Aretxaga - What The Border Hides

Berghahn Books
WHAT THE BORDER HIDES: Partition and the Gender Politics of Irish Nationalism Author(s): Begoa Aretxaga Source: Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, Vol. 42, No. 1, PARTITION, UNIFICATION, NATION: Imagined Moral Communities in Modernity. (March 1998), pp. 16-32 Published by: Berghahn Books Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23171741 . Accessed: 22/10/2013 14:19
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Berghahn Books is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 108.18.171.102 on Tue, 22 Oct 2013 14:19:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
SOCIAL ISSUE WHAT
ANALYSIS 42(1), March 1998
HIDES: THE BORDER Partition and the Gender Politics of Irish Nationalism
Begoa
Aretxaga to Dublin the border me were well the
On 23 September that four known border separates women from
1989 Northern the
I drove Ireland Belfast
my old from working we held
car from Belfast the Irish class Republic. Catholic Army and
crossing with of Falls
Travelling district As into we
Road,
as a stronghold at the town
of the Irish
Republican our post,
(IRA). rode
approached
of Newry
breath
its military
fortress
with the barbed soldiers
wire,
the observation army dressed
the grey
corrugated fatigues,
iron, the fully armed and the no-less-armed
of the British
in their combat
Royal Ulster Constabulary, (RUC)

black uniforms and bullet proof wall vests. Now the most of some paramilitary lican. ence have that the Berlin militarized of the and has
the Northern Ireland police, imposing in their

