Northern Ireland: Society Under Siege - Paperback

by Rona M. Fields (Author)

The troubles in Ireland are not new. They have taken a heavy toll in lives and, perhaps more importantly, in psychological health. From testing and interviews with the children, women, and men of Northern Ireland beginning in 1969, Fields has developed a case study of the long-term effects of stress on a population. She identifies certain social control mechanisms which produce a mixture of chaos and docility in the troubled North and argues that England has established these in order to destroy the identity of the people--a process of "psychological genocide." This volume applies social-psychological theory to a concrete and ongoing situation in a way that is illuminating for the general reader and for the specialist. Fields has done what might appear obvious: to find out the effects of stress on a population by going to that population and observing what their lives are like. The remarkable fact is that until now, no one has done so.

Author Biography

Rona M. Fields, formerly associate professor of psychology at Clark University, is a psychologist and sociologist who has focused her research on social prejudice and violence in many different countries. While associate director of the National Center on the Study of Corporal Punishment and Its Alternatives, her 1973 report on the prevailing conditions in Northern Ireland was censored and withdrawn from the British market. Northern Ireland: Society Under Siege is an expanded analysis of that research., Alfred McClung Lee is professor emeritus of sociology and anthropology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and visiting scholar at Drew University. Dr. Lee's research has emphasized the study of conflict, with special reference to the Irish.