Afterlives of the Troubles
Life Stories, Culture and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland

By (author) Graham Dawson

ISBN13: 9781526146496

Imprint: Manchester University Press

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Format: Hardback

Published: 13/01/2026

Availability: Not yet available

Description
Focusing on experiential life stories across a range of forms and practices, this book investigates subjectivity, culture and the cultural politics of representation as a neglected dimension of conflict transformation in the Northern Irish peace process. Interdisciplinary critical perspectives from historical cultural studies, oral history and popular-memory theory inform close interpretive engagement with life stories in their cultural, historical and geographical contexts. This enables exploration of the complex temporal dynamics of 'post-conflict' subjectivities in the lengthening 'afterlife' of the Troubles, where feelings attached to conflict experiences are not 'past' but haunt the present, and memory-work carries future-oriented desires for truth, justice and reconciliation. Through case studies responding to the evolving peace process through this prism of life-storytelling, Afterlives maps a contested history of legacy policy-making and approaches to 'dealing with the past', from devolution in 2005-7 through to the Legacy and Reconciliation Act of 2023. -- .
Introduction: Afterlives of the Troubles: Life stories, 'post-conflict' culture and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland 1 Where am I? Unsettling encounters in researching memory, subjectivity and conflict transformation after the Northern Irish Troubles 2 The meaning of ‘moving on’: From trauma to the history and culture of feelings and emotions 3 Masculinities and the affective afterlife of ‘the terrorist’ in conflict transformation: Representation, identity and intersubjectivity 4 The desire for justice: Discourses of victimhood, psychic reparation, and the politics of memory 5 Memoryscapes, spatial legacies of conflict, and the culture of historical reconciliation in ‘postconflict’ Belfast 6 Memory, the afterlife of emotion, and the temporal politics of ‘post-conflict’ transition 7 Storytelling in ‘post-conflict’ times: Experiential narrative, subjectivity and the temporal practice of community-based conflict transformation 8 Memories of conflict and redevelopment at West Belfast interfaces: Complex temporalities and place-based structures of feeling in oral histories from the Dúchas Archive 9 Oral history and the legacy of conflict: Policy, history-making and the afterlife of feeling in archived interviews of the Troubles -- .
  • Society & culture: general
  • Peace studies & conflict resolution
  • Professional & Vocational
  • Tertiary Education (US: College)
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List Price: £80.00