We are delighted to confirm that postgraduate researcher Elsie Unsworth will be speaking about her research at the International Postgraduate Conference on Irish Studies in Prague this September. The theme of the conference will be ‘Voices from the Margins: Ireland Seen and Unseen’.
Elsie is undertaking research on contemporary Irish folklore and the ways that folkloric storytelling speaks to community and identity, including recent literary approaches to folklore that reflect subaltern and marginalised experiences. Elsie’s paper is entitled ‘“Crowning Glory”: embodiment, intersectionality and tradition in Rosaleen McDonagh’s Unsettled (Skein Press, 2021)’ and the abstract is as follows:
The Mincéirí/Irish Traveller community maintains several traditional practices relating to hair care and styling that are distinctive, highly valued and often subject to racist scrutiny and discrimination. This paper examines the second essay in McDonagh’s Unsettled – “Crowning Glory” – in which the author explores how her practice of this tradition has embedded itself into her identity. McDonagh’s essay details how she learned traditional practices from her mother and grandmother as a child, and this became important for her sense of self later in life, as an Irish Traveller woman with a disability. This tradition is shown to be shaped by personal experience; shaped by the author’s experiences in schools and hospitals, by racism and popular trends, by family, by institutional discrimination and trauma. Because of this, “Crowning Glory” outlines the ways that traditional practices are embodied, based in bodily knowledge and shaped by bodily experience. This embodied tradition is inherently intersectional, closely tied to personal experience, and thus exemplifying intersectional models of identity, community and marginalisation. Therefore, this text has interesting implications for the relationship between intangible heritage and identity. This paper examines hair traditions in “Crowning Glory”, and McDonagh’s interest in bodily knowledge and experience. It considers the ways that traditional practice is distinctly embodied, and the intersectionalities of tradition that are highlighted by this embodied perspective. Furthermore, it examines the ways that McDonagh’s memoir and embodied style of writing in Unsettled is useful for understanding these aspects of intangible heritage.
Find out more about the conference here.