, uneven socio-economic conditions and legacies of the past conflict, which ultimately makes the delivery of health and social care particularly challenging. This research demonstrates the key role social workers have played in the delivery of health and social care in the years since the ‘end’ of the conflict. Social workers’ points of view are extremely significant considering the privileged access that they have on the ground. Thus, the study reflects on, and questions, the understandings of trauma and violence that social workers have in contemporary Belfast and what role they take on in the process of care.

Building on ethnographic fieldwork in Belfast, this thesis uses a case study – a youth centre in a segregated working-class area of the city – as the main field site. This study argues that the policy process would greatly benefit by looking at local understandings of trauma and violence, and at how social workers, and the people in their care, negotiate the care process. Given the pivotal role of social workers in the delivery of care, this thesis makes clear that exploring the intersubjective relationships they build with the people in their care is crucial for understanding how care is administered. This research therefore demonstrates that those processes of care that happen outside ‘traditionally conceived’ medical and clinical settings are of equal or even more importance for the process of healing, particularly in relation to experiences of violence and trauma. This is due to the greater role that emotions and narratives of shared mental and emotional distress have in these alternative contexts of care. Moreover, different narratives and categories of trauma and violence tend to be merged together by local actors on the ground, while policies tend to approach a range of relevant issues separately, such as inter-community sectarianism or paramilitary-related and drugs-related violence. The implication of this latter finding is that an understanding of how complex narratives work on the ground is essential for a positive application of health and social care policies.

Date of Award	Jul 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Sponsors	Northern Ireland and North East (NINE) ESRC Doctoral Training Centre
Supervisor	Evi Chatzipanagiotidou (Supervisor) & Fiona Magowan (Supervisor)