the Irish border has possibly been forces, is strongly continuing The become the scene loyalist repub viol locals of the forests of the and
disappeared, frontier violence The
surveyed political the IRA.
in Western deployed
Europe. by the
It has security
worst and
groups earned
countryside a difficult the name
around
Newry and
Tightly half Irish
knit rural the area
communities, around Newry
topography, of "bandit which echoes
country". of bogs of the
chuckle heroic
ironically, bandit.
half
proudly, beyond
at the name the pale into
the folklore and
Pushed
into the arid terrain of British the colonization, figure
of the north-west dispossessed Irish
of the island was
by the forces
the image
reconfigured
dangerous
kern
highway robber, an incarnation of the wild Irish for colonial authorities and of heroic resistance in the imagination of Irish folklore (O'Hogain 1985). The image of the
heroic wild Irish woods, bandit where recreated the native as a stage upon and through Irish ballads had been and stories redefined by the the remote forces and of confined Much IRA 'civilising' folklore the same
British bandit culture Ireland, contested and the
colonization, is bestowed of songs
of rebellion.
of the heroic through the
of the Irish expressive of Northern the
the contemporary (McCann attacks those
guerrilla For and
storytelling
1985).
authorities
the spectre boundary Republic, The a lack order
of surprise between of
by the IRA
the obsession communities" and
to maintain
variously and
"imagined of
of the North has
Protestant
Catholic,
colonial
postcolonial,
subjected the area around the Irish border to heavy militarization and intense
surveillance. towers, profound everyday is border of itself, state with control, Indeed, its paraphernalia a ritualization the into border is the of barbed of authority site where a state wire and watch a the spectacle that betrays
of legitimacy. of things,
normality,
is arrested
a state
of subjection,
of emergency
16
that reveals border,
the national argue feel to be
order
as one article,
of "terror is the site
as usual"
(Taussig and
1992). troubling
The
Irish
I will
in this
of troubled
national
imaginings.
Nationalists they expect utterly subjected or even are the ones which vulnerable to killed. who they when they are stopped and 'incidents' the border scrutiny, are at the border.1 at part threat For worst they At best can life rarely be for go as questioning Border cross consider United
harassed, nationalists
arrested who
of everyday Unionists
regularly.
into the Irish Protestants functions Republic. nation and as
Republic as a reminder
a permanent Kingdom. posed
to their existence unionists, the
and
members
of the
border
of a permanent the border business of
danger
by the existence Because because the
of the Irish of the Irish border is an of
For nationalists the unfinished
is a reminder
of the incompleteness and of the actual filled
colonization.
unrecognized crossing excitement back and
national
boundary the border
for nationalists, becomes the border an
danger
it, crossing and dread.
act
of defiance,
at once because
with in its
Crossing
is an act of transgression of the national forth movement and lays come sites
forth movement And also and
it shows
the porosity and
frontier,
its inherent across the
instability. Irish border island, maps north and
in so doing, questions south. borders No
the back
of nationalists claim over
its very existence For if nation-states then it is at those wonder then
a national
the whole like
to be formed that nations the border forces about We
through
artifices
national challenged. kinds
are not only triggers that guard were day, it.
imagined of
but also different My purpose however, night. as we
that crossing
anxieties
for nationalists and I were
and the unionist After
security the
friends of our when It was
lucky. were
a few questions into Republic. later drive
our identities not so
and
the
trip, we we return p.m.
allowed
lucky, into the were
to Northern and it had been
Ireland, a nasty
that same through
already
11:00
a rainstorm.
We
tired from a long were poorly
day
of political whether
discussions. to stop officers what soldiers circling
Immediately of coffee, street
after crossing I brushed We our One
the border, against a car Out of
deciding male
for a cup materialized we were
parked nowhere
in front of a pub police British while to know
on a narrow
of Newry. beside there.
stopped. They their of them
several
car.
started for faces
questioning my driver's
us, wanting licence.
doing too,
asked
came
suspiciously guns
poking
through The
the car windows officer who of my asking asked
the car with machine wrote were now and down
in their hands. data, RUC then officers said asked and
for my licence We questions station
my personal by
for the names British would well. soldiers have Maura,
passengers. the same
surrounded over.
over
A policeman the car had "You was
that we as
to go to the police the oldest drugs", have been as friends woman the police associated "ordinary some
for a body
search;
to be searched suspicion
in our group, officer with responded. drugs. with as
asked
why? There
are under
of carrying that could betray working charge my
little in our appearance and in body management to talk the about drug Ireland
Clothes, people
speech say children.
women",
class appeared
women,
of them
grown traveling
Furthermore there
as a pretext
to the women
with me since
is very little
17
consumption cigarettes play Few body a long and
of drugs
in Northern
Ireland
with the exception justify of Northern women deeply as a Ireland.
of course such alarm.
of alcohol, Drugs Ireland and do
prescribed are more
tranquilisers
that could
little part indeed things searches history of in police of
in the public stations. body in refused brought police to go
discourse
threatening and
to Catholic
in Northern humiliating, form My of
than is
Women strip stations
find them searches and
there
using
intimidation all
and
punishment community female body search.
women
prison. or move
friends,
seasoned An RUC a
activists, was
to the station and
from
the car.
officer
to the scene
she repeated
that they had here
to conduct
If we did not collaborate arrest us. they would 4 have the choice, we can search Policewoman: You you station". Una: Mary: "Is this a joke? and waited Policewoman: body Maura "We search". "You mean we have at all!" for it! This is sheer You to be searched It s late and we have against kids to go to .
or at the police
"Listen,
we brushed
a car and
did the right thing, you I'm but now
pulled
up the car to do a
until it is investigated. can investigate
That is what
should being
be doing". required
that too,
(angrily): night,
in the middle
of the street, at
for no reason "There "We
Una
(angrily)
is no reason
harassment". take the car to
Policewoman:
are not into harassment.
get out or we'll "I don't want then.
the police There was a moment said Roisin, said Una said
station". of tense who, Maura silence me, inside had the car. to go to the police "Let's side. get done "This is
station", with this ridiculous"! We
like
remained the door
silent of the
until
here",
opening
passenger's each
as we got out of the car. of the deserted It was freezing. woman street, in a single While went seams, several our line sleeves line, of us, waiting and She Her I realized not police looked hands that, British soldiers
stood
in the middle searched.
her turn to be men into searched our
my car, the RUC clothes, one our bodies searched looking has
through folded legs,
of bodies. jackets.
handbags, friends
pockets, by one, with before
and
then rubbed like my
front, back, I too was
hair, and palms. to collaborate, enacting This kind
me,
refusing
opening of
my jacket resistance David parody search while
or legs,
a poker
face
into the distance, 1993:122).
that kind of resistance,
that is a parody (n.d.)
of conformity stages
(Butler
Lloyd
noted,
subjection authority my eyes we had met
as the condition as arbitrary Una's. ritual We
of subjecthood, performance. been friends As
the the
of compliance of my body now,
underwriting was finishing,
had
for a
but this was of the armed words were
the first time forces.
experienced
together released
the overpowering me Una gave me
performance a hug. was No
When no words and
the policewoman seemed we were necessary. freed earlier
spoken,
Nothing
incriminating to a
found
in the car or on our bodies humored, silence. chatty mood
an hour
after our detention, changed
but the good restrained,
that prevailed
in the car had
angry
18
National imagination, that, What outline borders happens, of
borders as are
might the
be
historical (1983) where when
products has national
of a particular suggested, imaginings do to not are
kind
of territorial because unstable. with when become the an of
Benedict also for
Anderson space nation?
but precisely rendered
example, forces
national What
borders happens what
correspond identity might discourse border
the
imagined
national The
unimagined then a space nation; existing this kind
border
a redefinition a space that
of the nation?
of instability, presence
signifying cannot be it by virtue
is lost, or left out of the imagined within the of the border of excess, In of of
a haunting nation-state
contained
but questions and forced is denied
unimagined of what excess
of its presence. A national becomes then a space by violence in the discourse and in the hyper-visibility of violence mirrors the iconized violence became
the repository Ireland, (Northern) ernalia that such state
or inarticulate itself
of the nation. hyper-vigilance paraph war civil
manifests Such Irish
violence. the
visibility border,
in the military of the the glaring borders effects. give
envelops
that
accompanied in the discourse inert, they
the birth of the Irish nation-state of official a ghostly lives of nationalism existence
and which
absence are not They rise to
after partition. capable
Once
in place concrete
have the
of producing by their
configure border affect
people as
circumscribed
contours
and
particular subjectivities and identities. Things happened to people not only in those
zones, people but so also too a consequence they affect borders the of borders. lives rise and If borders identities and have of the political if the power nations to they do
circumscribe.
In other
words,
give its of
to social
imaginaries
filled with dreads and desire. I want to insist on this because I think that it is the
affective Benedict leaves has focus underpinnings Anderson's unelaborated. directed has our of nationalism, notion notion the unconscious life you wish, that but felicitous Anderson's attention the of symbolic toward affective triggering order Lacan's "imagined communities" as an "imagined that presumes but
of the nation discursive
community" this are
production of nationalism power Such
of the nation,
obscured capable into called the
dynamics the of discourse. notion
inchoate, yet not to what
phantasmatic, articulated Lacan has
affective
of
nationalism belong
processes
the imaginary. notion
of the imaginary
is not disconnected by images
from the common
of imagination
in as much
as it is characterized
(rather than symbols or signifiers) and affects attached to those images. But, unlike imagination, which is placed largely in the arena of consciousness, the imaginary is
largely unconscious. implies processes and practices of nationalism its political articulate power. skillful use We could say that the notion of the nation By those as "imagined focusing processes, I think that to on community" conscious images a theory explore yet obliterates of imagining must the imaginary the nation, of nationalism. it leaves such behind
that phantasmatically go beyond We
complicate the discursive need
imaginings. how
production
of nationalism particular in order power power political to account stems
imaginaries. with Anderson of gender
to understand
imaginaries nationalism's
the symbolic has and
universe noted familial
of nationalism affective The
for its affective
that this
from
metaphors.
of metaphor
19
to
create
affective motivation
states
resides
in
the
labor
of
condensation
that
taps
into
unconscious 1986), often
to bring and
together love
different and
domains action,
of experience for example. and the affective of desire,
(Fernandez It is this that of it of
that of romantic mechanism
filial
political In other
unconscious
that permits discourse.
the forms
of identification words, The
projection power
accompany resides
nationalist
nationalism is absent gender
in its unconscious yet crucial
connection
to formations
in what
from its discourse and sexuality, identity the site and
to its formation. with
shifting and
constructions tortured
their entanglement constitutes central such
the tortuous dimension
process The Irish of
of national a dimension border feelings. The is
formation,
the absent
of Irish nation. in
nationalism,
that is, however, where
to the formation presences are
of the Irish crystalized
absent
structures
search
at the border with
was
a deeply areas
humiliating of Belfast.
experience The
for my friends, forces over of being was
a is
humiliation an everyday
loaded practice
a history
of repetition. Catholics who just
Harassment
by the security feeling Ireland searched, where and
in the
Catholic
powered and
experienced and
by working-class of these women of autonomy were
in Northern felt poked and
inscribed
at the border surveyed, and
in the bodies deprived
manipulated they live British were army.
like the streets
surveyed And just women imaginary own space have
controlled bodies
by the continuous appropriated Irish nation was deprived between by Maura in your own
occupation still under
of the police forces, control held British and
as their also
by the security of autonomy the body
these
nationalist
felt that the
in the political within its the alienated "that you in
of nationalists This was
hostage and
boundaries. of nation
association
of women
encapsulated rather
as we got into the car to leave, country!" with within Indeed This a long which the association history women inscription discourse in Irish have of
to be treated
like this .... vacuum,
is not made nationalist figured the discourse
a representational iconography, allegories discourse more Mani body of art, the
it resonates
and nation
literary
production 1997).
as
(Aretxaga in the body
moral
of the nation and
of women
is common nationalist
to nationalist
generally 1990, enacted
particularly 1989, 1993). is and
post-colonial For Maura of the nation, it isn't. was
(Mosse materializes
1985, of her as
Chatteijee
the momentary
dispossession
the dispossession
a nation
that the border
an entity that simultaneously The of similar during political Maura's the Irish feelings my car, level whole episode
at the border
for me a nasty But
experience
that reminded
me
forms
of intimidation years of Franco's there was
I had
experienced
at the hands beyond and
of the Spanish the echoes
police own in from Ireland,
the last
dictatorship. the rage,
of my contained
experience, voice; nation
impotence
humiliation history
feelings and
sedimented
through from
a collective
of exclusion
of exclusion outside in Newry gendered
the political For
structures Maura,
of Northern
unintelligible the search
of that history. materialized body. It marked
as for the other of nationhood of a difference that which
women
in
the exclusions the contours
at the very iconized being part
of the feeling,
in a border
that makes
the north the absence
of the Irish nation,
20
of the Irish border
nation
as
an "imagined Northern condition
community" Ireland the of possibility. site and material
is nevertheless negation The of the
excluded Irish
from nation, brings
it; a and to
which
makes its very
paradoxically relief narrative sexual
incident where
of the search the nationalist
the border
as the imaginary nation
place
master and
of the Irish difference.
is problematized
through
the operations
of gender
This Nation that is Not One

