Everyday narratives, personalized memories and the remaking of national boundaries

Abstract

In this article I explore some of the interrelations of individual reflexivity, personalized memory and national boundaries through an empirical and inductive analysis of the ways ordinary citizens remember their personal national past. I show how these personalized narratives stretch the conventional boundaries of nation and group. Of a sample of over 220 ordinary citizens in each part of Ireland, over half, and two-thirds in the still conflict-ridden region of Northern Ireland, narrated memories that could not be brought under conventional oppositional categories, and that produced in the respondents further reflection and rethinking. What is significant is how many of them did so. Since identities and traditions are said to be persistent and long-lasting in each part of Ireland, and in particular in Northern Ireland, the findings are unexpected. The article concludes that there is everyday potential for quite radical revision of conventional constructions of the nation.