Abstract
Frameworks of understanding are critical sites of power (Butler, 2002; Morrison, 1992). The reflections in this essay are about finding ways of enabling the disclosure of what these frameworks admit and contain and what they deny and exclude. In the opening reflection this key insight of critical race theory is used to deconstruct and question how a moment of revelation (about race) may simultaneously be a moment of concealment. This insight is then applied to examining personal narratives as an approach that centres on ‘documenting, recording and transmitting’ marginalised women’s lives. Whilst this feminist methodology focuses on otherwise excluded lives, and is important for understanding how gender regimes work, it may neither involve integrating the concept of gender into analysis nor illuminate intersectional inequalities of social class and race. These insights are applied to reflections on the overwhelming appeal of personal accounts of the Northern Ireland/Irish conflict. The power of this appeal is rarely critiqued for its assumptions and silences to do with gender, sect and class. Intersectional analysis is recommended as a corrective to these omissions. Learning to listen for silences is similar to the critical work of deconstructing frameworks of understanding.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 457-463 |
| Journal | Women's Studies International Forum |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 1 Dec 2008 |
Bibliographical note
Reference text: Aretxaga, Begoña. (1997). Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism, and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Bottomley, Anne. (2004). Shock to Thought: An Encounter (of a Third Kind) with Legal Feminism. Feminist Legal Studies, 12, 29–65.
Butler, Judith. (2002). Explanation and Exoneration, or What We Can Hear. Social Text. 3, 177–88.
Byrne, Anne, and Leonard, Madeleine (Eds.). (1997). Women and Irish Society: A Sociological Reader. Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications.
Cockburn, Cynthia. (1998). The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict. London and New York: Zed Books.
Committee on the Administration Justice. (2006). Equality in Northern Ireland: the rhetoric and the reality. Belfast: Shanways.
Committee on the Administration Justice. (2008). War on Terror: Lessons from Northern Ireland. Belfast: CAJ. Executive Summary available online at:
http://www.caj.org.uk/Front%20page%20pdfs/Terror%20summary_12pp%20pages.pdf (accessed 14 March 2008).
Crenshaw, Kimberle. (2004). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. In Laurel Richardson, Verta Taylor and Nancy Whittier (Eds.), Feminist Frontiers (pp. 405-414). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Crilly, Ann, Gordon, Hazel and Rooney, Eilish. (2002). Women in the North of Ireland: 1969–2000. In Angela Bourke, et al (Eds.), The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Volume V: Irish Women’s Writing and Traditions (pp. 1476-545). Cork: Cork University Press in association with Field Day.
Fearon, Kate and McWilliams, Monica. (2000). Swimming against the mainstream: The Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition. In Carmel Roulston and Celia Davies (Eds.), Gender, Democracy and Inclusion in Northern Ireland (pp. 117-137). Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Fraser, Nancy. (1995). From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a “Post-Socialist” Age. New Left Review, 212, 68-93.
Gillborn, David. (2000). Education and Institutional Racism. London: University of London. Available online at: http://www.ruc.dk/paes/forskerskolen/program/info/summer_school/2004/lectures/David_Gilborn/ (accessed 4 March 2008).
Gillborn, David and Mirza, Heidi Safia. (2000). Educational Inequality: Mapping Race, Class and Gender: A Synthesis of Research Evidence. London: Office for Standards in Education. Available online at:
http://www.ruc.dk/paes/forskerskolen/program/info/summer_school/2004/lectures/David_Gilborn/Educational_Inequality/ (accessed 4 March 2008).
Hill, Myrtle. (2003). Women in Ireland: A Century of Change. Belfast: The Blackstaff Press.
Hill-Collins, Patricia. (2004). Some Group Matters: Intersectionality, Situated Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought. In Laurel Richardson, Verta Taylor and Nancy Whittier (Eds.), Feminist Frontiers (pp. 66-84). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Hillyard, Paddy, Rolston, Bill, and Tomlinson, Mike. (2005). Poverty and Conflict in Ireland: An International Perspective. Dublin: Combat Poverty Agency.
Knapp, Alexi. (2003). Race, Class, Gender: Reclaiming Baggage in Fast Traveling Theories…. Key-note presentation. at European Intertexts Conference, She’s Leaving Home, Hungary (on file with author).
Limerick University Conference Call. (2005). Women on Ireland Research Network and the Women’s Studies Programme Conference: Documenting, Recording, Transmitting: Gender and Memory.
