Resumen de Contested Space, Peacebuilding and the Post-conflict City

Brendan Murtagh

• The physical renaissance of Belfast, with new waterfront developments, shopping precincts and tech-led industries, are potent signifiers of how far the region has come since the Belfast Agreement. However, the effects of regeneration have been socially and spatially uneven, and sites of modernity sit uncomfortably close to communities that are still affected by poverty, division and violence. This article identifies a range of competitive discourses on contested space, each one attempting to frame the problem in preferential but inevitably partial ways. The analysis concludes by emphasising the centrality of economics in peacebuilding, especially in the places left behind in the new post-conflict order.