Aleksandra Hajduczek

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Joint Program in Biological Oceanography (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Biology; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2005. / Page 296 blank. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation is about the development of corporate responsibility and sustainability advocacy in Ireland. It shows how the biopolitics of corporate responsibility (or CR) and sustainability was rendered—by CR advocates and interested companies—as an ethical ecology, not dissociated from the biopolitical but rooted in it. By ‘ecology’ I mean to refer to the growing consciousness and deliberate cultivation of the interconnections, dependencies and feedback as well as responsibilities between heretofore discreet parts of the social landscape—between business and employees for example. These nascent interconnections—between what we might think of as systems and their environment—were also being presented as compelling ethical striving and to an extent, facilitating it. Importantly this effort was to be directed towards what was coming to be understood by the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘responsible business.’ Hence, I also used the word ‘ecology’ in the sense of how this argument for ethics had roots in concern for the planet itself and for the very survival of the human race. In a deeper sense then, the matrix or the features of biopower—“[1] one or more truth discourses about the ‘vital’ character of living human beings; [2] an array of authorities considered competent to speak that truth; [3] strategies for intervention upon collective existence in the name of life and health; [4] and modes of subjectification, in which individuals work on themselves in the name of individual or collective life or health” (Rabinow and Rose 2006, 195)—permeated this concern with sustainability (the ecology or the engagement of systems and environments in the name of ‘life’ as such) and certainly as it was rendered in this arena of business and all that surrounds it, sustainability weighed heavily on ethical quest or government of the self for its potential for success. Furthermore, these logics could be extended into the less biological concern with the sustainability of our ways of life—including communities, businesses and markets; as proxies for vital human bodies, they too were at risk and dependent on changed dispositions to action for their durability.

This research does not hope to give a finalized portrait of Ireland and its vast and diverse people. Instead, it hopes to add one more piece to the complicated mosaic that is an honest depiction of Irish personal and national identity. Several plays by authors considered to be quintessential Irish nationalists have been read in conjunction with those authors’ biographies and the historical moments in which those plays were created, to offer a multi-faceted perspective to the intersection between art, politics and individual senses of personhood and nation. The final conclusion is that the growth and development of a nation requires that the definition of national identity be in a constant state of performance and revision. Several key conclusions can be drawn from the findings here. First, Irish identity is slippery and elusive. To try to finalize a definition is to stunt the growth of a constantly evolving nation. Secondly, personal and national identity formation cannot be separated into two distinct processes. Due to the unique political situation leading up to Irish independence and the subjugated state of all Irish people, regardless of their class or economic distinction, an individual always exists in relationship to those other members of his or her class, as well as those who define him or her by their differences. Finally, because of this constantly evolving state and this complicated interrelationship between the personal and the public, Irish stage drama bears a unique relationship to Ireland, and to critics seeking to analyze that literature. The multiplicity of the Irish experience demonstrates itself most clearly in the consistent newness of repeated performances of its classic texts. By examining the historical ruptures that resulted from the initial performances of those texts and comparing them to the texts themselves, documents that live outside of history until they are drawn back in by those who seek to reinterpret and re-perform them, researchers can witness the evolution of key ideas of Irish nationalism from their roots in personal experience, through the interpretive machine of the early Abbey audiences, and as they continue to transform in modern presentations.

Thesis--Zürich. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 292-302) and index.

Thesis--University of Cologne. / Limited ed. of 300 copies. Includes bibliographical references.

Based on the author's Thesis (Ph. D.--University College, London). / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 264-277) and index.

All populations present the historian with certain questions. Their origins, the date of their arrival, their reason for coming and finally, how they came - all demand explanation. The population of Ulster today, derived mainly from Scotland, far from proving an exception, personifies the problem. So greatly does the population of Ulster differ from the rest of Ireland that barbed wire and road blocks periodically, even now, demark the boundaries between the two. Over three centuries after the Scots arrived, they still maintain their differences from those who Inhabited Ireland before them.

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