Macpherson, Sir William. (1999). The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. London: The Stationary Office. Available online at:
http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/4262.htm (accessed 4 March 2008).
McKay, Ann. (1994). Report of a talk given by Ruth Moore. Women’s News, 69.
McKitterick, David, et al (Eds.). Lost Lives. Edinburgh: Mainstream
Publishing.
Mirza, Heidi Safia (Ed.). (1997). Black British Feminism: A Reader. London and New York: Routledge.
Moore, Ruth. (1993). Proper Wives, Orange Maidens or Disloyal Subjects: Situating the Equality Concerns of Protestant Women in Northern Ireland. University College Dublin Masters’ dissertation (lodged in the Linenhall Library, Belfast).
Morrison, Toni. (1992). Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. London: Picador.
Morrison, Toni. (1997). Paradise. London: Random House.
National Statistics Online. (2008). Northern Ireland Labour Market, Available online at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=965&Pos=6&ColRank=1&Rank=224 (accessed 10 March 2008).
Newman, Louise Michele. (1999). White Women’s Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Noble, M., et al. (2005). Measures of Deprivation in Northern Ireland, Belfast: Northern Ireland Statistical Research Agency.
O’Brien, Martin. (2005). Progress and Setbacks in Civil Liberties – How Far have We Come since the Signing of the Agreement? Annual P.J. McGrory Lecture, Féile an Phobail. Available online at:
http://atlanticphilanthropies.org/news/news/martin_o_brien_on_civil_liberties_in_northern_ireland (accessed 14 March 2008).
Office of the First Minister/Deputy First Minister. (2004). Indicators of Social Need for Northern Ireland. Belfast: Northern Ireland Office. Available online at: http://www.ofmdfmni.gov.uk/hbai.pdf (accessed 27 November 2006).
Queen’s University Belfast. (2006). Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics. Available online at: http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/ (accessed 17 April 2007).
Research Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality. (2007). Response to the Discrimination Law Review’s Consultation Paper: A Frame for Fairness: Proposals for a Single Equality Bill for Great Britain. Available online at: http://www.kent.ac.uk/clgs/consultation_responses.html (accessed 16 March 2008).
Rooney, Eilish. (1988). Women Working for Women. Women's Studies International Forum: Special Issue: Feminism in Ireland, 11, 32-45.
Rooney, Eilish. (2000). Women in Northern Irish Politics: Difference Matters. In Carmel Roulston and Celia Davies (Eds.), Gender, Democracy and Inclusion in Northern Ireland (pp. 164-86). Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Rooney, Eilish. (2002a). Women in Politics: A Northern Angle. In Angela Bourke, et al (Eds.), The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Volume V: Irish Women’s Writing and Traditions (pp. 448-449). Cork: Cork University Press in association with Field Day.
Rooney, Eilish. (2002b). Community Development in Times of Trouble: Reflections on the Community Women’s Sector in the North of Ireland. Community Development Journal 37, 33–46.
Rooney, Eilish. (2003). Beyond Sex & Gender? A Belfast Response to Wendy Brown. Feminist Theory, 4, 371–75.
Rooney, Eilish. (2006). Women’s Equality in Northern Ireland’s Transition: Intersectionality in Theory and Place. Feminist Legal Studies, 14, 353-375.
Rooney, Eilish. (2007). Intersectionality in Transition: Lessons from Northern Ireland. Web Journal of Current Legal Issues, 5, 1-20. Available online at: http://webjcli.ncl.ac.uk/2007/issue5/rooney5.html (accessed 8 March 2008).
Rooney, Eilish, and Woods, Margaret. (1995). Women, Community & Politics in Northern Ireland: A Belfast Study. Northern Ireland: University of Ulster.
Roulston, Carmel, and Davies, Celia (Eds.). (2000). Gender, Democracy and Inclusion in Northern Ireland. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Scott, Joan. (2001). Fantasy Echo: History and the Construction of Identity. Critical Inquiry, 127/2. Available online at:
http://www.uchicago.edu/research/jnl-crit-inq/issues/v27/v27n2.scott.html (accessed 10 March 2008).
Storr, Merl. (1999). Reviews: Black British Feminism: A Reader, ed., Heidi S. Mirza, Routledge: London and New York, 1997. Feminist Review, 61, 151-167.
Ware, Vron. (2000). References. Feminist Review, 66, 157–60.