Repercussions of Differential Deindustrialization in the City: Memory and Identity in Contemporary East Belfast

Contemporary archaeology has often combined the study of material culture with a strong social justice imperative, including examining the causes of abandonment of social housing (Buchli and Lucas 2001) and constructing lived experiences of homelessness (Zimmerman et al. 2010). Within this burgeoning field, archaeologies of cities have a significant role to play in interpreting the social implications of transition and change in the city by engaging with the spatial and temporal dimensions of material realities. By explicitly materializing the forgotten or hidden aspects of the post-industrial city, contemporary archaeology allows us to view global processes through the lens of local material expressions. Hilary Orange’s edited volume Reanimating Industrial Spaces (2014) is indicative of the current fascination in contemporary archaeology with the meaning of abandoned places of industry, the link between people and places and the often difficult transition from functional industrial places to post-industrial heritage spaces. Such volumes use a variety of methodological approaches to show how people, place and materials constitute the contemporary, post-industrial city. In doing so they reveal how contemporary archaeology has the potential to critique official narratives that frequently highlight resurgence and development while ignoring inconvenient truths of degradation, unemployment and poverty (see also Ernsten, Chapter 10). The latter experiences speak to this case study of East Belfast in Northern Ireland. For a society of its size Northern Ireland has been the subject of intense political and academic scrutiny, indeed often being accused of over-analysis to the point of exceptionalism (including Whyte 1990). Much of the research has centred on social relationships in urban areas impacted by internecine violence, however, in recent years this focus has shifted to the persisting problems of segregation and sectarianism as a remnant from the Troubles (c.1968–c.98) into the peace process. With the fifteen-year anniversary of the Belfast Agreement of 1998 (hereafter ‘the Agreement’) in 2013—a peace accord that at the time was positively greeted as the end of violence and initiating a move toward ‘normalisation’ (Irish News 2005)—there has been much debate as to the ongoing lack of substantive societal change. At the level of civic politics progress has been made, even if it has been non-linear and at times in danger of derailment.