Migration, life narratives, memory and subjectivity: Reflections on an archival project on Irish migration

This article considers three theoretical approaches (late-modern, post-modern and feminist) to the apparent obsession with self-narration and memory in the early twenty-first century as they relate to an archival project on Irish migra-tion. This archival project focused on the life narratives of those who wit-nessed mass out-migration from 1950s Ireland. The article reflects on the ex-tent to which this project and the motivations of both the researchers and con-tributors reflect these theoretical accounts of the biographical turn.