Study title

Transcripts from interviews completed in the course of this ESRC-funded project. Participant Action Research (PAR) is a methodology frequently employed to assess the extent to which law is a culturally constructed phenomenon, an approach rooted in critical and feminist evaluations of rules governing personal relations (Sachs, 1992). This is an innovative methodology in the context of researching the interaction between novel constitutional arrangements and identity. Understandings of how identity can reshape legal constructs of citizenship are best forged when these legal arrangements are fluid, enhancing the value of participant action research in the context of post-Brexit NI (Kymlicka, 2003). Our participants, drawn from across a range of the new categories of rights holder created by the Withdrawal Agreement, engaged with the project team to reflect upon how the administrative actions which they are obliged to undertake are shaping their identities. The combination of in-depth interviews and workshops allowed us to explore identity as both individual and relational.In the Performing Identities project we investigate how identities in Northern Ireland will adapt to the profound changes in citizenship status and governance arrangements imposed by Brexit (and how they are, in turn, reshaping those arrangements). Brexit opens another chapter in the complicated constitutional and political situation in Northern Ireland. Since its creation in 1921 Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom has been unique. Through thirty years of conflict up to 1998 the people of Northern Ireland found themselves in an invidious position where cultural identity became bound up with citizenship, human rights and representation. Northern Ireland has therefore long experienced unorthodox governance arrangements, but the outline Withdrawal Agreement points towards it becoming an increasingly radical constitutional space. Although Northern Ireland will remain within the UK post...