Máiréad Nic Craith
Biographic Data
| ID | 637213 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Máiréad Nic Craith |
| GIVEN NAMES | Máiréad Nic |
| FAMILY NAME | Craith |
| SIGNATURE | CRAITH M N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Heriot-Watt University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1727-000X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 53 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Language as Intangible Cultural Heritage: Living Repositories of Knowledge for Tackling Climate Change
In this article, we explore the role that languages can play in addressing climate change. Beginning with a discussion on the 'demotion' of language in the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, we evidence the power of the oral tradition in the transmission of ecological knowledge. Following a brief exploration of the co-relation between linguistic and ecological diversity, we argue for greater recogniti…
Mystic Christianity and Cosmic Integration: On a Pilgrim Trail with John Moriarty
This essay takes initial steps on a journey with an Irish eco-spiritual philosopher, the late John Moriarty. As a gateway into his broader oeuvre and way of thinking, we explore Moriarty's image of the Christian mystical Easter journey-the Triduum Sacrum-as a vision for humanity and the planet. After briefly reviewing his spiritual biography, we consider Moriarty's re-framing of the story as a journey to the bottom of a symbolic Grand Canyon, a m…
Intangible Cultural Heritage and Climate Change: Sustainability and Adaptability in a Time of Crisis
It has now been two decades since UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted. A ground-breaking treaty, the Convention brought recognition of heritage as a living, breathing element of human existence, but has it reached its full potential? This article acts as an introduction to our forum edition on the connection between climate change and intangible cultural heritage (ICH). We consider how debates …
Intracultural dialogue as a precursor to cross-community initiatives: The Irish language among Protestants/unionists in Northern Ireland
While peace agreements are major milestones in ending conflict, the remnants of antagonism often continue well beyond the signing of a ‘text’. Language issues are often far more important for the stability of a post-conflict region than is generally recognised. We focus on Northern Ireland as a case study of a society that has been divided along religious and ethnic lines and where language has reflected these schisms. Drawing on 20 years of fiel…
When language rights are not enough: Dialogue for reconciliation in post-conflict settings
This article posits a new framework in relation to language rights in post-conflict settings, giving a key position to dialogue, which we see as a multidimensional process central in most reconciliation processes. Yet this notion is seldom utilised with regard to language rights, and subsequently in language policies. Instead, powerful stakeholders such as governments or transnational organisations often consider the introduction of language righ…
The Vanishing World of The Islandman: Narrative and Nostalgia
Heritage and Festivals in Europe: Performing Identities
Heritage and Festivals in Europe critically investigates the purpose, reach and effects of heritage festivals. Providing a comprehensive and detailed analysis of comparatively selected aspects of intangible cultural heritage, the volume demonstrates how such heritage is mobilised within events that have specific agency, particularly in the production and consumption of intrinsic and instrumental benefits for tourists, local communities and perfor…
At the Limits of Cultural Heritage Rights? The Glasgow Bajuni Campaign and the UK Immigration System: A Case Study
In 2003, the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO ICH Convention) formalized provision for forms of heritage not solely rooted in the material world. This expanded the scope and accessibility of cultural heritage rights for communities and groups. To much commentary and critique, the United Kingdom (UK) infamously decided not to ratify the UNESCO ICH Convention. This article examines the implications of the UK's…
Everyday Culture in Europe: Approaches and Methodologies
Literary Anthropology
This special issue on anthropology and literature invited proposals for original contributions focusing on relationships between anthropology and literature. We were especially interested in the following questions: what role does literature play in anthropology? Can literature be considered as ethnography? What are the relationships between anthropology and literature, past and present? Are anthropology and anthropological motives used in litera…
Public space, collective memory and intercultural dialogue in a (UK) city of culture
Using the case study of Derry~Londonderry and its designation as ‘UK City of Culture 2013’, the primary objective of this research paper is to critically analyse the challenges associated with the production of a year-long cultural programme in a culturally and politically divided place. Given that Northern Ireland’s second largest city has been understood in terms of a conflict between ‘two traditions’, Irish/Catholic and British/Protestant, we …
Linguistic diversity in Europe: Current trends and discourses
Linguistic diversity in Europe: current trends and discourses." Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(1), pp. 101–102
Medium and Narrative Change: The Effects of Multiple Media on the “Glasgow Girls” Story and Their Real-Life Campaign
