Women in the workplace, Belfast c.1945-1998: an oral history

这部口述历史收集了贝尔法斯特1945-1998年间50名妇女对有偿工作的描述，将探索就业对妇女身份、经历和生活轨迹的被低估的中心地位，阐明这座战后城市被忽视的妇女工作史，并表达北爱尔兰妇女的独特经历，这些经历经常被20世纪爱尔兰更广泛的妇女社会史所遗忘。二十世纪下半叶见证了性别角色的非凡转变。妇女参与有偿工作的人数急剧增加，到这一时期结束时，在北爱尔兰劳动力市场上，妇女人数超过了男子。然而，社会对妇女工作的态度没有跟上这些变化，妇女的就业轨迹得到了有限的学术关注。劳工和工业遗产的历史和公共纪念活动优先考虑男性的工作和男子气概，而女性历史往往侧重于女权主义激进主义或女性经历的麻烦。更广泛地说，学术关注的焦点一直是贝尔法斯特的宗派政治冲突，这使得人们对贝尔法斯特的社会历史及其在20世纪爱尔兰和英国更广泛历史中的地位的理解存在差距。该项目将解决这类史学空白，促进学术拓宽贝尔法斯特社会史的概念，使其超越熟悉的宗派框架，同时通过研究冲突对妇女的影响和她们参与劳动力市场的情况，反过来丰富对冲突的理解。这项研究是在交叉的跨国研究背景下进行的，重点是妇女工作的价值、去工业化和社会流动，这些研究将工业衰落、劳动力市场和就业转移以及经济福利的修改模式定位于战后时期社会变革的核心。在这里，学者们认识到，迫切需要多样化的视角，并将女性的教育和工作经验放在他们研究领域的中心。从那时起，他们还提供了对一系列当代全球问题的历史视角，并对这些问题进行了批评，从工作文化到日益扩大的社会和经济不平等，以及阶级政治。这项研究将考虑妇女在下列方面的经历：工业工作及其在去工业化后的丧失；社会流动以及新的教育和就业机会在扩大公共和服务部门方面的影响；临时和非全日制工作的兴起，以及被学者称为劳动女性化的往往是低薪工作的作用；以及工会、女权主义政治和妇女阐明其工作的价值及其对工作场所不平等的挑战。塑造女性工作经历的种族-宗教、阶级和代际差异的关系也将在整篇论文中突出出来。在方法上，这项研究将建立在已确定的研究背景下使用的方法之上，在这种背景下，人们理解通过普通人的“小历史”参与社会、经济和文化趋势的大历史的价值。人们的生活现实照亮了支撑广泛趋势的各种个人动机和经历。口述历史是恢复这些活生生的现实的明显方法，口述历史学家擅长探索个人和集体记忆的主体性。新收集的工业、公共和服务部门妇女工作-生活故事的口头证词将与档案记录、现有口述历史、政府报告、社会调查和对妇女工作的重大公开纪念一起进行评估。除了形成论文的核心主要证据外，目的还在于将这些新的口述历史证词存放在一个可供公众查阅的档案中，以备将来使用。

This oral history, collecting fifty women's accounts of paid work in Belfast c.1945-1998, will explore the underestimated centrality of employment to women's identity, experience, and life trajectory, illuminating the neglected history of women's work in the post-war city, and giving voice to the distinct experiences of Northern Irish women so often forgotten in broader social histories of women in twentieth-century Ireland. The second half of the twentieth century witnessed extraordinary shifts in gender roles. A dramatic increase in women's participation in paid work saw them outnumber men in the Northern Irish labour market by the end of this period. Yet social attitudes towards women's work have not kept pace with these changes and women's employment trajectories have received limited academic attention. Histories and public commemorations of labour and industrial heritage have prioritised men's work and masculinity, while histories of women have often focused on feminist activism or women's experience of the Troubles. More broadly, scholarly focus has been on sectarian political conflict in Belfast, leaving gaps in understandings of the city's social history and its place in wider histories of twentieth century Ireland and the UK. This project will address such historiographical lacunae, contributing to scholarship that is broadening conceptions of Belfast's social history beyond the familiar sectarian frame, whilst in turn diversifying understanding of the conflict through study of its impact on women and their involvement in the labour market. The study is situated within intersecting transnational research contexts focused on the value of women's work, deindustrialization and social mobility, which locate industrial decline, labour market and employment shifts, and modified patterns of economic welfare at the heart of social change in the post-war period. Here, scholars are recognising the compelling need to diversify perspectives and put women's experience of education and work at the centre of their fields of study. From there, they are also providing historical perspective on, and critiquing narratives about, a range of contemporary global issues, from cultures of work, to widening social and economic inequality, and the politics of class. This research will consider women's experience of: industrial work and the loss of it in the wake of deindustrialization; social mobility and the impact of new educational and employment opportunities in expanding public and service sectors; the rise of temporary and part-time employment, and the role of often poorly paid work, labelled by academics as the feminisation of labour; and trade unions, feminist politics and women's articulation of the value of their work and their challenge to workplace inequalities. The nexus of ethno-religious, class and generational differences which shaped women's experiences of work will also be foregrounded throughout the thesis. Methodologically, the study will build on approaches used in the identified research contexts, where the value of engaging with the big history of social, economic and cultural trends through the 'little histories' of ordinary people is understood. People's lived realities illuminate the diverse personal motivations and experiences that underpin broad trends. Oral history is the obvious method by which to recover these lived realities, and oral historians are skilled in exploring the subjectivities of individual and collective memory. The newly collected oral testimonies of women's work-life stories in industrial, public and service sectors will be assessed alongside archival records, existing oral histories, government reports, social surveys and material public commemoration of women's work. In addition to forming the core primary evidence for the thesis, the intention is also to deposit these new oral history testimonies in a publicly accessible archive for future use.