Trajectories of identity change : explaining the persistence of collective opposition

This article explores the micro-level mechanisms that reproduce collective opposition. It uses a typology of identity change to compare individual narratives in two situations where there are strong incentives to change and different outcomes: religious distinction in post-conflict Northern Ireland where opposition continues and in contemporary Southern France where it is rapidly diminishing. The directions of identity change are parallel in each case, but in Northern Ireland change is experienced as crisis-ridden and prone to reversal. The mechanisms hindering change are not 'ethnic' but cultural-cognitive: the socio-symbolic context requires that change be radical if it is not to be reversible. `