Invite: Oral Histories of the Troubles

We are delighted to welcome Professor Graham Dawson – INCORE Visiting Professor – to give a seminar entitled: 

“The Afterlife of Feelings in Oral Histories of the Troubles”

The seminar uses Cultural Studies and psychoanalytic theories and methods to explore the emotional dynamics in Troubles life stories and their impact on memory politics and conflict transformation.

Date:     10 December 2024
Time:     4pm-6pm
Venue:  Ulster University Belfast Campus, Room BD-01-023

Registration: https://forms.office.com/e/scL7wSEaX7

The Seminar

Professor Dawson will begin by introducing previous work on conflict memories and subjectivities that employs theories and methods from Cultural Studies and psychoanalysis to analyse the psychic and emotional dynamics within life stories of the Troubles, considering their significance for the politics of memory and conflict transformation. This paper will focus on his most recent work concerning oral histories in two collections: the Dúchas Oral History Archive at Falls Community Council in West Belfast and the oral histories recorded for the ongoing AHRC-funded project, Conflict, Memory, and Migration: Northern Irish Migrants and the Troubles in Great Britain (2019-22). Through close engagement with three interviews from these collections, Professor Dawson will discuss methods to hear, understand, and write about the afterlife of embodied feelings derived from experiences up to half a century ago, as well as their materialisation in the ‘flow’ and what is termed ‘associative diffraction’ of memory within an oral history conversation. In conclusion, reflections will be made on the implications of this approach—and of post-positivist oral history practice more generally—for critiquing the policy framework of ‘an inclusive oral history initiative’ in the Northern Ireland Troubles (Reconciliation and Legacy) Act 2023.

About Professor Dawson

Graham Dawson works in interdisciplinary cultural studies on popular memory of war and conflict, with a focus on the memories, legacies and afterlives of the Northern Irish Troubles in Ireland and Britain. 

His research investigates lived experience, subjectivity and memory as represented in oral histories and life stories; the temporal dynamics of ‘post-conflict’ culture; community-based memory-work; and the cultural politics of conflict transformation and historical justice. Author of Making Peace with the Past? Memory, Trauma and the Irish Troubles (2007) and co-editor of The Northern Ireland Troubles in Britain: Impacts, Engagements, Legacies and Memories (2017), he was Co-I on the oral history project, Conflict, Memory and Migration: Northern Irish Migrants and the Troubles in Great Britain (AHRC-funded 2019-22, continuing informally). His next book, Afterlives of the Troubles: Life Stories, Culture and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland, will be published by Manchester University Press in 2025. Graham was formerly Professor of Historical Cultural Studies and Director of the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories at the University of Brighton.

Invite: Nonviolence & Empowerment

Conflict Textiles, INNATE & the Hume O’Neill Chair in Peace (Ulster University) invite you to a discussion with Ramin Jahanbegloo on 28th November at 3.00pm (Belfast Room Ulster Museum Stranmillis Road Belfast).

Ramin is a political philosopher, from Iran, with a special interest in nonviolence.

Ramin Jahanbegloo has written numerous books and articles, the most recent being ‘Thinking Nonviolence: Struggle and Resistance’. The Ulster Museum’s current exhibition, ‘Threads of Empowerment’, displays many textiles which are testimonies to empowerment through nonviolent resistance, as well as being forms of resistanceand empowerment themselves. Ramin will discuss the relationship between nonviolence and empowerment, especially in the current challenging environment.

To register: https://tinyurl.com/raminnonviolence

Programme for Government

The HumeO’Neill Chair with Eliz McArdle from Ulster University and on behalf of the Peace Summit Partnership submitted a response to the Draft Programme for Government for Northern Ireland 2024. The response focused on contemporary peacebuilding issues for young people in Northern Ireland. It can be downloaded here.

The response was launched with the Peace Summit Partnership response at Stormont on 4 November 2024.

Hume O’Neill Lecture: Simon Harris

The inaugural John Hume and Thomas P. O’Neill Chair Peace Lecture took place on the Derry-Londonderry Campus of Ulster University on 20 September 2024 through a partnership of the Hume O’Neill Chair and the John and Pat Hume Foundation.

The lecture was given by Taoiseach Simon Harris TD. The lecture paid tribute to the work of John Hume and Tip O’Neill in terms of peacebuilding but also reaffirmed the commitment of the Irish Government to deepening peace on the island.

