Outlines of Ulster. The spatial politics of contemporary Northern Irish fiction and film

Abstract

This study investigates the ways in which contemporary Northern Irish fiction and film have responded to the socio-spatial challenges of conflict and peace. It focusses on the representations of spatial change in the context of thirty years of conflict, the recent redistribution of political power and the ongoing negotiation of what peace might look like in social and political terms. I contend that the interpretations of space and place put forward in fiction and film on Northern Ireland are extremely effective incursions into what human geographers call the 'geographical imagination' as the concept that determines “how the place should be thought of, how it should be represented” (Jess and Massey, 1995). Participating in the negotiation of shared spaces, peaceful spatial practices and of truth and reconciliation, they challenge the outlines of what A.T.Q. Stewart (1977) has called “the narrow ground of Ulster” and enrich the political discourse by imagining alternative socio-spatial narratives for the North. In my analyses, I demonstrate this capacity by reading the primary texts against the texts of political agreements, acts of law, journalist commentary and historical observation.