Throughout my time at Georgetown, I’ve taken a particular interest in translating governmental policy into community action. With my first Laidlaw summer, I looked at how American presidents were discussing climate change in major speeches, which stemmed from my interest in political rhetoric and its ability to mobilize people into action. Coming into my LiA summer, I wanted to engage with an organization that linked governmental policy with localized communities. I was particularly interested in working with a community (relatively) recently impacted by violence to witness how policy helped facilitate a change to a peaceful, stable society. Within my study of International Politics, I take a particular interest in how people remember painful events in their nation’s past, and this summer provided ample opportunity to engage with this professionally and personally. 

This summer, I spent five weeks at the Centre for Cross Border Studies, headquartered in Armagh, Northern Ireland. CCBS facilitates cooperation between communities on both sides of the only land border between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, which was the source of the Troubles from the late 1960s until 1998. The organization had three strands to their work: research into the impact of the 2023 Windsor Framework (an update to the 2020 Brexit withdrawal frameworks), presenting to and engaging policymakers and the public in how to improve cross-border cooperation, and directly collaborating with civic society groups to run projects doing the every-day work to connect communities on both sides of the border. I lived in Belfast with my LiA project partner, fellow Georgetown Laidlaw Scholar Hari Choudhari.

In Belfast, I could easily feel the impact of the Troubles to this day. I had never experienced the deep-seated tension between communities that could sometimes play out in Belfast. There were always lines people didn’t cross in conversation, topics no one discussed. Museums tried to cover all the material in a neutral way, but there’s no such thing as neutral for something that hits this close to home. The only formal memorial we discovered commemorating the Troubles had been graffitied with plants growing over it. Some towns only existed because of governmental policy that prioritized building a university in a small town over an already-established city (a decision that generated many questions). 

Admittedly, I came into the project with privilege. I’m an American citizen, and several times throughout the trip someone would thank us (as if we were directly responsible for the American government’s investment into the peace process during the 1990s). Our Laidlaw stipend permitted us to leave before the 12th of July, the anniversary of Protestant William of Orange’s victory over Catholic King James II (in 1690) and which today can become a day of unrest and potential violence in Belfast between the two communities. Guidance from our organization’s director led us to live by Queen’s University Belfast, a neutral and well-off part of town. If we had lived elsewhere in Belfast, we would have had a very different experience. Because almost everyone instantly pegged us as Americans, we were able to escape the binaries that keep Belfast segregated to this day, maintaining distance from the conflict. 

Belfast, I felt, was a unique place to study peace & conflict resolution. By no means has the Troubles conflict been resolved; there merely exists a lack of violence in Northern Ireland. The memories are fresh for everyone older than me, but real estate developers are building all-glass buildings in the City Centre. Political murals in West Belfast express the deep-seated anguish felt by many, but the community’s relationship to the sometimes-violent images is evolving as children grow up and learn to internalize the messages. The courage required to move forward, day after day, and try to build a future together, across the divides within the local community, is the future of Belfast.

Bringing courage every day has to be the most significant leadership lesson I’ve learned this summer. It means being proactive in reaching out, expecting failure, and to keep trying. It means to petition national governments to challenge policy to make someone else’s life easier. It means to think in a different way than anyone else. It means learning from everyone around you, especially the one no one else is listening to. Of course, this is easier said than done, but little habits can change big things. I’m very thankful to the Centre for Cross Border Studies, Georgetown’s Center for Research and Fellowships, and all my fellow Laidlaw peers for this momentous journey of the past fifteen months.