Munro Lecture - Dr Laura McAtackney

This paper will argue that while the sub-discipline of Contemporary Archaeology is not widely used, taught or understood on the island of Ireland, it has great potential as a means of accessing difficult and contested recent pasts. It has the capacity to bring together texts, material culture, structures, landscapes and memory critically assess not only what happened in the past but how it may continue to shape the present. This paper will use examples from (post)-conflict Northern Ireland and an island still grappling with institutional abuse, to show that contemporary archaeological approaches are important due to their ability to centre lived experience and emphasize bottom-up epistemologies that also underline social justice imperatives.

The talk will be followed by a drinks reception.

Laura McAtackney is Professor in Archaeology and Deputy Director of the Radical Humanities Laboratory, University College Cork, Ireland. She is also Docent in Contemporary Historical Archaeology at the University of Oulu, Finland. Her research focuses on material-based approaches to understanding institutions, post-conflict and post-colonial societies, and the politics of how they are remembered.