Joanne Hughes
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In a recent study Robert Putnam (2007) found
a direct relationship between homogeneity of
neighbourhoods and levels of trust
In racially diverse areas trust was lower and
people were less likely to extend themselves
on behalf of others
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People in diverse neighbourhoods tend to:
‘distrust their neighbours, regardless of the
colour of their skin, to withdraw even from
close friends, to expect the worst from their
community and its leaders, to volunteer
less....and to huddle unhappily in front of
the television’
‘People living in ethnically diverse settings
appear to ‘hunker down’....that is, to pull in
like a turtle’ (Putnam, 2007).
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Putnam uses this observation to challenge
two dominant theories on ethnic diversity: the
contact theory and conflict theory.
Contact theory argues that the more time
spent with those of other backgrounds leads
to greater understanding and harmony
between groups.
Conflict theory argues that, that proximity
produces tension and discord.
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In more diverse communities, he says, there
were no great bonds formed across ethnic
lines, nor were there heightened ethnic
tensions, but a general civic malaise...
Levels of trust were not only lower between
groups in more diverse settings, but even
among members of the same ethnic group.
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Three mixed areas:
1. Greystone, Limavady; 49% Protestant, 49%
Catholic; ranked amongst 10% most
deprived wards in NI
2. Dunclug, Ballymena; 46% Protestant, 46%
Catholic; ranked just outside the top 10%
most deprived wards
3. Rosetta, South Belfast; 58% Catholic, 37%
Protestant; ranked 429 out of 890 for
multiple deprivation.
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Qualitative approach – 15 semi-structured
interviews in each area, accessed though
community groups and organisations
(snowball sampling)
Age range 16-91 (majority female)
Issues covered - what it means to be a
member of a particular community, extent
and quality of inter-group contact;
response to the ‘other’ group, social
networks.
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Most interviewees had strong intergroup
ties
The opportunity for contact presented by
the mixed environment was a facilitating
variable in the development of relationships
Self disclosure and perspective taking were
important processes in the development of
inter-group relationships
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I have many friends in here who are Protestant and I can
understand how they feel about things – we discuss things,
but we don’t fall out over having different views about things
(M,P, 70, R).
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When you get comfortable with people after you
know them for a while you can start to talk about
politics and religion and stuff. It wouldn’t be
appropriate to talk about religious beliefs or how
you think about things when you meet someone for
the first time. I think that as you get to know
people you get to know their perceptions of you
and your perceptions of them and then you can
openly discuss them. Most people are curious
about each other. …
..one of the things we could talk about was their
view that because I was a Protestant I would be
supportive of the Orange Parades’ (F, P, 49, R)
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Strong inter-group ties and positive
experiences of the other group had a
mitigating effect where people in the mixed
environment also had negative or hostile
experiences
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To what extent is sectarianism a problem?
The highest. I would always be aware of it and try
to keep my wits about me. It’s just one of those
things, you can’t let your guard down. I don’t feel
completely safe. I was chased by a crowd of
masked men, apparently they were YUM (Young
Ulster Militants) that had come up to the estate
from Harryville. But I have Protestant neighbours
and they have been brilliant (C,M,23,D)
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Relationships between Protestants and Catholics
are sometimes strained. It’s just times like the 12th
of July when people are celebrating and the 17th
March when we celebrate. Other times we can be
the best of friends. It’s never bothered me. I’ve
never thought ‘there’s a Protestant – stay away’. My
boyfriend and the father of my child is a Protestant.
Once you know people, it doesn’t matter. (F, 19, C,
G)
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Interviewees in mixed environments offered
more nuanced descriptions of both own and
other community, seeing neither as a
homogenous mass.
