Ireland and the North is an edited collection engaging with the relationship between Ireland and ... more Ireland and the North is an edited collection engaging with the relationship between Ireland and the Nordic countries. As a spatial and geographical point of reference for the formation of politica ...
The global surge in ethnic conflict in the last quarter of the 20th century has been highly influ... more The global surge in ethnic conflict in the last quarter of the 20th century has been highly influential on interpretations of the situation in Northern Ireland. The recognition that Ireland might contain more than one nationality has made readings of the conflict as one of diverse ethnic/national allegiance increasingly popular and identified concepts like sovereignty, national identity and political culture at the heart of the Northern Irish problem. Any possible solution to the problem has required, therefore, that people and politicians venture into more ingenious constitutional thinking; that they abandon traditional theories of sovereignty and adopt alternative working principles, which will allow for the expression of dual allegiances (national, religious, political or otherwise) to Ireland and Britain. The Belfast Agreement from 1998 represents an attempt to do this, and it is composed of three 'strands' that operate on three different levels: Strand I, 'Democratic Institutions in Northern Ireland', is the provision for an internal settlement; Strand II, 'The North/South Ministerial Council', provides an Irish dimension by institutionalising cooperation between the North and the South of Ireland, and finally Strand III, 'The British-Irish Council', provides a framework within which every part of the 'Western Isles of Europe' can liase.[1] In this article I will focus on the possible merits of Strand III, on the diverse political positions that have endorsed the idea of a British-Irish Council and on the possibilities they see arising from it. In the Agreement the British Irish Council is thought of as a construction akin to the Nordic Council and, as such, an attempt to create overarching loyalties at the supranational parliamentary level. Thus the British-Irish Council will be extending the existing bilateral co-operation
Abstract In the absence of a political agreement on an overall mechanism for dealing with the pas... more Abstract In the absence of a political agreement on an overall mechanism for dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, storytelling has become a prevalent mode of addressing the legacy of violent conflict. Adopting a historiographic approach, this paper opens up two related tracks of examination: one exploring the (ideally) more comprehensive and egalitarian approach to accessing the past found in storytelling projects, understood as forms of oral history; and the other considering the process of those stories being made into records, and the dynamics of the archive. Drawing on a qualitative study of two storytelling projects in Northern Ireland, the paper argues that the stories produced there are not only subjective accounts of the past and thus sources for studies of life during conflict, but are also significantly informed by contemporary policy and funding frameworks and thus are sources for the study of the present peace process. The contested realm in which both storytelling projects and archives operate condition how they are funded, assembled, described, opened and maintained in the process of which some stories may be privileged and others marginalised or subsumed [Brown, C. (2013) Memory, identity and the archival paradigm: introduction to the special issue, Archival Science, 13, pp. 85–93]. Adopting the idea that storytelling as a form of ‘witnessing’ is also an ethico-political act [Kurasawa, F. (2009) A message in a bottle: bearing witness as a mode of transnational practice, Theory Culture Society, 26(1), pp. 92–111], the paper discusses what kind of discourses may be empowered by the online maintenance, and instant accessibility of memory in oral history archives. Crucially, the paper considers storytelling as a conduit for remembering, which is at once shaped by the absence of policies and legal frameworks, but also shapes subsequent policies to deal with the past as can be seen in the latest political accord, which includes it as a key approach.
This article discusses how multilevel ‘policyscapes’ and complex temporalities of ‘memoryscapes’ ... more This article discusses how multilevel ‘policyscapes’ and complex temporalities of ‘memoryscapes’ are assembled to reshape the categories and dynamics of terrorism and victimhood in the context of the United Kingdom. It specifically examines a case where unionist politicians from Northern Ireland are seeking to realign memory – and policyscapes through integrating diverging transnational policy narratives on victims and terrorism in debates on the Libyan Asset Freeze Bill in the UK Houses of Parliament. It is argued that these particular parliamentary interventions work to transcend the parameters of a peace process which otherwise prevent unionists from asserting a particular interpretation of conflict in Northern Ireland. Repositioning Northern Ireland in relation to the contemporary ‘War on Terror’ allows them to reassemble a bounded British mnemonic community. Theoretically, the article sets out a framework for an empirical study of memory – and policyscapes that conceptualizes dimensions of transnationalism as both intra-state and interstate dynamics.
