Qualitative Resources in a post-Conflict Situation – the ARK Project in Northern Ireland

1. Qualitative Resources in a post-Conflict Situation –the ARK Project in Northern Ireland Robert Miller School of Sociology, Social Policy & Social Work Queens University, Belfast r.miller@qub.ac.uk

2. ARK is a Joint Project between The Queen’s University of Belfast and the University of Ulster Supported by ESRC Large Grants Programme

3. Rough Guide to ARK • A joint initiative of staff at Queens University, Belfast & University of Ulster • Mission: To make material on the social and political life of Northern Ireland available to the widest possible audience • Provides Access, Research, Knowledge

4. History • Established in 2000 • Brought together 2 independent resources: • Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey (NILT) • Conflict Archive on the INternet (CAIN)

5. Surveys • Northern Ireland Life & Times Survey of adults [NILT] • Young Life & Times Survey of 16 year-olds [YLT] • A new development - Kids Life & Times Survey of 11 year-olds [KLT] • Facilitates uptake of Northern Ireland Household Panel Survey • Surveys Online (SOL) gives access to information from other major non-government surveys • International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)

6. Online Research Bank (ORB) • Online searchable Bibliography of social policy research • Abstracts & links to research reports • Search by: • Subject • Group • Year • Author(s) Surname • Title of Document or Keywords

7. Elections • Online election results since 1973 (and before) • Definitive source for European, Westminster, Assembly, Referenda, local government by area • Prediction contests

8. ARK Research Centre • Technical and statistical support; including ‘high end’ and ‘low end’ training • Large scale projects involving all aspects of the research process • Small projects needing minimal research support and advice • Secondary analysis

9. Other outreach & dissemination activities • Seminar series, including a new critical social policy series • Lay-friendly Research Updates, occasional papers & fact sheets • ‘ARK in schools’ educational support material

10. ARK Social Policy Unit • New development sparked by post-conflict ‘civil society culture’ • Limited to Northern Ireland, but with British Isles comparative slant • Quantitative and Qualitative research • ‘State of the province’ publication in collaboration with government research bodies • Independent policy briefing documents • Planning a regular series of policy seminars/debates

11. CAIN – Conflict Archive on the INternet • Begin in 1996 • The definitive source for information and material on ‘the Troubles’ since 1968 • Very eclectic mix of material: chronologies; victims’ database; info on key issues & events; abstracts of organisations and ‘players’; political biographies; visual material; full text of documents; bibliography of the conflict; etc. etc. For example . . .

14. Qualitative Material on the Northern Ireland Conflict An online catalogue of material (interview transcripts, audio & video, photos etc.) of relevance to qualitative researchers

15. Two types • Academic material generated by social science researchers • ‘Lay’ material: • Large-scale ‘institutional’ archive material (e.g., BBC & UTV, Linenhall Library) • Material ‘accumulated’ by private individuals

16. Context Developments in recent years have transformed the political situation from its previous stalemate of non-democratic Direct Rule from London and ‘an acceptable level of violence’ to a hopeful situation of developing civil society institutions and the coming to adulthood of a generation that has no direct memory of the worst violence of ‘the Troubles’. Laudable as these development are, they do mean that there is a real danger that the experiences of the decades of violence will be lost from memory. Sectarian divisions and tensions still lurk beneath the surface in Northern Ireland and it would unfortunate to lose the hard-gained wisdom of the recent past. The N.I. Qualitative Archive is a catalogue of secondary sources and potential sources of material for qualitative analysis of the N.I. Conflict. In keeping with the philosophy of the ARK Project, the completed catalogue is unrestrictedly available to the public at no charge through ARK and takes the form of an online searchable database. 3

17. Searching the database Accessing the NI Conflict Archive As part of ARK, the Northern Ireland Conflict Archive can be accessed by going to the ARK website – www.ark.ac.uk and selecting NIQA from the ‘Explore ARK’ menu. Alternatively, the Conflict Archive can be entered directly by going to www.ark.ac.uk/qual/conflict. Both routes link to the searchable database. A example of the search web page is given below. The database provides for searches on four criteria: author/investigator; words in the title or abstract; a set of topic categories; year of research.

18. Search results A list of all holdings in the database that match the search criteria will be given. Here, the search has produced five entries.

19. A full entry in the database Clicking either on the Title or the ‘More’ box will bring up the full entry. (The Description field has been abbreviated to allow it to be shown on a single page). . . . continued ///

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22. Qualitative Archive on Ageism ARK has been exploring the placement of video interview material online. This has raised issues of access & confidentiality and their effects on each other.