Afterlives of the Troubles: Life Stories, Culture and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781526146496)

Focusing on experiential life stories across a range of forms and practices, this book investigates subjectivity, culture and the cultural politics of representation as a neglected dimension of conflict transformation in the Northern Irish peace process. Interdisciplinary critical perspectives from historical cultural studies, oral history and popular-memory theory inform close interpretive engagement with life stories in their cultural, historical and geographical contexts. This enables exploration of the complex temporal dynamics of 'post-conflict' subjectivities in the lengthening 'afterlife' of the Troubles, where feelings attached to conflict experiences are not 'past' but haunt the present, and memory-work carries future-oriented desires for truth, justice and reconciliation. Through case studies responding to the evolving peace process through this prism of life-storytelling, Afterlives maps a contested history of legacy policy-making and approaches to 'dealing with the past', from devolution in 2005-7 through to the Legacy and Reconciliation Act of 2023.

Author: Graham Dawson
ISBN-10: 1526146495
ISBN-13: 9781526146496
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Language: English
Published: 02/10/2026
Pages: 344
Format: Hardcover