Breaking Silences: Women, Citizenship and Theatre In Northern Ireland

This essay seeks to weave together an analysis of women’s citizenship and its dependency on certain silences, and the exploration of this tension in two recent productions by Belfast- based Kabosh Theatre Company. Kabosh, and company Artistic Director Paula McFetridge, stage work that examines the realities of the region in the post-conflict era. In constructing the theoretical frame for the analysis, the concept of “silence” and “silencing” draws from Kristie Dotson (2015), and from work on violence such as Gayatri Spivak’s concept of “epistemic violence” and a wide range of sources on the performance of violence in theatre. Chantal Mouffe’s concept of agonistic democracy shapes the discussion of the Northern Irish state, and Wendy Brown and Joane Butler are the key scholars for the consideration of citizenship and nation.