Experience, Identity & Epistemic Injustice within Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries

ISBN-13: 9781350254428 / Angielski / Twarda / 2022 / 248 str.

UK) Gott Chloe K. (Independent scholar

Opis

How are the identities of women shaped by religious disciplinary processes in Magdalene laundries and how do women re-engage with their sense of self after leaving the institutions? Chloë K. Gott situates these questions within the current cultural climate in which the institutions now sit, considering how they fit into Ireland’s present as well as its past. This book represents the first significant secondary analysis to be conducted of 81 oral history interviews recorded as part of the Government of Ireland Collaborative Research project, ‘Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Archival and Oral History’, funded by the Irish Research Council. These were taken with women formerly incarcerated in these institutions, as well as others associated with this history. Grounded in qualitative analysis of this archive, the book is structured around the voices and words of survivors themselves. With a strong focus on how the experience of being incarcerated in a Magdalene laundry impacted on the gendered religious selves of the women, this book tracks the process of entering, working in and leaving a laundry, explored through the lens of epistemic injustice.

Spis treści

1. Introduction: Survivor Narratives and Unfinished Histories 2. Epistemic Injustice and Credible Subjects 3. Silence, Voice and the Ethics of Communication 4. Inside the Institution: Discipline and Penance 5. Fractured Endings and New Meanings: Religion and Respectability 6. Public Silence and Official Voice: Inquiry, Apology and Redress 7. Conclusion: Challenging a Lingering Silence Appendix A: List of Magdalene Institutions Appendix B: List of interviews Notes Bibliography Index