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To me there are two types of Protestant and two
types of Catholic. Catholics and Protestants who
want to get on with their lives and those who are
bitter and want to cause trouble (C,23,M, D)
You get hardliners here, you get them
everywhere. You will get people who want to live
in peace and you get hardliners (F, C, 46, G)
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Because someone is a Catholic it doesn’t
mean they are a Republican. We are not
loyalists because we are Protestant (M,P, 50s,
R)
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Correlation between in-group and out-group
differentiation and trust disposition
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There’s an element on both sides that I
wouldn’t trust, but the majority of decent,
honest Protestants and Catholics I would
trust. The majority of the people in here are
Protestant. (M, C, 70, R)
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Perspective taking can lead to own group
reassessment
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At the local Primary school they were having an
exhibition to celebrate a big anniversary. My eldest
son was at the school and my husband and I went
up to see the exhibition. There was a lot of Royal
photographs and red, white and blue, I thought. It
was really the first time that I ever went into that
school and thought of it as a Protestant school,
not a State school. It really projected things from
one side of the community and not the other.’ (F, P,
49, R)
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Many people expressed ‘other’ group
empathy and were able to adopt a more
critical and objective understanding of their
‘own’ community as a consequence of intergroup ties
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Catholic people definitely have higher tolerance of
other people and races who are different. I feel
that Protestant people feel threatened [by other
groups] It is not through badness, it is through
fear. It is through fear that things change. The fear
that they are going to lose a grip on stuff or that
somehow life will be awful for them. My heart goes
out to them but you have to look back and think
how awful it must have been the other way round.
(F, P, 46, R)
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There is strong appreciation of difference in
the mixed community and of the need to
‘celebrate diversity’
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Everybody in this street would celebrate the twelfth
of July. It’s not about religion. It’s just a bit of craic
(F,C, 40s, G)
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I don’t think there should be flags up all year. I
don’t think there’s any need, it’s to do with
sectarianism. Sports wise, certainly, Saint Patrick’s
Day, certainly, 12th of July, certainly. Each side has
their own fun…but for other times of the year, I
don’t think there’s any need. I think it makes
people ill at ease and people can’t live properly
with it. (M, C, 46, G).
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Consistent with findings on the positive
effects of contact, we make a number of
observations that seem to challenge Putnam’s
hypothesis that diversity equates with to
‘hunkering down’ and low social capital’
We also raise some conceptual questions
about what it means to trust in ‘diverse’
situations.
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Diverse communities are not uniformly diverse
and there seems to be a class dimension to the
degree of mixing
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Well this wee neighbourhood is all I would really
be interested in. Just this street but overall the
community to me would be different. You hear
things are different in other streets but it
wouldn’t affect me. We were lucky up here with
the part we live in…nothing bad ever happens
around here you know. Maybe if you went to the
bottom of the estate….but I just like it. At one
time every house in this row was mixed
marriages…. It was half in half….now it would
still be half in half with a lot of mixed marriages.
(F, P, 50’s, D)
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There’ no trouble in this area. I know there would
be trouble across he street, but it never comes to
this street. This street is mixed but across there it
would be Catholic. (C, F, 40s, G)
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Fear and sense of threat in the mixed areas
sometimes leads to ‘hunkering down’ –
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Community relations wouldn’t be the best. There’s a
divide. I just don’t bother with anybody because I don’t
want to get dragged into anybody else’s business. I don’t
bother with anybody. I don’t have conversations with
anybody on the street. I just basically say hello. I would
never stop to have a conversation with anybody about the
way things are up the street…I just don’t get into
conversations with people. (F,45,P,G)
If the DUP comes to the door handing out pamphlets, my
husband worries and thinks, you don’t want to stand out,
so he would just take it. It is awful that you have to think
that way (F, P,47, R)
Both women are married to Catholics and have many close
Catholic friends and family members
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Often ‘hunkering down’ is a temporary
response to a threatening situation – some
interviewees referred to ‘keeping their heads
down’ at volatile times of the year.
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Juxtaposed with some evidence of hunkering
down to preserve relations, we found many
examples of people willing to extend
themselves or take risks on behalf of the
other community
Social capital was evident in concerted efforts
to tackle manifestations of sectarianism and
offensive behaviour
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There’s a neighbourhood watch here...there were posters and
stuff up about it. Some people are trying to bring peace up here
and they’re putting up posters saying ‘end sectarian attacks’
(female, 17, D)
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There’s a wee community things that have started up that will
help a lot...at least it should stop the ones drinking on the street.
