October 1 2019 

Ulster University, Northern Ireland

Deadline: July 22, 2019

Organiser: Cira Palli-Aspero Contact details memoryresistance@gmail.com Register via email

Keynote Speaker: Professor Graham Dawson, Professor in Historical Cultural Studies, University of Brighton

We invite submissions to our one-day, postgraduate interdisciplinary workshop supported by TJI and INCORE, at the Ulster University on 1st October 2019 9.30 am – 5.30 pm at Ulster University, Belfast.

This workshop explores the role of memory as a form of resistance in conflicts. It aims to widen the conversation about how individuals, groups, communities, civil or state organisations, and societies understand and actively engage with resistance through remembering and/or forgetting. In societies embedded in conflict, the accounts represented, reconstructed, and narrated through the recollection of memory, may become a form of resistance. These initiatives might be promoted by individuals or groups; from spontaneous stimuli to a well-developed strategy aiming to portray this element of resistance.

In these lines, memory can be found in museums, memorials, rituals, physical sites, or archives, but it can also involve many other fields and disciplines that engage in remembrance. Thus, it can be found in historical narratives, political discourse, urban planning, music, painting, literature, or films, among many others.

Within the scope of the workshop theme: “Remembering during conflict: memory as a form of resistance”, important questions and areas of exploration may involve, among others:

• How does memory operate as a form of resistance?
• What processes does memory (as a form of resistance) entail, foster and encourage?
• What are the real or perceived outcomes of using memory as a form of resistance?
• Who uses memory (as a form of resistance) and for what purposes?
• Does the time matter? Is there a right time for memory to be used? How does the use of memory vary in different stages of the conflict?

Abstract Submission

In this workshop, we are inviting all range of creative inputs, from academic papers, and poster presentations to photo exhibitions, videos, documentaries and/or other forms of arts. For all different types of input, we welcome abstracts of no more than 300 words. Abstract should address the following:

Brief outline of the work in progress

How does your work fit in the theme of the workshop?

A short bio and contact details

Abstracts (300 words) should be submitted by email to memoryresistance@gmail.com by July 22, 2019.

Application is open to PhD researchers and Early Career Researchers from all disciplines. We particularly encourage interdisciplinary, creative, international and intersectional research.

We wish to provide a supportive and inclusive space for fruitful debates and exchanges with the contributions of academics and practitioners from Northern Ireland. In the workshop, we will have leading academics to chair the panels; and members of the community sector to contribute to discussions from the WAVE Trauma Centre, Healing Through Remembering, and the Ulster Museum. All participants in this workshop will have the chance to test out ideas in a safe and friendly environment. They will also be networking with their peers in the field. We consider this workshop as an opportunity to establish active working groups to keep developing new ideas around the themes of this workshop.

The participants will have the opportunity to communicate their research not only in the framework of the workshop but also to a non-academic audience through videos. As part of an initiative to engage non-academic audience with academic research we are planning to present the results of the workshop in a video format at the ESRC Festival of Social Science that will take place in Northern Ireland in November 2019. To do so, we will record the participants who are willing to help us on this project, on a one-minute Q&A. All the answers will be compiled in a short video that will be screened in the ESRC festival of Social Sciences.

In order to encourage participants with limited resources, a small number of travel bursaries are available. More details on this coming soon.

Please do get in touch ( memoryresistance@gmail.com) if you have any ideas or questions you would like to discuss.

Organizing Committee

• Cira Palli-Aspero (Transitional Justice Institute & Law School, Ulster University)
• Eilish Boschert (School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences, Ulster University)
• Laney Lenox (School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences, Ulster University)
• Nisan Alici (Transitional Justice Institute & Law School, Ulster University)