ABSTRACT
This chapter is designed to present an overview of the book’s objectives, argument, theoretical framework, and methodological approach. We discuss the notion of shared living in a highly polarised context. This condition determines how patterns and attitudes change with time and in light of changes in social and cultural demography. The chapter offers an overview of political, administrative, and decision-making mechanisms and of the sociocultural context covered in the book. It also develops a discussion of the complexity of the spatial manifestation of post-conflict division in Northern Ireland and the manner in which the notion of ‘shareness’ has been at the centre of changing patterns of living.
