Practice, Power and Inertia

Personal Narrative, Archives and Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland

Bibliographic Data

ID8106653
AuthorsBrandon Hamber (0000-0003-1908-4040, University of the Witwatersrand, corresponding author), Gráinne Kelly (0000-0002-8112-3015, University of the Witwatersrand)
Year2016
Volume8
Issue1
Pages25-44
Publication date2016-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Human Rights Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1757-9619 • E-ISSN: 1757-9627
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/jhuman/huw001
OpenAlexW2337312366
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited22

Through the prism of Northern Ireland, this article explores the function of existing and proposed archives within societies emerging from conflict, and highlights their potential in adding complexity to understanding conflict and challenging dominant narratives. The article outlines how, despite progress since the Northern Ireland peace accord in 1998, efforts to deal with the past and human rights violations have been piecemeal and politically contested. In the absence of a comprehensive approach to the past, testimony gathering, initiated ‘unofficially’ at a community level, has provided opportunities for individuals’ experiences of the conflict to be documented and acknowledged. The recent Stormont House Agreement (2014) seeks to establish an Oral History Archive as a central repository for individuals to ‘share experiences and narratives related to the Troubles’. The article discusses the challenges in developing this ‘official’ archive, and the problem of reconciling competing historical narratives of the past. This is contrasted against the growth in bottom-up ‘storytelling’ or testimony work. The article argues for supplementing the official process with wider testimony gathering processes directed by and located within community contexts. It is argued that the deliberate juxtaposition of contrasting horizontal or inter-community narratives held by different local parties may allow for the emergence of a more complex and inclusive narrative of the past, rather than attempts to impose a shared vertical narrative, which is subject to either further contestation or uncomfortable compromise

Compromise · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Power (physics · Sociology · Storytelling · Subject (documents · Digital and Traditional Archives Management · Irish and British Studies · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · History · Law

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