Towards a Sociosomatic History of Northern Ireland's Troubles

This network has been designed to ask how we might tell a different story of conflict and peace-building. It will examine the potential of sensory history - and an awareness of how our bodies exist in the world - to unlock alternative narratives of the Northern Irish Troubles. Using sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, the network will ask how we might discover the ways people experienced societal structures and human interactions at a deep, often unconscious level. The network proposes bringing together academics, policy makers and arts practitioners to explore ways of drawing out, articulating and representing memories of life during, and emerging from, conflict.

The Troubles began just over fifty years ago, marking now a significant memory moment in its history. Fiftieth anniversaries bring an awareness that living memory is beginning to fade (and indeed visibly die) and is shifting into a cultural or societal form of remembrance. This can sometimes mean that narratives congeal around partisan versions of the past that confirm binary political identities and miss the individual, embodied experience. Religion and political affiliation were not the only factors shaping people's lives during the Troubles: they were also shaped by class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, (dis)ability and geography. This network aims to develop a methodological approach that draws out the complexity of individual experiences in a way that also allows for a better understanding of the broader society in which people lived.

The network proposes bringing together academics from the arts and humanities, natural sciences and social sciences to develop a sociosmatic methodology for understanding the Troubles. This means bringing together the study of interior lives and external structures in order to understand the impact of social dynamics on the individual. It will draw on the expertise of disciplines ranging from neuroscience, psychology and philosophy to history, geography and film studies to create a durable theoretical approach to the subject. Scholars from drama, music, dance and photography will share knowledge of multi-sensory research. The network will also work closely with arts practitioners to create a dynamic space for memory gathering and representation.

Each network event will be designed to inspire discussion, encourage reflexivity and create meaningful collaborations between academics and arts practitioners. Morning sessions will include an arts-based activity which serves as stimulus for conversations in the afternoon and explores different representations of the sociosomatic past. Significance will also be given to the phenomenological experience of all participants. The aim is to construct a multi-sensory programme which includes walking, watching, hearing, tasting and listening as well as speaking.

It is anticipated that the network's findings will be of benefit to a range of constituents. The academic audience is inter-disciplinary and includes scholars of embodied representations of the past as well as those who work on conflict and post-conflict societies internationally. A central aim of the network is to build capacity in this area of study and the programme contains a series of masterclasses aimed at early-career scholars. Moreover, the significance of arts practitioners to the network will provide avenues for further collaborations. The main findings of the network will be sent to the Commission for Victims and Survivors as part of its consultation process and contribute to preparations for the Oral History Archive as part of the Stormont House Agreement. Through its interventions and innovations, the network will formulate new and innovative ways to retell and re-present the stories of contested pasts.