The search that identities particular be of searched, Catholic I have described speaks of of feelings. is not of the effect intimidation In Northern Catholic of the border and violence, unlike is, it in configuring as well as in in the south, The by of the in and the the the
Catholic producing one can
through or
practices harassed
structures
Ireland, (that rather differed State of state
for being of violence identity church. in
nationalist). is produced sides on on both
meaning discursive border. Republic political Protestant politics identity identity the overt
identity and histories of Catholic
pre-established, that have the Free
formations The are politics inscribed
and
later
within of the
the hegemonic Catholic
discourse In
nationalism
dominance
Northern
Ireland,
however,
politics of Catholic identity are inscribed within the political dominance of the
state that excluded of Catholic and identity north delineates of identity Irishness disavowal state the Catholics is also from power the difference of the border. forms Irish structures. between Such This the difference in the meaning and arises of ethnic ethnic
nationalism
or south two
difference
within
(Irishness), contours
different
of existence,
not from eclipsed the
being as a
but from what
is obliterated, of
in the common border
definition
of Irishness
on ether side split identity,
of the border. the product
In other words, simultaneous Irish
constituted and the
recognition For while national claiming between unfinished
of the could
violence
of partition of nationalism This
by the emergent denied process its
state. as a by an
Irish
only
function
by the recognition
of the border legitimacy nation was
frontier, sovereignty Irish
official over and
discourse
the whole Irish
of the island.
reinforced
the link
identity
nationalism the border
in as much constituted
as the Irish
project.
In so doing that space kernel
the difference
in the meaning
of Irish identity,North and South, as a residue of a proclaimed sameness of identity.