Emma Hill, Máiréad Nic Craith, Medium and Narrative Change: The Effects of Multiple Media on the “Glasgow Girls” Storyand Their Real-Life Campaign, Narrative Culture, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 2016), pp. 87-109
Giving voice to heritage: A virtual case study
c) 2016 European Association of Social Anthropologists. This essay focuses on changing discourses of heritage with reference to concepts of place broadly defined. Our virtual case study is Wim Wenders' series of documentaries entitled Cathedrals of Culture. In this series of 3D films, Wenders invited five other directors to give voice to their favourite buildings. The directors chose classic examples of Western heritage located primarily in Europ…
A Companion to Heritage Studies
n\t\t\t\t\tThe selected essays have been innovatively organized into three sections on the expansion, use and abuse, and the recasting of heritage.\n\t\t\t\t
Companion to Heritage Studies
Re-locating the Ethnographic Field
When considering the ethnographic field, language use has been of continued anthropological concern. Traditional approaches to the field have associated language use with concepts such as place, territory and ethnicity and have tended to bound them within a single site. However, in conditions of increasing globalised mobility, approaches to both fieldwork and language use within the field are changing. Using existing scholarship on minority-langu…
Books Available for Review
Books Available for Review
Anthropology and Language in Europe
Within the field of anthropology, there is a comprehensive linguistic sub-discipline which deals with issues from semiotics and linguistics to identity and intangible cultural heritage. This special volume of AJEC emerged from our desire to explore that sub-discipline in a European context. From our perspective, it appears that many anthropologists in and of Europe engage with a variety of questions within the sub-discipline. However, these anthr…
"Migrant" Writing and the Re-Imagined Community: Discourses of Inclusion/Exclusion
This article examines changing discourses of exclusion/inclusion between writers of a non-German background and those whose families have traditionally lived in Germany. Referring to the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, it critiques discourses of difference used in recent decades to describe "migrant" writers in Germany and evaluates some reactions to their writings by the German reading public. With reference to the concept of print-capitalism, the …
Books Available for Review
Books Available for Review
Blurring the Boundaries between Literature and Anthropology. A British Perspective
Effacer les limites entre la littérature et l'anthropologie. Une perspective britannique En tant que discipline, l'anthropologie tend à être associée avec les sciences sociales plutôt que les lettres et l'on souligne rarement l'interaction entre l'anthropologie et la littérature. Cependant de nombreux anthropologues ont dialogué de façon fructueuse avec des auteurs tels que Jane Austen et E.M. Foster, et de leur côté Robert Louis Stevenson, Thoma…
Living Heritage and Religious Traditions
In 2013, Derry~Londonderry became the inaugural UK City of Culture. Given tensions between national and unionist versions of history, the title generated considerable debate on the location of Derry~Londonderry's culture within a UK and/or Irish context. All this had implications for the character of Columba/Colmcille, who had been appropriated by competing secular and religious versions of history in the past and who featured prominently in the …
Narratives of Place, Belonging and Language
Examining identity in relation to globalization and migration, this book uses narratives and memoirs from contemporary authors who have lived 'in-between' two or more languages. It explores the human
Narratives of Place, Belonging and Language: An Intercultural Perspective
Politicised linguistic consciousness: The case of Ulster‐Scots
This essay examines the evolution of the Ullans phenomenon in the past decade and sets its emergence in a broad political context. Of particular interest to the writer are the claims made about Ullans and the attempts to constitute these as a viable basis for its justification as a distinct language. While factors motivating the supporters of an Ulster‐Scots cultural tradition are examined, reasons for hostility towards Ullans are also reviewed. …
Culture and citizenship in Europe. Questions for anthropologists
La culture et la citoyennete ont souvent ete considerees comme des concepts pour des disciplines distinctes, et l'interet anthropologique pour la culture a detourne l'attention du concept de citoyennete. Bien que les sociologues aient traditionnellement neglige la dimension culturelle de la citoyennete, je soutiens que la citoyennete est fondamentalement un concept culturel, ce qui la propulse de facon indeniable dans le domaine de l'anthropologi…
A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe
A Companion to theAnthropologyof Europe BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe “The volume also deserves a place on the shelves of academic libraries as well as the larger public library.” Reference Reviews “Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries.”Choice “This important collection challenges all anthropologists to re-examine the importance of European perspectives on the most provocat…
At the Limits of Cultural Heritage Rights? The Glasgow Bajuni Campaign and the UK Immigration System: A Case Study
