Routine divisions segregation and daily life in Northern Ireland

In September 2008 the Institute for Conflict Research (ICR) published the findings of a seventeen-month research study funded by the Community Relation’s Council
through the European Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation (Hamilton et al, 2008). The primary aim of the research was to analyse the ways
and means that sectarianism and segregation are sustained and extended through the routine and mundane decisions that people make in their everyday lives. This paper summarises some of the key aspects and outcomes of this research. The paper begins with a brief introductory overview of the aims and objectives of the study, and offers a brief review of the wider theoretical and methodological context of the research. The second part of the paper focuses on methodological issues involved in researching issues related to sectarianism and segregation, it discusses some of the methodological approaches utilised in the research and analyses some of the challenges encountered by the researchers during the course of the study. Finally the third second part of the paper presents some of the key findings which have been generated from the overall study and which highlights something of the developing nature of sectarianism and segregation in Northern Ireland ten years after the signing of the Agreement.