And yet, that residue, of recognized and disavowed difference opened by
the slippage in the meaning of nationalism north and south of the Irish border
became precisely the of identity, configuring it as permanently split and
uncertain. What eludes identityin the formationof Irishness is precisely that which
conforms it.2 at the border 'speaks' women of the aporetic in the north gender configuration and south. has of Irish identity, If the search
it speaks also of the problematization of gender identity,and of the different realities

that the border women, question or created will, theory for Irish Difference been the among vexing within if you difference and within identity, the question
of feminist
politics.
In Ireland,
of difference
21
gender
identity
has and
been
inextricably that
linked the
to the border both
and
the unresolved and hides.3 south
issues It was of the
of colonialism precisely border The
nationalism
border
manifests
the interrogation that had aim of the trip was activists this group
of this difference
in being day.
a woman
north and
led us to Dublin
that September between Belfast. been
a meeting and had
left-wing Disenchanted
feminists,
all working-class mainstream
community feminism, politics and
from Dublin of women the arena
with liberal an
trying
to articulate
"anti-imperialist" they for of
from within
of feminism.
In using
the term "anti-imperialist" in Ireland. the
linked patriarchal oppression in Ireland to the lingering effectsof British colonialism,

the neo-colonialism rights, ineludible policies), and and north from of multinational this perspective, enterprises had to tackle Any struggle business women's colonialism. The colonialist the meaning women among question and for a feminist axis project critical of colonialism in the Dublin was to say line (or meeting a thorny drawn an neo was for issue unfinished
the central
of the discussion (which had been and
consequences south and there was
of nationalism This tension
colonialism)
of the border. a clear
historically
feminists and
unstated was
between issue of and and to
northerners debate,
southerners.
At that meeting, present, invisible the traced there in issue an
the border materialized space nationalism
not just
it was of
embodied feelings that The
by the women that
by social between as was a
histories
structures southerners,
northerners testament
hung
meeting
room
inconmensurability. space. Northern Although critically Southern nationalism than a decade none the activists
aporetic defined
of Irish
at the center
of that
themselves party IRA had began
as
republicans Sinn Fein, a united overtly
(radical they critical
belonged armed on
to a political struggle the wave Such of the hand, other
like
supported of
nationalists). of Ireland. republican
if
to attain been
republic
feminists, since
second
feminism criticism was
to make surprising form had
a dent in Irish since, become
politics
more
earlier.
not
after independence, the state's official of the Irish of Ireland, relegating of an (1937) defined mothers of their
republican ideology nation formed them eternal was
nationalism and had
in its most
conservative the rights and
drastically 1987). had class
restricted
of women
in the name Free State
(O'Dowd in 1922, to second and
Progressively, constricted citizens
but inexorably, political their
the new space position
the social while
of women, as
accentuating
allegories Ireland and that
bucolic
Ireland. to this
The process. role:
constitution
of the new women
independent to the home to ensure
the
corollary as
It confined "The state shall
motherhood shall
their
social
endeavor in labor
not be obliged
by economic
necessity
to engage
to the neglect
duties in the home" (Article 41.2). This provision was accompanied by legislation that banned divorce, prohibited contraception and severely restricted salaried work
for married women, thus leaving semi-state, republicanism them however, was in a position under of stark structural of Protestant discourse inequality.4 dominance of the state, and but a In the northern British authority, the grip
not the hegemonic
22
radical partition and
ideology by
of
an
embattled
and
disadvantaged However, in relation as
minority republican
kept
at
bay had
since been (north of
a heavy
security northern
apparatus.
ideology Most and
conservative, south)
historically, perceived
in the north
to women. a male
feminists
republicanism about
movement
republican
women
as subordinated
to the directions discussion an agenda
of its male "the
leadership.
At the beginning the republican (Aretxaga
the 1980s, movement For those
after an intense had approved in British
question gender
of women" equality
for achieving
1997).
feminists was and
sympathetic one
to the republican that had
movement given rise
the locus
of women's state women's about in
oppression the south rights and
colonialism
to a conservative about
a sectarian
in the north. at the Dublin debate
Inexorably meeting of national
the discussion was entangled and
feminist of Ireland,
strategies and such
in a debate
the status border gender was
revolved
around
the ineludible identity
fact of the Irish different forms of
that had oppression was nation
created
different
forms
in the north and the south. to all was the participants not one, as unified was that, to evoke that cannot Luce be Irigaray, encompassed division producing on British of the island, The that Irish form meant its after Ireland by in a
What this
clear that
that is, a nation
ontological two parts discourse colonialism. yet
definitions destabilized of Irish
of identity unified
self-representation. of the Irish
Ireland's nation,
representations Ireland on the
identity
that the border had imagined rested on
symptomatizes
as still dependent territory of one the six
Nationalists as into
as the whole exclusion
its materialization came Ireland. nation as
a nation
part.
nation-state Northern
being
the condition the discourse being
of losing of Irish
counties
From came
within into The
nationalism, on condition in the also
partition Free State
that the Irish self-identity partition about drew
as a nation-state nationalism
of negating
nation. consistency
official
produced (which not. was An
from an act of silence nation was what
an act of violence) about the (that and that
the fact that the Irish
it was
act of silence
on an absence of the emergent Irish nation was predicated like a fetish had to be of the north) which recognized simultaneously disavowal and recognition disavowed. And it was it is this simultaneous fact that the identity formed as Lloyd has noted, the core (n.d.) of national has identity as fundamentally social ambivalent and split, Avery put it, by the spectre in as much of its incompletion. effects. yet make spectre
haunted, Gordon a reality waver a
Spectres, They the surface
are real
as they produce to be there, 1997).
represent
that is hidden,
that is not supposed presence identity (Gordon for Ireland
of things
with their forceful sense of separate and
The
of the border
undermines of intimacy
by reminding
the nation presence and
of a history
with England The manifested nationalism in his study nationalism Benedict in
furthermore and as
of the continuing
of that intimacy. triggered The (1985) by the border, between indicated of link has
uncertainty Ireland and
ambivalence anxiety and
of national about gender
identity As
sexuality. Mosse one about
sexuality
is not particular respectability to produce noted
to Ireland.
of nationalism is its capacity
in Europe, ideas
of the characteristics sexuality and
normative
gender. to
Anderson
also
has
the importance
of gender
and romantic
imagery
23
the
emotional
underpinnings genre of emergent in ways economies In Ireland
of
nationalism. in many
Indeed, parts
romance
has The
been
the spills et
foundational into libidinal al. 1992:5). I turn envisioned, that
nations
of the world. and
nation
that are both imaginary cast
consistent
unpredictable is marked term. the Irish
(Parker
the political that was discourse
of nationhood and gender through nation the control
by a history nation was
of intimacy
with England next to this because
in sexual
of sexuality to understand of the Irish of the nation
which
it is essential the emergence the lives
of gender
and and
sexuality that had a
accompanied effect
after partition,
profound
on both
and its women.
Does the Nation have a sex?