Zoltán Boldizsár Simon is research fellow at Bielefeld University. He has been assistant professo... more Zoltán Boldizsár Simon is research fellow at Bielefeld University. He has been assistant professor at Leiden University and visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. He has written extensively on the theory and philosophy of history, on historical time and questions of temporality, and on the challenges posed by contemporary technologies and the Anthropocene to modern historical thinking. He has published in journals ranging from History and Theory through Time & Society to The Anthropocene Review. He is the author of History in Times of Unprecedented Change: A Theory for the 21st Century (Bloomsbury, 2019) and The Epochal Event: Transformations in the Entangled Human, Technological, and Natural Worlds (Palgrave, 2020).
This article discusses how multilevel ‘policyscapes’ and complex temporalities of ‘memoryscapes’ ... more This article discusses how multilevel ‘policyscapes’ and complex temporalities of ‘memoryscapes’ are assembled to reshape the categories and dynamics of terrorism and victimhood in the context of the United Kingdom. It specifically examines a case where unionist politicians from Northern Ireland are seeking to realign memory – and policyscapes through integrating diverging transnational policy narratives on victims and terrorism in debates on the Libyan Asset Freeze Bill in the UK Houses of Parliament. It is argued that these particular parliamentary interventions work to transcend the parameters of a peace process which otherwise prevent unionists from asserting a particular interpretation of conflict in Northern Ireland. Repositioning Northern Ireland in relation to the contemporary ‘War on Terror’ allows them to reassemble a bounded British mnemonic community. Theoretically, the article sets out a framework for an empirical study of memory – and policyscapes that conceptualizes d...
Ireland and the North is an edited collection engaging with the relationship between Ireland and ... more Ireland and the North is an edited collection engaging with the relationship between Ireland and the Nordic countries. As a spatial and geographical point of reference for the formation of politica ...
The global surge in ethnic conflict in the last quarter of the 20th century has been highly influ... more The global surge in ethnic conflict in the last quarter of the 20th century has been highly influential on interpretations of the situation in Northern Ireland. The recognition that Ireland might contain more than one nationality has made readings of the conflict as one of diverse ethnic/national allegiance increasingly popular and identified concepts like sovereignty, national identity and political culture at the heart of the Northern Irish problem. Any possible solution to the problem has required, therefore, that people and politicians venture into more ingenious constitutional thinking; that they abandon traditional theories of sovereignty and adopt alternative working principles, which will allow for the expression of dual allegiances (national, religious, political or otherwise) to Ireland and Britain. The Belfast Agreement from 1998 represents an attempt to do this, and it is composed of three 'strands' that operate on three different levels: Strand I, 'Democratic Institutions in Northern Ireland', is the provision for an internal settlement; Strand II, 'The North/South Ministerial Council', provides an Irish dimension by institutionalising cooperation between the North and the South of Ireland, and finally Strand III, 'The British-Irish Council', provides a framework within which every part of the 'Western Isles of Europe' can liase.[1] In this article I will focus on the possible merits of Strand III, on the diverse political positions that have endorsed the idea of a British-Irish Council and on the possibilities they see arising from it. In the Agreement the British Irish Council is thought of as a construction akin to the Nordic Council and, as such, an attempt to create overarching loyalties at the supranational parliamentary level. Thus the British-Irish Council will be extending the existing bilateral co-operation
Abstract In the absence of a political agreement on an overall mechanism for dealing with the pas... more Abstract In the absence of a political agreement on an overall mechanism for dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, storytelling has become a prevalent mode of addressing the legacy of violent conflict. Adopting a historiographic approach, this paper opens up two related tracks of examination: one exploring the (ideally) more comprehensive and egalitarian approach to accessing the past found in storytelling projects, understood as forms of oral history; and the other considering the process of those stories being made into records, and the dynamics of the archive. Drawing on a qualitative study of two storytelling projects in Northern Ireland, the paper argues that the stories produced there are not only subjective accounts of the past and thus sources for studies of life during conflict, but are also significantly informed by contemporary policy and funding frameworks and thus are sources for the study of the present peace process. The contested realm in which both storytelling projects and archives operate condition how they are funded, assembled, described, opened and maintained in the process of which some stories may be privileged and others marginalised or subsumed [Brown, C. (2013) Memory, identity and the archival paradigm: introduction to the special issue, Archival Science, 13, pp. 85–93]. Adopting the idea that storytelling as a form of ‘witnessing’ is also an ethico-political act [Kurasawa, F. (2009) A message in a bottle: bearing witness as a mode of transnational practice, Theory Culture Society, 26(1), pp. 92–111], the paper discusses what kind of discourses may be empowered by the online maintenance, and instant accessibility of memory in oral history archives. Crucially, the paper considers storytelling as a conduit for remembering, which is at once shaped by the absence of policies and legal frameworks, but also shapes subsequent policies to deal with the past as can be seen in the latest political accord, which includes it as a key approach.
