Concentration: Modern Ireland | Peace and Conflict Studies | Modern Europe
Email: ammorin@buffalo.edu
My dissertation, “Defying Division: Cross-Community Cooperation during the Troubles,” considers the ongoing efforts of peace workers who attempted to bridge societal divisions during the conflict in Northern Ireland. This research prioritizes grassroots organizations and movements, as I am interested in moving beyond traditional areas of academic inquiry such as paramilitaries, politicians, and security forces. In doing so, my research pushes against the predominant narrative within literature on the conflict that Northern Ireland was a monolith of violence. In order to achieve this, I consider factors such as gender, religion, class, age, and location.
In conjunction with my dissertation research, I am broadly interested in the digital humanities. For “Defying Division,” I employ Graphic Information Systems (GIS) to spatially consider the relationship between peace and violence during the Troubles. The spatial component to the conflict attention has been awarded significant attention, but little has been done in terms of peace work and space. This provides a necessary bookend to the significant amount of work done on violence, sectarianism, and segregation.