Critical Nostalgia and Material Culture in Northern Ireland

Although many scholars have characterized nostalgia as a counterproductive modern malaise, members of one Northern Irish community demonstrate that nostalgia can be essential for evaluating the present through contrast with the past and for reasserting the ideal of community in the midst of sectarian division. By preserving and displaying local material culture of the past, Catholics and Protestants alike grant seemingly obsolete objects new life as symbols necessary for inspiring critical thought that may lead to positive social change.