"Before men. in any redress we What real can ever sense do any work, any suffer which men's work, men. we must we do first realise ourselves as
comes men,
to Ireland for we
she needs things men do
And
of this generation suffer, and we 1992
are not seek to
that men
not
grievances
by means
not employ"
(Pearse
[1913]:557 was and a a
558).
With these words, Patrick Pearse linked gender to nationhood reminding his
three years before the Easter national immortalized uprising of 1916, that masculinity Pearse, history a writer prerequisite to achieving of 1916 independence. in republican was a most and armed
compatriots, necessary leader event radical hand. can do
of the rebellion that led cultural For Pearse any work
as the heroic producer went hand of a in we was are
to the war nationalism political [of defined
of independence in which agency was any
influential struggle potency:
masculinity a concomitant men's
of sexual
"[b]efore potency "we
liberation]
work".
Political/sexual found lacking
located
in a clearly
masculinity
that Pearse
in Ireland:
he intimates, The problem, not in any real sense men". of men "we suffer things that men do not suffer" metaphor this lack if men This that, would Pearse, do that men do not have balls, of consciousness not know what is more they blurs
is not only not just lack
the emasculation to use it. a popular For Pearse for
but that they do not even than the actual they going and nation. how are
realise
problematic
of manliness, their
lack
to redress
situation? confusion men how For
lack
of consciousness compromises imagined
gender the
distinctions, of the object
it is this gender For ever without
for Pearse, the nation
potency
as a female needed
of love
be engendered? was
then, gender national
confusion and sexual
to be dispelled can only
if the nation be fully
to be realized. within Irish the
Pearse's context
anxieties5
understood
of a colonial
history
wrapped
in a rhetoric
that had
constructed
identity feminine
and Anglo-Irish relations within shiftingcategories of gender and sexuality. If early

colonialist writers, like Spenser, saw Ireland as unruly, disorganized and
(Jones and Stallybrass 1992), the polemicists and politicians of the eighteenth
century prostrate most Celtic represented daughter texts initiated Ireland as a tearful lover abandoned hand by masculine were England or as The in to be rescued by the noble Renan and of Anglo-Irish of Irish Identity by Matthew ascendancy.6 the studies Drawing
influential culture
in the colonial by Ernst
construction
followed
Arnold.
24
on the emergent positivist argue 1988:46) ine nature ing English that the
sciences on
of philology, sexuality, the "an
ethnology intellectuals
and
anthropology race"
as well
as on the would
discourse Irish
of the nineteenth (Cairns
century and
were
essentially
feminine
Richards
characterized made
and emotional This femin by political incapacity instability. the Irish like women of thus incapable government, legitimis dominance. however, and cartoons Irish, neat Political gender were unrest during the nineteenth identity. savagery century Anti-Irish to bear with in definitions of Irish of racialized
political
Ireland political on simian maiden important feminine The other the
complicated, discourse
brought who
the language often
representations features (Curtis part and
of the violent Foster
portrayed an Ireland those
in a Caliban represented representations force bodies. rested
guise
gestures, 1993).
threatening Needless
as a helpless played to save an the
1968,
to say, of Irish
in justifying
the 'civilizing' violence
intervention (male) discourse
of British
country emergence
from the unruly
of an anti-colonial
nationalist
in Ireland
as in For and
parts
of the world
on the negation Ireland nation, the Irish Irish
of colonial actively men
stereotypes involved in of the
of identity. the Irish political was
intellectuals production such been
of turn-of-century of the as it rendered and W.B.
cultural
feminization politically
deeply to a race
problematic writers, that has
in as much as Pearse deprived
impotent. the
Nationalists
Yeats, (Pearse
felt an urgency 1916). They and
to "restore counteracted
manhood
of it"
subservient
position derived fromthe association of the Irish people with Victorian femininity by
creating character a heroic into tradition of Gaelic follies warriors of urban by displacing feminine they of the or traits reapprop national idealized These with fusion the of of the imported modernity. virile as In this way
riated the virile potency of Caliban versions of Irishness into the knightly force of
unequivocal subject mother had masculinity. its correlate the object enabled and of in The an creation image of representations beautiful of religious historical mythologies. in ways colonialist people that were as well of Ireland desire and/or maiden
romantic association
devotion.7 subjects The
representations heroic sexual warriors and
the
of nationalist and Catholic
martyrs potency project. gender
of Gaelic was thus
political nationalist about the
reorganized in both of the nation's
useful as
to the
unfolding arguments course,
Excluded identity
nationalist who, of
were
women
only
featured liberation,
as allegories.
Although
women
did participate
in the struggle were men.
for national
in the nationalist
imaginary
the historical
subjects
Indeed, within this political imaginary, manhood was supposed to be achieved in the
process of engendering national sovereignty, moment some its culminating was, then, moment with arising with the and proclamation phantasmatic After three leaders counties severed Northern of the nation. weight years This charged a symbolic
that requires of generalized signed henceforth a treaty
consideration. warfare, the British partial State government independence of Ireland and the
guerrilla in 1921 to be
of the IRA of Ireland from
that conferred
to 26 and
known
as the Free from by
the national Partition
project was
the six the
counties set
the northeast British
that became on the
Ireland.
condition
the
to agree
25
formation the British
of an Irish
state
the Free until 1935.
State
The
that was Free
to remain, was
however, however,
within the the
commonwealth republic only divided violence the historical imagined doubtfully over of
State and,
not, who
independent treaty, The war. it could IRA The
by Irish be called
nationalists, a nation
for those the north.
opposed
without and
the signing the civil decade of the Ireland
of the treaty, war and became Free State the the
the country political silence so
divided
in a civil that the riots
extreme great
repression upon did which violent
characterized nationalist mark,
following narrative
was
founded;
too, the birth of Northern border was supposed
The open
to be provisional. by
Article
12 of the treaty formed
left the door members Ireland such as
to a renegotiation respectively British
of the border by the Irish "The
a commission
by three of Northern shall be
appointed and the
government, boundary 6 December
the government of Northern Ireland
government: by such and
might between
be determined Great side Britain
commission"
(Article
12 of the Agreement This provision established
for a Treaty convinced once 1924. the the In the
Ireland, was
1921). measure
pro-treaty Free 1925, State in
that partition a reality. of
a provisional border
that would was
disappear in
became the face
The
commission the
unresolvable
disagreement, has it, the .... In
commission
considered
boundaries of the border fixed.

