Pauline Hadaway

Working title of PhD: Cultural policy and political intervention in post conflict Northern Ireland

Supervisors

Abigail Gilmore
Helen Rees Leahy
Simon Parry

Overview of PhD

My research investigates some of the ways arts, heritage and culture have been employed in the project of social and economic reconstruction associated with building the peace in Northern Ireland, following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Its aim is to examine historical shifts in the nature and degree of political interventions in the arts and cultural sphere in Northern Ireland, with particular reference to projects, which employ arts, heritage and culture in the construction of memory, history and identity as a means of addressing the legacy of conflict, rebuilding social cohesion and political stability. The broad intention of this research is to contribute to a more theoretically developed understanding of relationships between the arts, the state and civil society.

Objectives

Mapping historical patterns of co-operation, consent, resistance and coercion, using key arts and cultural projects in Northern Ireland as examples
Examining some of the consequences of political intervention for arts and cultural life in Northern Ireland, specifically in relation to issues of institutional autonomy, voluntarism and independent civic space
Exploring changes to conceptions of the ‘community’, the ‘audience’ and the ‘public’
Investigating the significance of these regional interventions in the context of broader UK policy.

Methodologies

Establish a historical baseline through literature review, which maps the formation, interpretation and implementation of cultural policy in Northern Ireland and the development of a regional policy discourse.
Closely examine and compare the nature and degree of political intervention as applied to a selection of key arts and cultural projects, for example the development of Titanic Belfast, Ulster Museum’s Art of the Troubles, Belfast Exposed’s Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography, etc.
Examine range of documentary evidence (policy documents, reviews, audience responses etc)
Interviews and critical conversations with policy makers, arts managers and practitioners

Biography

Pauline Hadaway has worked in arts and education since 1990 and as director of Belfast Exposed Photography between 2000 and 2013, overseeing its transformation from a small scale, though politically significant, city based project into an internationally renowned gallery of contemporary photography.  Since September 2012, Pauline has been undertaking doctoral research at the University of Manchester, while working in a freelance capacity as a researcher and arts development consultant. Pauline’s research, writing and consultancy interests have emerged through many years practical experience as a senior arts manager, negotiating cultural policy within a complex political environment, where definitions of ‘community’, ‘public interest’ and the nature of ‘civil society’ are highly contested.  

Publications include

“Long Shadows” (co-author with Tom Hadaway), The Prison Plays, Sunderland University Press (2005)
“A Cautionary Tale”, Printed Project, 2008;
“Policing the Public Gaze”, Manifesto Club, 2009;
“Us and Them: The making and dissemination of the photography of protest: roundtable discussion”, Photoworks, May 2011;
"Escaping the Panopticon", Either...And, Ph Research group, October 2012

Pauline is also a co-founder and convenor for the Liverpool Salon a forum for public debate on Merseyside launched in May 2014.

PhD-related Publications, Presentations and other outputs (from September 2012)

“Re-imagining Titanic, re-imaging Belfast” in Relaunching Titanic: Memory and Marketing in the 'Post Conflict' City, William J. V. Neill (ed.), Routledge 2013.
“Where Once we Built Ships” Titanic Belfast and the Politics of Peace Building, presentation to PhD Series, SALC Graduate School, 28 March 2014
“Building the Future from the Past”, presentation to Researching Cultural Practice conference, Professional Doctorate Residential, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, 25 April 2014
‘Re-imaging Belfast through the myth of the Titanic”, presentation to Conflict Research Society: Good Relations Symposium, Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool, 17 May 2014