‘The Prison Was the Battlefield’: Conflict, Imprisonment, and Resistance in Northern Ireland and South Africa

Abstract

This dissertation argues that prisons become sites of profound political and symbolic significance in states experiencing conflict. As places of resistance, politicisation, and ideological transformation, prisons are sites where the wider conflict is reexamined and re-made. For the state, prisons are a political tool of domination and suppression, where political opposition can be contained, incapacitated, and stifled; for dissident political and paramilitary groups, by contrast, they can be dynamic sites in which competing claims over statehood, power, and political legitimacy are played out. Through case studies on Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland and Robben Island prison in South Africa, the dissertation examines the ways in which politically-motivated prisoners sought to undermine the legitimacy of the state: employing diverse resistance strategies that appropriated, subverted, and transformed, institutional power, generating radical alternative narratives of the conflict that asserted their human rights. However, the resistance strategies used by these politically-motivated prisoners were markedly different: while Northern Irish resistance was intended to demarcate and segregate prisoners, the resistance methods at Robben Island were founded on principles of inclusivity and constructive dialogue. These contrasting ideologies influenced the emerging role of former prisoners in these transitioning states, shaping both their political engagement and their involvement in struggles over the interpretation and memorialisation of their imprisonment. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that the political actions of Northern Irish and South African prisoners, both during and after their imprisonment, were founded on a commitment to establishing new societal structures in which human rights and equality would be prominent. However, the power of prisoner resistance lies in its future significance: these diverse strategies of resistance laid the foundations for a new rights-oriented society, an aspiration that remains largely unrealised.

Keywords: Conflict, imprisonment, resistance, South Africa, Northern Ireland