Dr Theresa O'Keefe

Dr Theresa O'Keefe (UCC) is a co-Principal Investigator on this project. She is an international expert on gender and conflict zones, with a specialism in Northern Ireland. Her research interests include gender inequality in deeply divided societies, feminist movements in conflict zones and societies in transition, and women’s roles in conflict and is widely published  in these areas. Her book, Feminist Identity Development and Activism In Revolutionary Movements was the first in-depth examination of feminism in republican communities and the wider women’s movement in Northern Ireland. Her work has examines gendered state violence during the Troubles, the tensions within the feminist movement in Northern Ireland and the challenges faced by women’s groups who champion a ‘bridge-builder’ politics over other feminist approaches.

Dr O’Keefe was awarded a PhD in Political Studies from Queen’s University (Canada) on women’s activism in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and she has worked across a range of higher education institutions including as a postdoctoral researcher in UCD School of Politics and International Studies and its Institute for British/Irish Studies and as lecturer in Equality Studies in the School of Social Justice in UCD and the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University. In 2016 she joined the Department of Sociology and Criminology at UCC as College Lecturer in Sociology, where she now leads on the undergraduate research programme and is Chair of the School of Society, Politcs and Ethics Committee on Equality and Diversity.

She has worked with some of the key thinkers in the field of cross-border studies in Ireland and on some of the largest collaborative cross-border research projects on the island of Ireland, including  ‘Intergenerational Transmission in the Border Area’ EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation (Peace II), the ‘Identity, Diversity and Citizenship Programme’ for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI-HEA Cycle 3) and the ‘Mapping Frontiers, Plotting Pathways: Routes to North-South Co-operation in a Divided Island’ EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation (Peace II).

Dr O’Keefe specialises in biographical research methods with a long-standing commitment to engaged, transformative research. She is founder of CONFER - the Cross-border Network for Feminist Research.

Dr Niall Gilmartin

Dr Niall Gilmartin (UU) is a co-Principal Investigator on this project. He teaches sociology at Ulster University. His primary field of research and expertise resides in conflict and conflict transformation with specific expertise in feminist IR, gender and violence, non-state actors in conflict, transitional justice, and forced displacement. He has published two books and currently has a third book in production with Liverpool University Press. His first book Female Combatants After Armed Struggle was published by eminent academic publisher Routledge as part of their Gender & Global Politics series in November 2018. The book represents the first major, in-depth study of female combatants and conflict transition in Northern Ireland. His co-authored book Northern Ireland A Generation After Good Friday was published in July 2021, offers a critical and comprehensive reading of Northern Irish society over the course of its precarious peace process. His latest research on forced displacement during Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ is the first in-depth exploration of forced movement and its long-term consequences and will be published as a book in June 2022. He has also published seven peer-reviewed journal articles and published three book chapters. 

Dr Gilmartin has an impressive track record of securing research funding including doctoral and post-doctoral funding from the Irish Research Council and the University of Liverpool. Over the last ten years, he has conducted extensive forms of qualitative field research related to conflict in Northern Ireland, including forty interviews with Irish republican women, and 69 interviews with those forced from their homes and communities during the ‘Troubles’. He has also collaborated extensively with a range of civil society organisations including the North-West Cultural Partnership in Derry, Relatives For Justice in Belfast, as well as editing a journal collection for Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation. He is currently a member of the Ethics Review Committee at Ulster University and is supervising one PhD scholar.

Dr Brenda Mondragón Toledo

Dr Brenda Mondragón Toledo  (UCC) is a researcher in this project. With a PhD in Sociology and Latin American Studies from University College Cork, Dr. Mondragón Toledo's work explores Gender-based Violence in Ireland and Mexico through the unique perspective of textile-making practices. Her thesis, 'Resistance and Solidarity Through Feminist Craftivism: A Comparative Study of Mexico and Ireland,' uses textile-making practices as a research method through Participatory Arts-based Research.

Dr. Mondragón Toledo's research interests include feminist epistemologies and methodologies, gender-based violence, and the cultural significance of textiles and fashion. Her work has received notable funding from CONAHCYT and the HEA, reflecting the importance of feminist research. She has also lectured in UCC's Sociology, SPLAS, and Government and Politics departments and presented and published her research in international conferences and journals. 

Her role in the project involves helping build the archive, where she is carrying out tasks such as anonymisation and creating the metadata, and she is also in charge of updating our website and social media. 

Dr Dyuti Chakravarty

Dr Dyuti Chakravarty (UCC) is a postodctoral researcher on this project. She completed her PhD at the School of Sociology in UCD where she wrote a thesis titled 'Break the Cage: Women's Body Politics of Respectability and Autonomy in India and Ireland'. Her research interests include contemporary women's movements, postcolonial and decolonial feminist theories and reproductive justice. In the past, she has collaborated with artist Eimear Walshe, on an Arts Council of Ireland, funded project to commemorate the legacies of Irish-Indian suffragette Margaret Cousins. Between July 2020 and April 2021, she worked as a Research Assistant on a World Health Organization funded project on Abortion Policy Implementation in Ireland. This project comprised of a multidisciplinary team of researchers and was led by Professor Joanna Mishtal at the Department of Anthropology in University of Central Florida. This study has informed the Review of the Operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act of 2018. Dyuti has also worked as a Research Assistant on an Irish Research Council funded project titled Negotiating Difference on a Shared Island: Agonism, Commonality or Critical Constitutionalism, led by Professor Jennifer Todd (UCD).