Theoretical considerations

The UCD-based participants in this project represent branches of disciplines which have strong vocational characteristics but are buttressed by explicit theoretical positions. Common to all three disciplines, and informing this application, is the proposition that society is spatially- and materially-constructed. This idea has its fullest articulation in the work of Henri Lefebvre, and has formed the basis of projects comparable with our own, such as Edward Soja’s Thirdspace project in Los Angeles, and University College London’s Strangely Familiar: Narratives of Architecture and the City project. Yet neither the Thirdspace nor The Unknown City projects prioritised the time-depth of the urban environment, in large part because neither project was really about urban communities but was concerned instead with spatiality in and of itself. We contend that time-depth, which is an archaeological concept, is critical to a sophisticated, nuanced, readings of urban communities. Our ‘Lefebvrian approach’ involves us moving away from normative, functional, understandings of material culture towards an understanding of it as a powerful, often subconscious, signifier of identity. It also involves us moving away from Cartesian mappings of spatial culture towards cognitive mapping of places and of patterns of movement and use.

In similar fashion, we conceptualise the arts element of the project as a vehicle for mobilising heritage as a catalyst for arts practice. In so doing the project will, in collaboration and consultation with local communities, provide for a reading of heritage as cultural memory. The role of the arts/artist led collaboration within the wider framework of the project will  enable a significant creative reinterpretation and reinscription of site as a repository of lived memory, and future signification. In conceiving of an ‘exhibition’, which may be perfomance based and/ or installation and encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration across art form practices, the project will look to enliven critical approaches to the marketing and management of heritage, and the role heritage plays within the discursive considerations of urban regeneration and reconstruction.

Methodology

The proposed project seeks to generate an artistic representation of archaeological data that have been generated largely through social science methods in a way that provides a new role for the discipline of archaeology in civic, policy and scholarly debates about cultural diversity in the new global Ireland.

The methodology underpinning it is based on the enhancement of archaeological methods through their triangulation with those of the social sciences (in particular participatory action research that incorporates community development principles; interculturalist practices; ethnography) and arts practice (eg., multi-media, archival, visual and performative representation), as outlined below.

Analysis of scholarship and ‘grey’ literature relevant to each of the disciplines and sectors represented on the project. Archaeological, historical and social mapping, recording and analysis of the physical landscape and material culture of the two sites. Qualitative and participatory research methods employed to collect ‘ethnographic’ data generated by the everyday life contexts of community and locale in collaboration with community members. The fieldwork will be further enhanced through the artist-in-residence to explore alternative forms of representation of history and heritage, of community and identity; generating archaeological art (plans and stratigraphy drawings, which are fundamentally objets d’art) and narratives of local history that can be recycled through the communities themselves in a way that can be comprehended by local communities as types of performance and can therefore be participated in.

Ambitions

This project draws on and will contribute to scholarly contributions in three central areas. First, as reflected in the previous sections, the nature of this project is unique within an Irish context. The integration of Archaeology, Sociology and Arts Practice, and the desire to include local communities as participants rather than merely observers, marks an important new departure for Irish Archaeology and its role in the knowledge society. The participation of the international advisory group members will extend the reach of this project into work and networks at international level that are leading such innovations.

Second, it complements current innovations underway in UCD in the areas of migration, interculturalism and integration. Its interdisciplinary and cross-sector nature will advance the development of a new paradigm in migration studies founded upon a synthesis of policy-oriented work with Humanities scholarship on race/ethnicity, identity and culture and Irish studies and strengthen the conceptual and practical links between everyday life and national development. Innovations in both of these areas, in turn, contribute to the Irish and UCD participation in the advancement of the EU’s new framework programme on developing links between the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Finally, the proposed project, in both process and output, will make significant contributions to public knowledge and the capacity of all ‘stakeholders’ to engage in dialogue with respect to the issues and dilemmas surrounding current transformations of culture, place and identity in Ireland.