Memoryscapes, Spatial Legacies of Conflict, and the Culture of Historical Reconciliation in ‘Post-Conflict’ Belfast

Dawson, Graham C.

doi:10.2307/j.ctvdf03jc.13

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…At the same time, actors were sensitive to the fact that this would not be the case for everyone coming to see the play. While none of the audience members felt they had been in direct receipt of violence as a result of the 'Troubles', some acknowledged an awareness of its trauma as impacting how they felt personally apprehensive about traveling to certain parts of Belfast city (Dawson 2016), which provided a veneer of discomfort upon initially entering the venue, even if they willingly did so. Some who were artists themselves or who were from West Belfast did not have any concerns with the play's location there.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Jankowitz (2018: 38) explains, 'lingering feelings of victimhood, guilt, distrust, and fear reinforce conflict divisions and constitute perceptual and relational barriers to [reconciliation] and peace'. Further, life experiences and memories of the conflict are interconnected with spaces and sites, with sectarian divisions still playing out spatially and territorially in Belfast (Dawson 2016). All research participants acknowledged that quality of life had improved in NI since the Troubles, yet how this related to issues of human rights as well as what social causes and whose voices (eg.…”

Section: Context and Methods Of Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Having changed little since the time in which the story is set, the décor of the building highlighted the strong connection between the production's setting and the content. Situated in West Belfast, a city space associated as a republican stronghold and a key site of violence in the conflict, the area has strong associations to individual and collective historical trauma (Dawson 2016). The photographs established a clear Brechtian aesthetic in keeping with the play's agitprop style and emphasised the historical nature of this moment of Lesbian and Gay activism as a part of a longer continuum of activism and rights-based campaigning that is all-island in nature, even if the story of A Queer Céilí is NI specific.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collapsing time: LGBTQ+ rights in Northern Ireland, A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe

Durrer

Grant

2020

Scene

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This article examines Kabosh Theatre Company’s production of Dominic Montague’s A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during its first run in March 2019. Based on archival research and personal accounts of a weekend surrounding the October 1983 National Union of Students Lesbian and Gay Conference in Belfast, the play depicts a moment of lesbian and gay activism largely neglected in critical and popular historical accounts of the period known as the ‘Troubles’ (1968–98). Through observation of rehearsals and performances as well as in-depth interviews with audiences and artists, we argue that the play’s situation in the venue, where many of the events portrayed originally took place, and the use of archival and found photographic imagery as key scenic elements create a sense of ‘collapsed time’ that brings the past into dialogue with the present and future, particularly regarding the relationship of LGBTQ+ rights to societal reconciliation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Context and Methods Of Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collapsing time: LGBTQ+ rights in Northern Ireland, A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe

Durrer

Grant

2020

Scene

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“…In my approach, the psychic, somatic, affective geographies in post-conflict urbanscapes are significant to consider when conceptualizing memorialization, especially where there may be material discontinuities of inscribed memory. 26 Similar to physical memorials, mobile memorialization and spatial stories allow us to (re)order and make sense of a traumatized city, 27 bring attention to residues of conflict and resist full obliteration. The architectural and material interventions in contemporary urban and heritage practices should pursue more self-reflexive relationships with place and consider the immersion of a 'temporal, kinesthetic and embodying experience'.…”

Section: Belfast City Centre and Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Walking, storytelling and melancholy survivals: memorialization of the ‘Troubles’ in Belfast’s City Centre

Mathuria

2023

cultural geographies

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This article explores the role of walking and storytelling as a mode of memory-making in Belfast’s City Centre, a ‘shared space’ that has largely been emptied of reminders of the 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland known as the ‘Troubles’. Memorialization remains a divisive and contentious process in Northern Ireland with two opposing narrative traditions and a lack of shared collective memory. In the absence of state-led and officialized memorials to the ‘Troubles’, I explore how urban heritage can be expressed in motion, through spatial stories told by place-based professionals (urban planners, architects, heritage practitioners, arts and community groups) in the City Centre. In particular, I employ David Lloyd’s idea of ‘melancholy survivals’ to describe the ways in which memories of conflict persist in the narratives we tell and in the small physical residues scattered throughout the City Centre, which we encounter through walking and spatial stories. I argue that walking go-along interviews with place-based professionals elicits storytelling that evokes a mobile mode of memorialization. I begin by discussing the context of memorialization in Belfast’s City Centre, its role during the ‘Troubles’, and its subsequent urban redevelopment as a ‘shared space’. I then map out critical discussions around my methodological framework, which considers spatial storytelling, geographies of affect and walking methods as ways to engage urban heritage in cities that have experienced conflict. This is followed by observations from the walking go-along interviews, which include stories of physical residues, the psychosomatic legacies of conflict and ways the difficult memories factor into narratives in Belfast’s City Centre.

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“…According to this analysis, knowledge of past violent events has permeated through generations to create fear induced movement patterns that see people use "mental maps" to move through the city, influenced by avoidance of "spaces of fear" and gravitation toward "sanctuary spaces." G. Dawson (2016) draws on the work of Tumarkin (2005) and De Jong and Rowlands (2008) to consider the interplay of "traumascapes" and "memoryscapes" respectively with segregation, movement, and spatial legacies of violence in Belfast. The truamascape concept suggests, as Dawson notes, that "an analysis of temporal disturbance, associated with the psychic and physical experience of '[t]raumatised people [who] have to live the past that refuses to go away' is transferred to particular geographical spaces 'where events are experienced and re-experienced across time'" (Tumarkin as cited in G. Dawson, 2016, p. 136).…”

Section: Invisible Boundariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hidden barriers and divisive architecture: The role of “everyday space” in conflict and peacebuilding in Belfast

Coyles

Hamber

Grant

2021

Journal of Urban Affairs

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Whilst "spatiality" and "architecture" have become recognized as important dimensions of urban conflict, contemporary forms of power push our gaze toward symbolic landmarks such as Belfast's "peace walls." This paper uses Belfast as a case study to instead highlight the fundamental role occupied by "everyday" urban space and architecture. It reveals evidence of an undisclosed body of divisive architecture put in place through a confidential process of security planning between 1977 and 1985 to physically segregate and spatially fragment Catholic and Protestant communities in contested areas of Belfast. Termed here as hidden barriers, they are formed from "everyday" roads, housing, shops, offices, factories and landscaping, and the ways in which they continue to promote division represents a crucially undervalued aspect of conflict-transformation planning. The paper examines the complex urban challenges that they pose, arguing for a reevaluation of the role of everyday architecture and space in conflict and peacebuilding processes.

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Memoryscapes, Spatial Legacies of Conflict, and the Culture of Historical Reconciliation in ‘Post-Conflict’ Belfast

Cited by 5 publications

References 50 publications

Collapsing time: LGBTQ+ rights in Northern Ireland, A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe

Collapsing time: LGBTQ+ rights in Northern Ireland, A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe

Walking, storytelling and melancholy survivals: memorialization of the ‘Troubles’ in Belfast’s City Centre

Hidden barriers and divisive architecture: The role of “everyday space” in conflict and peacebuilding in Belfast

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