In 2003, the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO ICH Convention) formalized provision for forms of heritage not solely rooted in the material world. This expanded the scope and accessibility of cultural heritage rights for communities and groups. To much commentary and critique, the United Kingdom (UK) infamously decided not to ratify the UNESCO ICH Convention. This article examines the implications of the UK's…
Blurring the Boundaries between Literature and Anthropology. A British Perspective
Effacer les limites entre la littérature et l'anthropologie. Une perspective britannique En tant que discipline, l'anthropologie tend à être associée avec les sciences sociales plutôt que les lettres et l'on souligne rarement l'interaction entre l'anthropologie et la littérature. Cependant de nombreux anthropologues ont dialogué de façon fructueuse avec des auteurs tels que Jane Austen et E.M. Foster, et de leur côté Robert Louis Stevenson, Thoma…
Contested Identities and the Quest for Legitimacy
This paper focuses on the quest of contested speech forms for legitimacy as languages rather than dialects, the distinction being explored solely in a political context. Since the French Revolution the nation-state has played a primary role in affirming the status of language (Ager, 1999). State boundaries have frequently determined the official choice of language. In this essay the relationship between language and nation as invented concepts is…
Irish Speakers in Northern Ireland, and the Good Friday Agreement
This essay begins with an exploration of the extent of the Irish language community in Northern Ireland and questions the validity of the census results of 1991. The author pays particular attention to the concept of a mother tongue and its relevance for speakers of Irish in the United Kingdom. Brief consideration is also given to the association of the language with the Catholic nationalist tradition. According to the Good Friday Agreement, ling…
Giving voice to heritage: A virtual case study
c) 2016 European Association of Social Anthropologists. This essay focuses on changing discourses of heritage with reference to concepts of place broadly defined. Our virtual case study is Wim Wenders' series of documentaries entitled Cathedrals of Culture. In this series of 3D films, Wenders invited five other directors to give voice to their favourite buildings. The directors chose classic examples of Western heritage located primarily in Europ…
The Irish language in Britain: A case study of North West England
This essay sketches the continuing presence of the Irish language in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In order to set Irish as a foreign language in context, it begins with a review of the emigration of Irish‐speakers from Ireland in the nineteenth century. Specific attention is then paid to the problems encountered by speakers of this tongue in various locations in England in the last century. Reports of distinct Irish‐speaking…
Writing Europe: A dialogue of ‘liminal Europeans
Migration has been a regular feature in Europe since before the Romans. However, an acceleration of this process in the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in the breaking down of old affinities and alignments and the emergence of new formations that challenge traditional group definitions. Many Europeans experience strong senses of exclusion from the mainstream society to which they have migrated. Some have explored this challenge of liminality…
Irish in primary and post‐primary education: North and South of the border
Irish in primary and post‐primary education: North and South of the border
The Irish language in Britain: A case study of North West England
This essay sketches the continuing presence of the Irish language in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In order to set Irish as a foreign language in context, it begins with a review of the emigration of Irish‐speakers from Ireland in the nineteenth century. Specific attention is then paid to the problems encountered by speakers of this tongue in various locations in England in the last century. Reports of distinct Irish‐speaking…
Irish Speakers in Northern Ireland, and the Good Friday Agreement
This essay begins with an exploration of the extent of the Irish language community in Northern Ireland and questions the validity of the census results of 1991. The author pays particular attention to the concept of a mother tongue and its relevance for speakers of Irish in the United Kingdom. Brief consideration is also given to the association of the language with the Catholic nationalist tradition. According to the Good Friday Agreement, ling…
Contested Identities and the Quest for Legitimacy
This paper focuses on the quest of contested speech forms for legitimacy as languages rather than dialects, the distinction being explored solely in a political context. Since the French Revolution the nation-state has played a primary role in affirming the status of language (Ager, 1999). State boundaries have frequently determined the official choice of language. In this essay the relationship between language and nation as invented concepts is…
Politicised linguistic consciousness: The case of Ulster‐Scots
This essay examines the evolution of the Ullans phenomenon in the past decade and sets its emergence in a broad political context. Of particular interest to the writer are the claims made about Ullans and the attempts to constitute these as a viable basis for its justification as a distinct language. While factors motivating the supporters of an Ulster‐Scots cultural tradition are examined, reasons for hostility towards Ullans are also reviewed. …
Culture and Identity Politics in Northern Ireland
