Partitions and Borders

‘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.

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).