Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CONFINED (Mapping Literary Representations of Coercive Confinement in Ireland, from the Mid-nineteenth Century to the Present)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-09-01 bis 2024-08-31
CONFINED has mapped the ways in which literary and dramatic representations of coercive confinement have shaped Irish national memory. Examining prose, poems, plays and drama about prisons, asylums, industrial schools, Magdalene laundries, mother-and-baby homes, direct provision centres and carceral domestic spaces, the project has sought to investigate how literary and dramatic works impact upon political and social discourse on incarceration, or – as has happened more often – how literary and dramatic accounts of coercive confinement have been ignored and blocked in carceral memory discourse.
CONTEXT
In recent decades, a series of state reports has revealed systemic patterns of institutional abuse in Ireland. From the work of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (1999), reports north and south of Ireland's border have uncovered widespread instances of abuse in institutions such as industrial schools, Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes. However, it has been argued that literary and cultural works acted as an 'early-warning system' long before these state reports were published (Kiberd, 2017). CONFINED has sought to investigate this claim by carrying out a longitudinal analysis of how literature and drama was used (and ignored) in the shaping of Irish 'carceral memory' during the 20th and 21st centuries.
OBJECTIVES
With this political and social context in mind, CONFINED set out to identify a representative sample of literary and dramatic texts written from or about carceral institutions, identifying common aesthetic strategies employed across genre, period and form, while also demonstrating the distinct characteristics of work about different institutions. Through the investigation of media archives, the project aimed to track the reception and remediation of a set of case studies in Irish culture, as well as tracing the engagement of official state history with narratives of confinement that have been sidelined.
INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
Drawing on concepts from the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, as well as recent sociological innovations in the field of literary and cultural studies, the project was necessarily drawn into collaboration with those in the fields of psychology, geography, criminology and psychiatry.
CONTEXT
In recent decades, a series of state reports has revealed systemic patterns of institutional abuse in Ireland. From the work of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (1999), reports north and south of Ireland's border have uncovered widespread instances of abuse in institutions such as industrial schools, Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes. However, it has been argued that literary and cultural works acted as an 'early-warning system' long before these state reports were published (Kiberd, 2017). CONFINED has sought to investigate this claim by carrying out a longitudinal analysis of how literature and drama was used (and ignored) in the shaping of Irish 'carceral memory' during the 20th and 21st centuries.
OBJECTIVES
With this political and social context in mind, CONFINED set out to identify a representative sample of literary and dramatic texts written from or about carceral institutions, identifying common aesthetic strategies employed across genre, period and form, while also demonstrating the distinct characteristics of work about different institutions. Through the investigation of media archives, the project aimed to track the reception and remediation of a set of case studies in Irish culture, as well as tracing the engagement of official state history with narratives of confinement that have been sidelined.
INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
Drawing on concepts from the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, as well as recent sociological innovations in the field of literary and cultural studies, the project was necessarily drawn into collaboration with those in the fields of psychology, geography, criminology and psychiatry.
CONFINED was divided into three work packages, two of which were substantially completed by the revised end-date of the project (16 months, 7 days vs planned project length of 24 months).
WORK PERFORMED
WP1: Mapping Ireland’s Literature of Coercive Confinement (12 months)
By drawing on archival holdings in the National Library of Ireland, University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, the Abbey Theatre Archive, Dublin City University, Kilmainham Gaol, the University of Galway and Waterford Central Library, this work package compiled a set of literary and dramatic texts on Irish institutions of coercive confinement for close reading. By analysing the manuscript history of a representative sample of case studies, this work package clarified the shared and distinct characteristics of cultural work on different institutions.
WP2: Responding to and Remediating Ireland’s Literature of Coercive Confinement (6 months)
In conjunction with WP1, archival research was carried out in the archives of Ireland's national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann to identify new texts, as well as to chart the uses (and blocking) of literary and dramatic representations of coercive confinement in the media. This research was supplemented by consultation of the Irish Newspaper Archives, the archives of the National Library of Ireland as well as individual newspaper collections. Interviews with those affected by incarceration continued to shape the research approach, encouraging a reconsideration of how researchers and inmates are divided into 'us' and 'them' categories.
WP3: The Impact(s) of Ireland’s Literature of Coercive Confinement (6 months)
The third work package was scheduled for the final six months of the project, starting in month 18. Though CONFINED ended before this, in month 16, due consideration was given to the ways in which information from WPs 1 and 2 could be used to create awareness of culturally occluded memories regarding confinement in broader society through the creation of educational and media resources.
MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS
The main achievement of CONFINED was to begin to learn to listen to the stories of those who have been coercively confined. This is ongoing work, which will continue beyond the completion of the project.
WORK PERFORMED
WP1: Mapping Ireland’s Literature of Coercive Confinement (12 months)
By drawing on archival holdings in the National Library of Ireland, University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, the Abbey Theatre Archive, Dublin City University, Kilmainham Gaol, the University of Galway and Waterford Central Library, this work package compiled a set of literary and dramatic texts on Irish institutions of coercive confinement for close reading. By analysing the manuscript history of a representative sample of case studies, this work package clarified the shared and distinct characteristics of cultural work on different institutions.
WP2: Responding to and Remediating Ireland’s Literature of Coercive Confinement (6 months)
In conjunction with WP1, archival research was carried out in the archives of Ireland's national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann to identify new texts, as well as to chart the uses (and blocking) of literary and dramatic representations of coercive confinement in the media. This research was supplemented by consultation of the Irish Newspaper Archives, the archives of the National Library of Ireland as well as individual newspaper collections. Interviews with those affected by incarceration continued to shape the research approach, encouraging a reconsideration of how researchers and inmates are divided into 'us' and 'them' categories.
WP3: The Impact(s) of Ireland’s Literature of Coercive Confinement (6 months)
The third work package was scheduled for the final six months of the project, starting in month 18. Though CONFINED ended before this, in month 16, due consideration was given to the ways in which information from WPs 1 and 2 could be used to create awareness of culturally occluded memories regarding confinement in broader society through the creation of educational and media resources.
MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS
The main achievement of CONFINED was to begin to learn to listen to the stories of those who have been coercively confined. This is ongoing work, which will continue beyond the completion of the project.
CONFINED has highlighted connections (as well as differences) between literary and dramatic works that focus on institutions of coercive confinement in the field of Irish cultural memory. By collaborating with other researchers in the fields such as history, geography and criminology it has played a part in creating a more nuanced picture of the inter-relationship between culture and politics through a consideration of cultural works and their authors as 'agents of memory' (Aguilar, 1999; Budrytė, 2010). Though most of its outputs are still in the course of being edited, reviewed and published, the project has indicated the value of examining cultural representations of coercive confinement in other post-colonial contexts beyond Ireland. Further research and resources would be required in order to carry out such a project, which would require a team of multilingual experts.