There are football activities now and there’s a basketball court
and all...The community centre has done a lot. They have discos
and everything for the young ones. (M,P,22, D)
We run an after-school’s club for all the different Catholic and
Protestant schools in the area. The Churches get involved with
different interfaith activities such as carol services every
Christmas. There does seem to be a lot of work with the
Churches here (M,C ,22, D)
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This would be quite a close-knit community. Last year a
number of youths put up Irish flags. Do you see the
complaints I got, they were all from Catholics who didn’t
want to offend their Protestant neighbours. We have
Protestants round here and some of them have lived here
longer than us. They have a right to live and they have a
right to live in peace. They shouldn’t have to look out of
their windows at flags. Believe it or not, that’s what the
case was. The Catholic residents wanted the flags down so
as not to offend their Protestant neighbours. So between
me and my daughter, and another girl we got the flags
down. We spoke to the children and got a couple of older
ones to help us – people who had grown out of all that
carry on. We approached them and thy helped us talk to
the children. So we got them taken down. We had to talk
and talk. (M,C,46, G)
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Putnam found lower levels of trust in diverse
neighbourhoods – we found that trust is a
complex concept that cannot easily be
understood by an item on a questionnaire
that asks people how much they trust other
groups. - One woman would trust members
of the other community with her child ....but
not their interpretation of an event!’
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Thinking about your close friends what factors would you
consider important in terms of friendship?
Well religion doesn’t figure at all. Things like loyalty and
shared interests and something in common. Sense of
humour, someone who gets me sense of humour and
who’s sense of humour I get. Someone who I trust.
You mentioned trust, do you think you can trust
Protestants and Catholics equally?
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To be honest, I’m not sure. I guess there’s probably part of me
that trusts Catholics more, either because I know them better or I
know their background better. I mean I couldn’t deny that’s true.
It’s not a huge part but there is that kind of wee notion that I
understand the Catholic better. For instance take a Protestant
and a Catholic friend of mine…I kind of understand the Catholic
better because I understand, well I feel I understand their
experiences more than I understand the Protestant
experiences….but it wouldn’t be trust in that I wouldn’t trust
their (Protestant friend) advice or I wouldn’t trust them to look
after my children. It would be more kind of trust of their
interpretation of something. I would probably be more inclined
to trust the Catholic version of something over the Protestant
version if I had to make a choice. I guess there is always going to
be that difference of backgrounds that may become an issue
under certain circumstances. But then that is dependant on
assuming the Catholic has the same view as you and the
Protestant has a different, opposing view to you. But all things
being equal, I think I can have an equal friendship with both.
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Our data lend support to the idea that
opportunities for sustained and intimate contact
afforded by the mixed context have implications
for promoting inter-group relations
◦ Perspective taking
◦ Positive relations appear to have a mitigating effect at
times of inter-group tension
◦ Evidence of acceptance of and respect for difference
◦ Empathy for other group and more critical approach to
own group
◦ More nuanced understanding of own and other group –
treating neither as a homogenous mass
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Our data challenge the notion that ‘hunkering
down’ is a consequence of social malaise or
anomie – mixed areas are not uniformly
mixed and hunkering down is often a
calculated response to threat
Rather than weak social capital, we found that
positive inter-group experience in the mixed
context galvanized some to social action that
challenged sectarianism and division.
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Residents in the mixed contact were
discerning about who they trusted and the
contexts – but is this the same as trusting
less? Could it be that the apparent diminution
of trust in diverse neighbourhoods could also
be interpreted as a more nuanced
understanding and application of the
concept?
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When it comes to the end we have all got the
same thing – six feet of earth no matter who
we are. It’s a small island and we’re on a
small part of the island. We’ve all got to live
on it and we’ve got to live together on it. (M,
P, 76, R).
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