This article discusses how multilevel ‘policyscapes’ and complex temporalities of ‘memoryscapes’ ... more This article discusses how multilevel ‘policyscapes’ and complex temporalities of ‘memoryscapes’ are assembled to reshape the categories and dynamics of terrorism and victimhood in the context of the United Kingdom. It specifically examines a case where unionist politicians from Northern Ireland are seeking to realign memory – and policyscapes through integrating diverging transnational policy narratives on victims and terrorism in debates on the Libyan Asset Freeze Bill in the UK Houses of Parliament. It is argued that these particular parliamentary interventions work to transcend the parameters of a peace process which otherwise prevent unionists from asserting a particular interpretation of conflict in Northern Ireland. Repositioning Northern Ireland in relation to the contemporary ‘War on Terror’ allows them to reassemble a bounded British mnemonic community. Theoretically, the article sets out a framework for an empirical study of memory – and policyscapes that conceptualizes dimensions of transnationalism as both intra-state and interstate dynamics.
Zoltán Boldizsár Simon is research fellow at Bielefeld University. He has been assistant professo... more Zoltán Boldizsár Simon is research fellow at Bielefeld University. He has been assistant professor at Leiden University and visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. He has written extensively on the theory and philosophy of history, on historical time and questions of temporality, and on the challenges posed by contemporary technologies and the Anthropocene to modern historical thinking. He has published in journals ranging from History and Theory through Time & Society to The Anthropocene Review. He is the author of History in Times of Unprecedented Change: A Theory for the 21st Century (Bloomsbury, 2019) and The Epochal Event: Transformations in the Entangled Human, Technological, and Natural Worlds (Palgrave, 2020).
This article discusses how multilevel ‘policyscapes’ and complex temporalities of ‘memoryscapes’ ... more This article discusses how multilevel ‘policyscapes’ and complex temporalities of ‘memoryscapes’ are assembled to reshape the categories and dynamics of terrorism and victimhood in the context of the United Kingdom. It specifically examines a case where unionist politicians from Northern Ireland are seeking to realign memory – and policyscapes through integrating diverging transnational policy narratives on victims and terrorism in debates on the Libyan Asset Freeze Bill in the UK Houses of Parliament. It is argued that these particular parliamentary interventions work to transcend the parameters of a peace process which otherwise prevent unionists from asserting a particular interpretation of conflict in Northern Ireland. Repositioning Northern Ireland in relation to the contemporary ‘War on Terror’ allows them to reassemble a bounded British mnemonic community. Theoretically, the article sets out a framework for an empirical study of memory – and policyscapes that conceptualizes d...
Review of Guy Beiner's Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of ... more Review of Guy Beiner's Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster (OUP) by Sara Dybris McQuaid in History (The Journal of the Historical Association): “the sweeping scale and intricate layers of this study mark it out as a work of truly overwhelming and myriad magnitude. Reassembling the sprawling detail of the longue durée, the book at once weaves pixels into ‘high resolution’ history and develops an increasingly sophisticated vocabulary of remembering and forgetting to expand and sharpen key concepts and theories in the existing field(s) of memory studies. … The book delivers an amazingly complex, yet clear study of the remembering and forgetting of a particular set of events in Ireland, but also opens new vistas for discussing methodology and theory. In this vein, Forgetful Remembrance should be read by historians who are interested in memory studies, memory studies scholars who are looking for a superbly well‐grounded approach to remaking the methodologies and theories of their field, and any political and social scientist who seeks to venture outside official and institutional narratives of history and assemblages of the social.”
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