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“Restorative Justice in Magdalene Cultural Production from Western Europe, North America, and Oceania (1836-2023)”

Project description

Restoring voices to reclaim justice

The Magdalene institutions have long been a symbol of injustice, where women and children endured abuse under the guise of moral rehabilitation. These women’s stories have been largely erased or distorted in national histories. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the Magdalene Trauma project seeks to explore this deep-seated cultural wound by analysing narratives from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and the US. Focusing on the intersections of restorative justice and Magdalene cultural production, the project aims to amplify survivors’ voices while addressing systemic issues like sexism, racism, and classism. By using culturally sensitive trauma-reading methodologies, it ensures the decolonisation of Magdalene studies, offering a space for truth-telling.

Objective

The project assesses the intertwinement between Magdalene cultural production and restorative justice in transnational contexts. By analysing a corpus produced in three distinct geographical, historical, linguistic, and cultural areas, the research interrogates the cultural specificities of Magdalenism across space and time, beyond the frame of Irish studies. The project explores the spectrum in which genres convey and publicise traumatic experiences, from empowering survivors, to sometimes financially exploiting their tragic narratives. Culturally sensitive trauma-reading methodologies will be used to read texts from Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand. The process of restorative justice will also be analysed with regards to the decolonisation of Magdalene trauma studies, as Indigenous womens experiences will be examined with care, and not retraumatise nor recolonise their communities. Narratives testifying to systemic racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and homophobia will be excavated to question the treatment Magdalene women and their children endured in modern nations and in settler colonies. Ireland, Northern Ireland, Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa have set up Truth and Reconciliation Commissions covering the issue of Magdalenism in addition to wider institutional histories. Magdalene fiction and non-fiction contribute to restoring survivors credibility in patriarchal structures, by contesting official and hegemonic writings of history which erased or minimised them from national narratives. They are also valuable documents in the way they highlight how the Magdalenist heritage continues to fashion femininity, single motherhood, and female sexuality in the twenty-first century, as Magdalene cultural production resonates with contemporary public debates on womens rights, sexual education, abortion, Indigenous peoples civil rights, and the legal apparatus surrounding the protection of children.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF GALWAY
Net EU contribution
€ 268 568,64
Address
UNIVERSITY ROAD
H91 Galway
Ireland
Region
Ireland Northern and Western West
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data