As drastic (1985:38). anxieties historian shock A Terence to nationalist crippling can blow Brown put permanence blow of context of the border to nationalist the gender and was "a aspirations indeed. a crippling the of Irish hopes" sexual
that had Ireland
permeated
the discussions as a symbolic
national
identity,
the severance the potency moment when rule in
of Northern of the nation subtly Ireland.
be read moment
castration Such Collins Castle, head
that questioned questioning at the crucial the bastion
at the very
of its inception. film Michael over Dublin and
is, for example, of English
represented Michael into
in the acclaimed to be raised a national
the Irish
flag is finally
Collins, the army
hero
of the revolutionary as the chief inscribe
forces
now of the
transformed treaty, has The anxiously a frenzy, minutes for the
of the new
nation, event
as well
negotiator
to preside
at the historical
that would
symbolically authorities
the birth
of the Irish nation troops
in the annals
of history. the nag ready, the political Collins only Michael of the military prepared He "You arrives and in is missing.
are in formation, at their watches
looking disturbing late", occasion
the still choreography the president an elaborate
formation.
are seven dressed at him,
scolds with
of the recently hat with white
constituted tassels.
government, Collins looks
hastily composing his tall body into an appropriate military pose, and says, "We
waited begins and attention what?" wear seven hundred years, you can have your seven minutes". The British The flag music to now to descend from the pole signifies Collins where the says, the Irish solemn "So flag is going moment. caused to fly now. is
military Then
formation
Everybody
standing .... "Do war;
respectfully. he breaks he asks
that is what
all the bother a joke,
the solemnity laughing. The
of the occasion country
by cracking
1 get to his best
that hat?"
is at the brink
of a civil
26
friend
and
former
right lack
handman that the
has
joined
the anti-treaty of the Irish flag a profound
side. over
Read the
against
this Castle
background implies, be erased of the nation by
of fratricide
raising reveals
Dublin about
Collins' and
of composure to a fraternal The birth
ambivalence Such
the status cannot national by the
renders
its birth a self-conscious "imagined of the Irish but
farce.
ambivalence because not the
recourse divided.
community" nation was
community celebration proclamation that made The
is
marked not
of a fraternal of sovereignty, the Free masculinity State
community,
by the anxieties
of fratricide,
by the crown
but by the acceptance dependent linked
of allegiance
to the British
politically
on England
for its first fifteen years. of the whole Irish nation would island in
of the nation, was
to the independence the price wonder identity that the new
the nationalist for its existence great deal of
imaginary,
ironically body. national about Irish No
had to pay generate in became in a the a the was
as a political anxiety about as anxiety of the new
then that partition which The would be
expressed
following central literature
decades concern
sexuality. state (Cairns and and and the
regulation if often 1988).
of sexuality veiled The new of the
a major Richards
theme
of post-colonial by new law: was salaried an served social The
Ireland
state
characterized church.8 and
conservatism passed in 1923
repressive legislation in 1925,
morality
Catholic
government divorce introduced work
restrictive was and women with banned 1929, was
in matters censorship were restricted situated
of sexuality of films and in The of the
family and of
legislation for married rural family,
publications 1935, image mothers, bleak nation silencing double border
contraceptives seriously
made after in
illegal 1937. role
idealized
women cohesion
firmly
the
as the metaphor of partition violence is precisely
of social war.
that attempted as central of the family within of the border.
to transcend
divisions and
and civil
Thus
posed
metaphor had the We
of the new the effect of
as the space both
of the unspeakable, within the family the suppressed formation
this model and meaning
violence
nation. can read
This the as a the of as
silence
then as a compromise in the body both enables and
in both the political an excess what
and Freudian of signification. is an what
senses, For
symptom border sexual a sign
of the nation negates women
that contains the nation;
is suppressed precisely
economy the border
difference manifests:
that locks
into allegory Seamus male"
to hide
that the nation "An
is not one. Heaney represents partition as an
In his poem act of rape a cuckold. discourse
by Britain The leaves poem
Letter" (1983), Open "still imperially expresses
that rendered content
the Irish
parliament
the phantasmatic that is, that partition
of partition
that nationalist at the very
inarticulate,
emasculated
the Irish
moment of achieving manhood.

