GenFem explores embodied experiences of gender, feminism, and solidarity in Northern Ireland (NI) through the context of performance. This practice-as-research (PaR) project is underpinned by the fundamental assertion of the value of embodied knowledge as a refusal of the silence and shame imposed on feminised bodies and as a means of engaging with the complexity of identity and experiences in NI beyond a religio-ethnic binary. As NI emerges into a post-conflict period, scholars need to engage with complex multiplicities of intersectional experience. GenFem expands discussion of identity by attending to gender and generation through embodied knowledge, as well as engaging with feminism as a force for change in NI.
Political instability in NI is exacerbated by power-sharing mechanisms put in place following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and rooted in ethno-national division. There is also a conflictual binary at the heart of sustained media focus on generational tensions: e.g. the supposed feud between Baby Boomers and ‘snowflake’ Millennials, with the belittling generational label ‘Ceasefire Babies’ used in NI to describe those born after 1998.
For GenFem, researcher Shonagh Hill devised intergenerational somatic movement workshops for women living in NI with Belfast-based company, Maiden Voyage Dance. These workshops developed body-mind integration and reflection, offering participants opportunities to explore their embodied knowledge, discovering the histories in and of their bodies, and investigating the embodied experiences of different generations of women in NI. The structure of the workshops emphasised the creative agency of participants as they ‘wrote’ their embodied histories through movement (Susan Foster, 1995).
Objectives:
WP1: (i) examine embodied experiences of different generations of women in NI (ii) address their relationship to feminism (both movements and ideas circulating within culture), and how the context and legacy of decades of civil violence in NI, and international debate around women’s issues (e.g. #metoo, rape culture, reproductive rights) has shaped gendered experience.
WP2: investigate working practices that address tensions and solidarities of intergenerational relationships. Building on a strong tradition of political engagement through women’s coalitional work in NI (e.g. Peace People (est. 1976); NI Women’s Coalition (est. 1996)), develop and deliver workshops with Maiden Voyage Dance that are open to public participation.
WP3 objectives: (i) investigate an archive of women’s theatre and performance in NI as a means of housing a network of intergenerational relationships. Create an audio tour, ‘Holding the Past: An Archival Encounter’, in response to the Linen Hall’s extraORDINARY Women exhibition (2021), facilitating the listener’s engagement with how archives shape the past and as an intergenerational space. (ii) Acquisition of new practice-led research skills and movement methodologies training from supervisor, Aoife McGrath. This training was applied to the project’s 3 work packages, supporting cultural industry/institution collaboration (Maiden Voyage, Linen Hall Library), as well as hands-on engagement for diverse non-scientific audiences. (iii) Application of these new skills to teaching practice through development and delivery of a PaR module for students in Drama (QUB).
The key finding of the 2021 workshops was that generational differences and tensions are exaggerated, and that they are not insurmountable. Both the 2021 and 2022 workshops underlined the importance of reassessing structures used to tell histories and shape relations. Telling histories (feminist and Northern Irish) through generational models upholds patriarchal structures, sows division, and excludes non-mainstream experiences and narratives. The combination of the overstatement of generations with a model of conflictual binaries (e.g. mother/ daughter, during/after the Troubles) perpetuates conflict and over-simplifies, resulting in the loss of more complex histories. Moreover, within the context of NI, conflictual binaries serve to divert and stall progressive forces for change. Through refusal of both conflictual binaries and linearity, intergenerational and intersectional models generate more complex ways of telling feminist histories. Many participants expressed how empowering it was to express their lived experiences with different generations: ‘[it] feels transformational’.
