Borderlands and Beyond: Place, Space and Process—Growing up in Northern Ireland

Abstract

This article explores the concept of borderlands in relation to sectarianism, polarisation, and the most recent political conflict in Northern Ireland (1968–1998). It describes the experiences of people living on borders, in margins, borderzones, intersections, no-go areas, interface and compression points, as well as the emptiness of no persons' land. Aside from a few clearly defined crossing points, border country is unspecified, reflecting its shiftiness, which can mirror psychotherapeutic work with its complex internal psychic states and defences. Using a vignette style of writing, my siblings and I offer collaborative family stories in order to share a sense of borderlands—an experience of being caught between the worlds. Although we are 20 years into the peace process, there may still be reverberations of the old cultural edict “whatever you say—say nothing.” However, people have begun to feel safe enough to speak openly about their experiences of the conflict. In any ongoing threatening hyper-vigilant situation, children and adults can and do unconsciously activate a dormant area of consciousness—a heightened intuitive faculty as a kind of survival tactic. I further suggest that my family also developed an increasingly alert collective intuitive organism—a shared reality, in order to stay safe as a group. I amplify these ideas with the help of theoretical reflection and clinical material. In conclusion, I cite from a new wave of local academics, philosophers, and poets who are revisioning their ideas about place, space, and process in a more consciously fluid way, as opposed to the unconscious or subconscious fluidity and shiftiness of the traditional borderlands.