disavowal, bodies. know the restoration "Mother its own Ireland" violence. artists within. as and emerged The writers poet woman
Within this poetic space of sexual violence and

was predicated on the control that did been of women's not want to by to the Easter as the allegory cost who of this have of a nation has
of manhood
silence
represented back
contemporary Ireland image from of
attempted Medbh, poem
to subvert for example, "Easter
the image goes (1993).
of Mother
The a
Maighread in her
Ireland
1991"
27
commemorates But the Ireland
the Irish
rebellion
of 1916 Medbh
and
is the day is one
of nationalist
celebration. covering
that Maighread within and
invokes
tired
of the silence
the gendered
violence I am Ireland I cannot
the nation: I am silenced
tell my abortions of slavery for freedom Farrell portrayed "Madonna picture". The Ireland" painting, on the has nation as a whore, according Irish been and subtitled
my divorces my years my fights The painter intended Michel the work was "the
first real to make
Irish political "every so too discourse the
to the author, (Herr through has in turn, a
possible
statement
situation" contested
1991:11). female entailed re-figuring Irish representing
If the hegemonic representations, a questioning of the politics nationalism the nation
of the Irish challenge to
nationalist (Boland
gender 1989) and
ideology this
of national
representations to transcend female the
of partition. sought through ambivalence while of partition the lives by of
allegory
controlling
individual women. As allegories, women had been trapped within a discourse that
foreclosed Within language discourse nation other's" was the space dominant to the representation women is through that of a reality could only a language and speak that a discourse through was either. was not of their own. representations, the patriarchal theirs. But the
of nationalism, of Irish not
nationalism one, the This than
did not represent discourse in Ireland of presence. that "We
the nation of the
In as much in Ireland
as the "an
hegemonic left women an allegory had
nation
discourse. rather
to be the phantasmatic Any absence. know said, attempt what "is we At the Dublin
embodiment spaces meeting, but not of a so in of
of an absence, representation woman well from what us we
at opening are not,
for women the north are". who said "The we
to engage
in this respect, Irish are". language", By "who identity stems
she
becoming language as
important a vehicle
helping
define
referring we are"
to the Irish
identity within a discussion about the differentmeanings of being a woman in

Ireland, Irish, both and this woman making gender ethnic) Writing gender and ethnic was and linking Irish levels as women The to "who we are" as at inseparable. an existence uncertainty of identity within (gender
from
of difference
identity about
that has the
been
disavowed the
in the discourse exploitation
of Irish nationalism. of women and Indian
link
between
nationalism, Gayatry Spivak has said that "in the decolonized national context the
strategic nature applied into deployment of a merely to Ireland the of subaltern hegemonic where heterogeneity can make visible the phantasmatic can well be nationalism" realities of both search (1992:99). of women This statement
the different nature The body
created
by the border,
bring
relief
phantasmatic identity. an
hegemonic the border
gender was
a hegemonic Irish nationalism and a underwent that we northerners at it meant to be an Irish woman was
indeed
indication
that what
28
marked border.
by
different,
if interdependent,
kinds
of violence
north
and
south
of the
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted this article. detailed Social research Ireland to Gautam I am also Ghosh for his editorial to Michael Roberts skill and and his insightful Kamala was funded comments on
grateful The
Visweswaran by and grants a Milton
for their from the
suggestions. Sciences grant women Research from who
research Council,
for this
article
the MacArthur Above and Their who names
Foundation, all I am provided have been
faculty into the
Harvard figure and
University. in this paper
grateful much
to the Northern insight
interlocking anonymity.
of gender
nationalism.
modified
to preserve
NOTES
1.
I use the term nationalist one, irrespective In
in this article of individual
to refer to refer to an ethnic ascription term to the various could be
identity more than nationalist and political is of and
a political parties Northern would and
agendas.
this
sense
the
nationalist Both
sometimes
interchanged
with the term Catholic to denote national an
in this article.
terms are used that defines rather
in the literature itself as Irish
Ireland the
"imagined
community" united
prefer
framework
of a
Ireland
than
of the
United
Kingdom. 2. Irish Hence the vexing with question identity about (Herr identity in Ireland, 1991); Coulter an what some question critics have that is, seen as an
obsession
aporetic
therefore,
unresolvable. 3. 4. See, See for example, the speech of Ireland fields Meaney land (1991), De whose (1990) would and Marrn Day (1989). where he outlines his with cozy
by Eamon as "a
Valera
on St. Patrick's
1943
vision whose
countryside
be bright
homesteads, of
and villages
will be joyous of athletic in Seamus
with the sounds youth Deane
of industry,
with the romping maidens"
sturdy children, Undeserted 5.
the contests Ireland"
and the laughter (1991:748). see Edward
of comely
"The
Village
For an excellent
biography
of Patrick
Pearse
(1977).
6. See, forexample, Swift(1905 [ 1746]) and Grattan(1991 [1782]).

7. See Patrick Pearse's poem "A Mother Speaks", and W.B. Yeats's play Cathleen Ni Houlihan for paradigmatic examples.
8. See Brown (1985), Ward (1983), O'Dowd (1987) and MacDonagh (1983).
29
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, 1983 B. Imagined Nationalism, Aretxaga, 1997 B. Shattering Northern Boland, 1989 E. A Kind of Scar: The Woman Poet in a National Tradition, LIP Pamphlets, Silence: Ireland, Women, Princeton Nationalism University Press. and Political Subjectivity in Communities: London: Reflections Verso. on the Origin and Spread of
Dublin: Attic Press.

