University at Buffalo (UB)
Dr. Thomas Wilson
SUNY Binghamton
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
12:30-1:30pm
354 Academic Center
The ‘Brexit’ referendum on 23 June 2016 has raised in Northern Ireland the specter of a return to the open hostilities that marked the region from 1969 to 1998. This paper, based on ethnographic research in the Northern Ireland borderlands, examines new and old anxieties and opportunities that Brexit represents to members of an Irish nationalist community, who fear a ‘hard border’ subversion of twenty years of peace, reconciliation and cross-border economic and political development. It discusses how, despite the British government’s commitment to a soft and smart border, Brexit is likely to undo many of the benefits of peace and reconciliation within the European Union.