The aim of the International Conference was to explore and examine the role of digital archives of personal narratives, oral histories or testimonies in societies emerging from conflict. The Conference was a showcase event of the ‘Accounts of the Conflict’ project at INCORE based in the University of Ulster, which is a digital archive for the long-term preservation and dissemination of stories related to the conflict in, and about, Northern Ireland.

The conference attracted both academics and practitioners from around the world with an interest in how storytelling and archiving can contribute to peacebuilding and social change in a range of diverse contexts.

The Conference focused on three key areas:

Alongside local experts working in the field, speakers for the conference included Elisabeth Baumgartner, Swisspeace; Louise Corti, UK Data Archive, University of Essex; Norman Duncan, Apartheid Archive, South Africa; Verne Harris, Nelson Mandela Foundation; Ramsay Liem, Boston College; Mary Marshall Clark, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, New York; Iratxe Momoitio Astorkia, Gernika Peace Museum; Vesna Terselic, Documenta, Croatia and Patricia Valdez, Memoria Abierta, Argentina.

The conference also hosted a commissioned exhibition "Textile Accounts of the Conflict" curated by Roberta Bacic and Breege Doherty. Details of the exhibition and a video are availble here

Videos of conference highlights and the key speakers are available from here

Accounts of the Conflict, International Conference brochure in PDF format[5413KB].