Brown, T.
1985
Butler, 1993 J.
Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Bodies Routledge. That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex", New York:
Cairns, D. and S. Richards

1988 Writing University Chatterjee, 1993 P. The Nation and Its Fragments: Press. Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Ireland: Press. Colonialism, Nationalism and Culture, Manchester
Princeton
University
1989
Coulter, 1990 C.
"Colonialism, Nationalism and Colonized Women: The Contest in India",

American Ethnologist Between 16:622-33.
Ireland:
the First
and
the Third
Worlds,
LIP
Pamphlets,
Dublin:
Attic Press.
Curtis, 1968 L.P. Anglo-Saxons England, Deane, Seamus (ed.) New and York: Celts: A Study of Anti-Irish Prejudice in Victorian
University
Press.
(1991) Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, vol. 3, Derry: Field Day Publications.
Edward, 1977 Fernandez, 1986 R. D. Patrick J. "Persuasions Metaphors The Play and Performances: Of the Beast in Everybody and and the Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, London: Gollancz.
of Everyman" of Tropes
in J. Fernandez,
Persuasions Indiana
Performance: Press,
in Culture,
Bloomington:
University
pp.3-27.
30
Foster, 1993
R.F. Paddy London: A. Ghostly Minneapolis: Matters: Haunting and the Press. Sociological Imagination, and Mr. Punch: Connections in Irish and English History,
A. Lane.
Gordon, 1997
University
of Minnesota
Grattan,
Henry
1991
"Speech in the Irish Parliament, April 16, 1782" in S. Deane (ed.) The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, vol. I, Derry: Field Day Publications.
Inventing Harvard S. An Open Letter, Derry: Field Day Theater Pamphlets. Ireland: University The Literature Press. of the Modern Nation, Cambridge, MA:
Kiberd, D.
1995
Heaney, 1983 Herr, C.
1990
Irigaray, 1991 Jones, A.R., L.
"The Erotics of Irishness", Critical Inquiry 17(1): 1-34.

This Sex which is Not One, Ithaca: Cornell University of Ireland and Press.
and P. Stallybrass "Dismantling England" Routledge. Irena: in A. Parker The Sexualisation Nationalisms in Early New Modern York: et al.
1992
Sexualities,
Lloyd, D.
n.d. Mani, L. "Contentious Sangari History, Marrn, 1989 O. "The Cost of Silencing Revolution: Voices Essays Like Mine" in F. Women's Devaney et al. (eds) and New S. Traditions: Vaid (eds.) The debate on Sati in Colonial India" in K. "The Conflict of the Border", Unpublished manuscript.
1990
Recasting NJ: Rutgers
Women: University
Essays Press,
in Indian pp. 88-125.
Colonial
Brunswick,
Unfinished
on the Irish
Movement,
Belfast:
Meadbh Publications.
MacDonagh, O.
1983
McCan, M.
States of Mind: A Study of Anglo-Irish Conflict 1780-1980, London: Allen and Unwin. The Past in the Present: A Study of Some Aspects of the Politics of Music in Belfast, PhD Dissertation, Queen's University.
G. Sex and Nation: Women in Irish Culture and Politics, LIP pamphlets,
1985
Meaney, 1991
Dublin: Attic Press. 31
Medbh, M.
1993 Mosse, 1985 G. Nationalism Modern and Sexuality: Madison: Middle-Class University The Morality of Wisconsin and Press. Sexual Norms in "Easter 1991Feminist Review No. 44.
Europe, State
O'Dowd, L.
1987 "Church, and Women: Aftermath of Partition" in C. Curtin, P.
Jackson, B. O'Connor (eds) Gender in Irish Society, Galway: Galway. O'Hogain, D. 1985 The Hero in Irish Folk History, Dublin: Hill and MacMillan.
Parker, 1992 Pearse, P. k.etal Nationalisms and Sexualities, New York: Routledge.
1992 [1916] "The Murder Machine" in S. Dean (ed.) Field Day Anthology of Irish Writingvol. II, Derry: Field Day Publications, pp.288-293. Spivak, G.C.
1992 "Gender New in-difference" Routledge. in A. Parker et al. Nationalisms and Sexualities, York:
Swift, J. 1905
"The Story of an Injured Lady. Writtenby Herself" in T. Scott (ed.) The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift,vol. 7 (1st edn. 1746), London: Bell and
Sons.
Taussig, M.
1992 "Terror Siege" Ward, M. Unmanageable Pluto Press. Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism, London: 1983 As Usual: Walter Benjamin's System, Theory New of York: History as State of in M. Taussig The Nervous Routledge.
12

Aretxaga - What The Border Hides

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Aretxaga - What The Border Hides

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Aretxaga - What The Border Hides

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Berghahn Books

SOCIAL ISSUE WHAT

ANALYSIS 42(1), March 1998

Aretxaga to Dublin the border me were well the

On 23 September that four known border separates women from

1989 Northern the

I drove Ireland Belfast

my old from working we held

crossing with of Falls

Travelling district As into we

as a stronghold at the town

Republican our post,

with the barbed soldiers

the observation army dressed

iron, the fully armed and the no-less-armed

Royal Ulster Constabulary, (RUC)

the Northern Ireland police, imposing in their

disappeared, frontier violence The

surveyed political the IRA.

countryside a difficult the name

Tightly half Irish

knit rural the area

communities, around Newry

topography, of "bandit which echoes

country". of bogs of the

at the name the pale into

the folklore and

into the arid terrain of British the colonization, figure

of the north-west dispossessed Irish

of the island was

British bandit culture Ireland, contested and the

colonization, is bestowed of songs

of the heroic through the

of the Irish expressive of Northern the

the contemporary (McCann attacks those

guerrilla For and

the spectre boundary Republic, The a lack order

the obsession communities" and

of the North has

that reveals border,

the national argue feel to be

of "terror is the site

into the Irish Protestants functions Republic. nation and as

a permanent Kingdom. posed

to their existence unionists, the

of a permanent the border business of

by the existence Because because the

of the Irish of the Irish border is an of

For nationalists the unfinished

of the incompleteness and of the actual filled

unrecognized crossing excitement back and

boundary the border

for nationalists, becomes the border an

it, crossing and dread.

forth movement And also and

the porosity and

its inherent across the

instability. Irish border island, maps north and

in so doing, questions south. borders No