Performing Place, Performing Peace
Space, Place and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland
CAS Speaker Series Presents:
Tom Maguire
Senior Lecturer in Theater Studies at University of Ulster
Since the Belfast Agreement of 1998, Northern Ireland has been undergoing a transformation into an uneasy and unfolding peace. A significant aspect of the transformation from thirty years of violent conflict to the current cold peace has been the ways in which space has been renegotiated but also remains an area of serious contention. By looking at the ways in which place is produced through forms of performed behaviour, this lecture examines how performance has contributed both to the manifestation of conflict and to the development of peace. Three broad approaches will be identified: the ways in which space has been represented within performance: the ways in which performances have created shared heterogenuous spaces; and the ways in which performances can be used to manage dissonant spaces or contested sites.
Key Readings
- DeCerteau, Michel (2000) ‘Walking in the City’, The Certeau Reader, ed. Graham Ward. London: Blackwell, pp.101-19.
- Dehaene, Michiel and Lieven De Cauter eds. (2008) Heterotopia and The City: Public Space in a Post Civil Society, eds Lieven De Cauter and Michiel Dehaene. London: Routledge, pp.87-102.
- Maguire, Tom, (2006) Making Theatre in Northern Ireland: Through and Beyond the Troubles. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
- McDowell, Sara Máire Braniff & Joanne Murphy (2015) 'Spacing commemorative-related violence in Northern Ireland: assessing the implications for a society in transition', Space and Polity, 19(3): 231-243
- Nora, Pierre (1989) 'Between memory and history: les lieux de mémoire', Representations 26: 7–25.
- Shea, Margo (2010) 'Whatever you say, say something: remembering for the future in Northern Ireland', International Journal of Heritage Studies, 16(4-5): 289-304