‘Partitions and borders: a comparative and interdisciplinary conference‘ took place in UCD School of History in May 2018. Jointly organised by University College Dublin and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, this two-day international conference brought together scholars working on aspects of partition and border studies from multiple disciplines.
The conference, which was funded by the UCD Research Seed Funding Programme: Decade of Centenaries Internal Award Scheme 2016-18, considered multiple geographical regions and time periods and assessed a formative phenomenon in history and international relations at a time when borders, partition, and migration are increasingly visible.
2020 marks the centenary of the 1920 Government of Ireland Act which legislated for a two-state solution to the Irish question. Nationally, the conference prefaced this event by considering the wider history and contexts of partition. Internationally, the conference provided a forum in which scholars came together in a focussed manner to explore the interoperability of their differing approaches to this pivotal issue in the history of the modern world.
- Partitions and Borders attendees pictured at UCD School of History (Photo: Real Smart Media).
The keynote speakers at the conference (Peter Leary, Sucheta Mahajan, John Coakley, and Debali Mookerjea-Leonard) were recorded and are now available to podcast.
Sucheta Mahajan (JNU, New Delhi), ‘Bearing Witness’ to ‘Silence as Sanctuary’: Remembering and Forgetting in Oral Histories of Conflict in India and Ireland
John Coakley (UCD), The Irish border: the first hundred years
Peter Leary (University College London), Mind your p’s and queues: the past and the Irish border
Debali Mookerjea-Leonard (James Madison University), Literature, Women, and the Partition of India: Borders, Bodies, Livelihoods.
Conference organising committee
Dr Conor Mulvagh, UCD
Dr Kieran Rankin, TCD
Professor Sucheta Mahajan, JNU
Photo: Partition and Borders attendees pictured at UCD School of History (Photo: Real Smart Media).