Civilization and culture have traditionally been regarded as mutually exclusive concepts. In this comparative case-study of Northern Ireland, Máiréad Nic Craith explores the commitment of unionists to
An Anthropology of the European Union: Building, Imagining and Experiencing the New Europe
An Anthropology of the European Union: Building, Imagining and Experiencing the New Europe, Irène Benller and Thomas M. Wilson, eds.Berg:Oxford, New York 2000
Culture and citizenship in Europe. Questions for anthropologists
La culture et la citoyennete ont souvent ete considerees comme des concepts pour des disciplines distinctes, et l'interet anthropologique pour la culture a detourne l'attention du concept de citoyennete. Bien que les sociologues aient traditionnellement neglige la dimension culturelle de la citoyennete, je soutiens que la citoyennete est fondamentalement un concept culturel, ce qui la propulse de facon indeniable dans le domaine de l'anthropologi…
The Meaning of Europe: Variety and Contention within and among Nations
The Meaning of Europe: Variety and Contention within and among Nations . edited by Mikael af Malmborg and Bo Stråth. Berg: Oxford, New York. 2002. ISBN. 85973581 9
Language, Power and Identity Politics
Culture and citizenship in Europe Questions for anthropologists
The Troubles in Ballybogin: Memory and Identity in Northern Ireland
The Troubles in Ballybogin: Memory and Identity in Northern Ireland." Folk Life, 46(1), pp. 163–164
Essays on cultural transmission. by Bloch, Maurice
Everyday Culture in Europe: Approaches and Methodologies
Contents: From national to transnational: a discipline en route to Europe, MA!irA(c)ad Nic Crath From CIAP to SIEF: visions for a discipline or power struggle?, Bjarne Rogan Small national ethnologies and supranational empires: the case of the Habsburg monarchy, Bojan Baskar How large are the issues for small ethnographies? Bulgarian ethnology facing the new Europe, Galia Valtchinova Challenges to the discipline: Lithuanian ethnology between scho…
Intangible Cultural Heritages
Heritage has traditionally been associated with material objects, but recent conventions have emphasized the significance of intangible culture heritage. This article advocates a holistic approach towards the concept and considers key challenges for Europe's heritage at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Reflecting on the notion of 'European', it considers the question of how one defines European heritage and which European heritage is to…
Books Available for Review
Books Available for Review
Writing Europe: A dialogue of ‘liminal Europeans
Migration has been a regular feature in Europe since before the Romans. However, an acceleration of this process in the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in the breaking down of old affinities and alignments and the emergence of new formations that challenge traditional group definitions. Many Europeans experience strong senses of exclusion from the mainstream society to which they have migrated. Some have explored this challenge of liminality…
Narratives of Place, Belonging and Language
Examining identity in relation to globalization and migration, this book uses narratives and memoirs from contemporary authors who have lived 'in-between' two or more languages. It explores the human
Narratives of Place, Belonging and Language: An Intercultural Perspective
The Web of Family Relationships
In an age of political correctness, the concept of ‘mother tongue’ has become problematic and there are several reasons for this. Firstly, as anthropologists are well aware, the concepts of mother and other female figures are relative. While in the English language there are separate terms for ‘mother’ and ‘aunt’, one could cite examples of other languages where this distinction does not apply. In Shinzwani (spoken in the Comoro Islands), there i…
Companion to the Anthropology of Europe
Europe’s (Un)Common Heritage(s)
Although it draws on the past, the concept of heritage is rooted in the present and is used selectively for contemporary purposes. European institutions have reinforced the concept of a common European heritage, which is shared by all nation-states. In drawing on the discourse of heritage, there is an attempt to consolidate a narrative of European universal values. This paper critiques the vision of a common European heritage in the consolidation…
Books Available for Review
Books Available for Review
A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe
A Companion to theAnthropologyof Europe BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe “The volume also deserves a place on the shelves of academic libraries as well as the larger public library.” Reference Reviews “Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries.”Choice “This important collection challenges all anthropologists to re-examine the importance of European perspectives on the most provocat…
Living Heritage and Religious Traditions
In 2013, Derry~Londonderry became the inaugural UK City of Culture. Given tensions between national and unionist versions of history, the title generated considerable debate on the location of Derry~Londonderry's culture within a UK and/or Irish context. All this had implications for the character of Columba/Colmcille, who had been appropriated by competing secular and religious versions of history in the past and who featured prominently in the …
Sociology (33 works) · History (24 works) · Political science (20 works) · Law (18 works) · Linguistics (17 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Anthropology (13 works) · Art (12 works) · History (12 works) · Gender Studies (11 works)