Taoiseach Simon Harris TD noted:

“We are also witnessing a new era in British-Irish relations. My recent meetings with Prime Minister Keir Starmer have set in motion a much-needed reset of relations between our two Governments. I have always believed – and this remains unshakable – that the peace process thrives when the British and Irish Governments act in full partnership as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement. Unilateralism failed in the past, as seen in the ill-judged attempts to address the legacy of the Troubles while ignoring the rights of victims’ families. Today, we are restoring a genuine sense of partnership, ensuring that together we address the critical issues that underpin lasting peace, progress, and reconciliation. The Irish Government is fully committed to strengthening relationships across all political traditions on this island, and to rebuilding trust where it has been eroded. We know the scars of history run deep, and the wounds of the Troubles still linger. Even more reason to seize this opportunity and work to achieve real progress”.

Taoiseach Simon Harris TD, Hume O’Neill Peace Lecture, 20 September 2024

The John Hume and Thomas P. O’Neill Chair Lecture Series builds on the previous Tip O’Neill Lecture series hosted at Ulster University from 2002-2009. These lectures took place at a significant time in the Northern Ireland peace process. The series featured an unparalleled group of international figures, including:

• Michel Rocard (9 May 2003)
• President Bill Clinton (6 July 2003)
• An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD (4 March 2004)
• Professor Romano Prodi (1 April 2004)
• Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (26 April 2004)
• Pat Cox MEP (26 August 2004)
• Secretary-General Kofi Annan (18 October 2004)
• Dr Garret FitzGerald (15 December 2005)
• Senator John Kerry (5 March 2006)
• Ambassador Mitchell Reiss (21 May 2006)
• President Mary McAleese (4 December 2006)
• Dermot Ahern TD (3 April 2007)
• Senator Maurice Haves (4 June 2007)
• Professor Kader Asmal (4 February 2008)
• Robert Fisk (5 January 2009)
• President Juan José Ibarrete Markuartu (2 February 2009)

It is critical to note that through John Hume, in his honorary capacity as Tip O’Neill Chair in Peace Studies at the University of Ulster, many speakers took up the opportunity to speak at the university.

The Chair, in partnership with the John and Pat Hume Foundation, will continue the annual tradition of a lecture that delves into both local contexts and global issues, inviting notable figures working in peace and conflict to share their insights. It seems opportune to link the historical connections between Hume and O’Neill again through the new lecture series. However, more importantly, as new waves of conflict sweep the globe, it provides a forum to share lessons and place peace centre stage at the highest level.

Short Film: Conflict Textiles

A new short film commissioned by the The Hume O’Neill Chair and Conflict Textiles about artist Eileen Harrisson. The film discusses her work with Conflict Textiles over the years and focuses on an exhibition on the Derry-Londonderry campus of Ulster University featuring her work on the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Conflict Textiles Feasibility Study

Ulster University and Conflict Textiles Trust, have collaborated over the 15 years of the existence of the Conflict Textile Collection, and now share a longer term (2-3 year) joint goal of establishing a permanent repository for the Conflict Textiles collection which will:

  • provide a more durable structure for its future;
  • ensure that the collection is used to its full potential in education, research, awareness raising and exhibitions;
  • and facilitate the continued growth of the reach and scope of the Conflict Textiles collection.

A feasibility study is being commissioned to consider the best way forward and to clarify the most effective means to manage and sustain the collection in the future.

Details of the call for expressions of interest can be downloaded here. Deadline for submissions 5pm, 19 July 2024.

Beyond Intragroup Betrayal

Continuing our work on the issue of betrayal in peacebuilding Wilhem Verwoerd, Alistair Little and Brandon Hamber have published a new article in the Peacebuilding journal entitled “Beyond intragroup betrayal during intergroup relational peacebuilding”.

The article is open access and can be downloaded here.

This article addresses a neglected human cost of relational peacebuilding, identified in an earlier article on ‘peace as betrayal’. The focus here is how relational peacebuilders can respond to painful accusations of betrayal by family-type group members evoked by working with the ‘other side’. Continuing to draw on the reflections of experienced peace practitioners from South Africa, the Israel-Palestine region and the conflict in and about Northern Ireland, a contrasting distinction is made between two routes: a ‘clarification’ route that explains why working with ‘them’ is not a betrayal of ‘us’ vs a ‘counter-critique’ response that attempts to turn the traitor tables on the accusers. An evaluative discussion of the counter-critique route explores the pitfalls of political abuse, avoidance of shared responsibility and underestimating ‘thin’ relations (Margalit), as well as the complementary potential of the clarification and the counter-critique routes beyond peace as betrayal.