‘Walking’ in North Belfast with Michel de Certeau

Abstract

The city of Belfast has been a focal point for peace building strategies since the signing of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement (GF/BA) in 1998 (and, in some cases, for many decades before). These strategies, promoted by bodies such as the Belfast City Council, the Belfast Regeneration Office, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the Department for Social Development and the European Union’s Programmes for Peace and Reconciliation (PEACE I, II and III), target key social, economic and cultural ‘problems’ associated with conflict and its ongoing ‘legacy’.¹ In so doing, they have created a very visible (and controlled) space dominated by the strategies of peace building – and a marked outside. The latter, a patchwork of urban landscapes textured by interfaces, enclaves and complex patterns of conflict, tends to be treated as a sort of hinterland for the peace building process, or as the space into which the latter will next be extended.