ABSTRACT

Political murals have a long history in Northern Ireland. During the Troubles, political murals were used by republicans in working-class areas to construct narratives that would legitimise their ideological assertions and help galvanise popular support for their political causes. In recent years, Belfast's republican political murals have not only become the forefront of a flourishing political tourism sector, but they also provide a risk-free means of drawing attention to dissident republican grievances – both of which challenge traditional and contemporaneous conceptualisations of Northern Ireland's political murals. This study critically examines the communicative function of Belfast's republican political murals in relation to location and audience. It also articulates a conceptual approach to interpreting the function of Northern Ireland's republican political murals. We present calibrated findings that indicate a disparity of function in relation to location and audience and point toward the capacity of murals to fulfil specific communicative functions.

摘要

政治壁画在北爱尔兰有着悠久的历史。在动乱期间，工人阶级地区的共和党人使用政治壁画来构建叙事，使他们的意识形态主张合法化，并有助于激发民众对其政治事业的支持。近年来，贝尔法斯特的共和党政治壁画不仅成为蓬勃发展的政治旅游业的前沿，而且还提供了一种无风险的方式来引起对持不同政见的共和党不满的关注——这两者都挑战了北爱尔兰政治的传统和当代概念化。壁画。本研究批判性地考察了贝尔法斯特共和政治壁画与地点和受众相关的交流功能。它还阐明了一种解释北爱尔兰共和政治壁画功能的概念方法。我们提出了经过校准的发现，这些发现表明了与位置和观众相关的功能差异，并指出了壁画实现特定交流功能的能力。