Segregation, sectarianism and mobility: narrating everyday experiences of space in memories of the Belfast punk scene

This paper draws on interviews with a number of people who took part in the punk scene in Belfast during the Troubles. It argues that the scene can be understood as an engagement with sectarianised space and segregation in the north of Ireland, and as an attempt at times to remake or to challenge these spatial configurations. Reading the narratives of former punks for the felt and affective geographies of segregated and sectarianised space helps to give us a clearer sense of everyday life for young people during the war. It also helps to suggest some of the possibilities for social history and public history to engage with and reframe the problems of contemporary Northern Irish politics.