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"Ireland and Victims : Recognition, Reparation, Reconciliation?"
The Centre for Irish Studies based at the University of Rennes 2, France, is soliciting papers for an interdisciplinary conference, which will run from 9th-11th September 2010.
2009 has been marked by the publication on the island of Ireland of two high-profile reports on very different aspects of victims. The publication of the final Ryan Report on institutional abuse in the Republic, and the Eames / Bradley report from the Consultative Group on the Past set up in 2007 by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, to “find a way out of the shadows of the past” have both sparked heated debate in academic and non-academic circles, in Ireland and abroad.
In the run-up to and following the Good Friday Agreement, the issue of how to address the grievances, demands and needs of victims of the 30 year conflict has proved highly sensitive, due to differing perceptions of who the victims really are, of how best to approach their needs, with some quarters even questioning the wisdom of “stirring up” the past. Indeed, the steady stream of reports and commissions investigating the victims of the Troubles is indicative of the difficulty in reaching consensus on the most appropriate way(s) to deal with the legacy of the past in order to provide for a more serene future.
Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern outline three distinct threads in dealing with the past in post-conflict transformation today, all concerned with key concepts of truth, justice, memory and healing:
“The therapeutic, archival and judicial imperatives can be taken as defining the logic of post-conflict memory work today. They also establish the, at times, contradictory, ends of truth recovery processes: to find ‘healing’ for victims by giving them a public voice; to re-write the record of the conflict and establish a new, potentially shared narrative of the past; and to revisit past injustice in order to establish an accountable, rights-based regime in the future.” .
In a broader perspective, Ireland’s past and collective memories are etched with examples of victims, victimhood, and victimisation: the Famine victims, those who have become martyrs or heroes in both nationalist and unionist narratives of the past, victims of the siege of Derry, the Easter Rising, the battle of the Somme, Bloody Sunday, the Hunger strikes and more recently, those groups left out of the economic boom, and victims of the growing fear of otherness which manifests itself in racism and hate crime.
It would now seem an opportune moment to devote a conference to this general thematic in an Irish context.
We are particularly interested in hearing papers on :
-differing perceptions and definitions of victims and victimhood,
-the plight of victims,
-the reluctance of the State and other parties to delve into the past,
-the input of civic society in representing victims,
-revisiting past wrongs to move forward in the future,
-closure and victims as survivors,
-conflict transformation and peace-building,
-the portrayal of victims in literature, film and the arts
The cross-disciplinary nature of Irish Studies provides a wide range of approaches from which to examine victims and victimhood. We welcome submissions for 20-minute papers in English (preferably) or French from numerous areas including Conflict and Peace Studies, Victims studies, Law and Human Rights, History, Politics, Comparative Analysis, Sociology, Psychology, Cultural Studies, Migration Studies, Literature, Media and Film Studies, Visual Arts, Performing Arts...
We plan to publish a selection of papers in a special edition of the Re-imagining Ireland series edited by Dr. Eamon Maher (Director, National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies, Dublin).
Keynote Speakers
Keynote speakers confirmed to date:
Professor Marianne Elliott, O.B.E., F.B.A., Director of the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool
Patricia MacBride, Commissioner for Victims and Survivors
Rita Duffy, visual artist
Please submit your proposals (title and 300-word maximum abstract) by 28th February to Lesley Lelourec, copying in
Grainne O’Keeffe-Vigneron with your institutional address.
lesley.lelourec@univ-rennes2.fr
grainne.o-keeffe@univ-rennes2.fr
Practical Details
Travel and accommodation details, as well as a registration form, will be circulated in the Spring.
Grainne O'Keeffe-Vigneron
Maitre de conférences,
Université Rennes 2.
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