CRCC member Itoitz Rodrigo-Jusué receives Vice-Chancellor Independent Research Fellowship
Our colleague and CRCC member, and member of the Media, Memory and History research group, Dr Itoitz Rodrigo-Jusué, has been awarded a Vice-Chancellor Independent Research Fellowship (VCIRF) for her project Memory and (in)security: Narrating the past, creating the future in the Basque Country.
Itoitz’s new research project will examine the impacts of recent memory initiatives on future (in)security in the Basque Country (Spain), where a period of politically motivated violence has only recently come to an end, and a divided society is currently facing important challenges concerning how to address the complex legacies of the so-called Basque conflict (1959-2018).
Itoitz’s project will investigate how memory work on past political violence(s) contributes to societal well-being and/or deepens existing divisions. Her research project stresses the importance of critically researching memory work given the salient role of commemoration globally. She developed her research project after carrying out a pilot study funded by the Early Career Researcher Fund at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities in 2023.
Itoitz’s project focuses on three key realms, which are the most significant public arenas for mediating cultural memory: Commemoration in the public space (i.e., memorials and museums in different towns and cities), education (i.e., new teaching materials and initiatives addressing past political violence), and representations of the past in fictional media. Itoitz’s research seeks to investigate how memory work in these three realms can promote inclusive commemoration and a culture of peace and coexistence (and thereby security) in a post-violent conflict scenario.
Bringing together the fields of memory studies and critical security studies, Itoitz’s project proposes an innovative way to investigate commemoration. Through a variety of research methods including (on site) interviews, participatory workshops, participant observation, and multimodal discourse analysis, her research seeks to offer new insights into debates on peacebuilding and transitional justice.
Itoitz will start her fieldwork in the Basque Country in September 2024. As part of her VCIRF, Itoitz is planning to publish peer-reviewed articles in journals across the social sciences and humanities, co-organise a one-day workshop at Loughborough University, present her work at national and international conferences, and develop external funding applications.
We wish Itoitz the best of luck with her project!
Itoitz completed her AHRC-Techne funded PhD on the imaginaries of radicalisation and counter-terrorism in the UK post-2005. She holds a master’s degree in Cultural Studies (Goldsmiths University of London) and in Feminist and Gender Studies (University of the Basque Country). Itoitz carried out her ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the SSSH, and she has recently worked as a Research Associate on a project on Tackling Online Hate in Football (TOHIF) at the SSEHS at Loughborough University. Itoitz’s interdisciplinary research focuses on popular culture, gender, political violence, politics of representation, commemoration, the analysis of everyday narratives, and social change. She has published in journals across the social sciences and humanities, including the European Journal of Cultural Studies, British Politics, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.