Fiona Murphy
Fiona Murphy
Fiona Murphy (fiona.b.murphy@dcu.ie) is an anthropologist based in the School of Applied Language & Intercultural Studies (SALIS) in Dublin City University. As an anthropologist of displacement, she works with Stolen Generations in Australia and people seeking asylum and refuge in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Turkey. She has a particular passion for creative and public anthropologies and is always interested in experimenting with new forms and genres. She is the author of a number of short stories and creative non-fiction pieces. She is currently co-editing a volume which brings together cross-genre creative work in anthropology. She has also produced a short film with Maria Loftus entitled “Ordinary Treasures: Objects from Home,’ which asks people seeking refuge to speak about the objects they brought with them from home. She is co-author of Integration in Ireland: The everyday life of African migrants in Ireland (Manchester Univrsity Press: 2012) and you can listen to her Tedx talk on displacement here.
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Research
List of creative and public anthropology works:
Short stories:
Earl grey in Fiery Scribe https://www.fieryscribereview.com.ng/2021/07/earl-grey.html.
Murphy, F 2021, 'What Dreams May Come', Commoning Ethnography, vol. 4, no. 1. https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/ce/article/view/6648.
Creative non-fiction:
Murphy, F 2023 “Archives of Removal’ translated into polish for https://czaskultury.pl/english-issue/#:~:text=Currently%20%E2%80%9ECzas%20Kultury%E2%80%9D%20is%20a,%2C%20philosophical%2C%20ethnological%20or%20sociological.
Murphy, F 2022, 'Archives of Removal' Otherwise Magazine. https://www.otherwisemag.com/becoming.
Murphy, F 2022, 'Difficult Truths: Confronting Irish Industrial Schools' Sapiens. https://www.sapiens.org/culture/irish-industrial-schools-archives/.
Public Anthropology:
Roman, Raluca and Fiona Murphy. 2023. “Let's Talk about Sex Toys, Baby.” Anthropology News website, March 14 https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/lets-talk-about-sex-toys-baby/.
Murphy, F 2021, 'Songlines of Sorrow', Anthropology News, vol. Nov/Dec 2021. https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/songlines-of-suffering.
Murphy, F 2020, Irish State to seal records of Mother and Baby Homes for 30 years: Urgent call for action. Focaal Blog. http://www.focaalblog.com/2020/10/20/fiona-murphy-irish-state-to-seal-records-of-mother-and-baby-homes-for-30-years-urgent-call-for-action.
Murphy, F 2020, Beyond the Irish border: A plague on both my houses in the time of COVID19. The Familiar Strange. https://thefamiliarstrange.com/2020/03/27/beyond-the-irish-border/.
Murphy, F 2019, 'The Emerald Curtain: Four reflections on Brexit and borders on the island of Ireland', Anthropology News, vol. Nov 2019. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/11/15/the-emerald-curtain/.
Murphy, F 2018, Cooking and Protesting Direct Provision. RTE. https://www.rte.ie/eile/brainstorm/2018/0411/953660-cooking-and-protesting/.
Murphy, F & Chatzipanagiotidou, E 2016, Counting our Losses: Reflections from a Newton Fund/British Council Workshop on Loss and Displacement.. http://allegralaboratory.net/counting-our-losses-reflections-from-a-newton-fundbritish-council-workshop-on-loss-and-displacement-newtonloss/.
Murphy, F 2018, Anthropology at the Ragged Edge of Silence.. https://www.anthropologyofsilenceblog.com/articles/anthropology-at-the-ragged-edge-of-silence
Murphy, F 2018, Seeking Refuge in Northern Ireland.. https://www.rte.ie/eile/brainstorm/2018/0208/939200-seeking-refuge-in-northern-ireland/.
Murphy, F 2017, 'Refugees and Police Violence in Calais', Anthropology News. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2017/12/11/refugees-and-police-violence-in-calais/.
Murphy, F & Vieten, UM 2017, What life is like for asylum seekers and refugees in Northern Ireland. The Conversation.
Murphy, F & Vieten, UM 2017, Safe Return Plan for Refugees after Five years undermines idea of integration. The Conversation.
Murphy, F & Chatzipanagiotidou, E 2018, Combatting loss: refugees, employment and social entrepreneurship in Turkey. Open Democracy.
Murphy, F & Hogan, A 2017, The ethics and value of working with asylum seekers and refugees. QPOL (QUB). < http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/working-with-asylum-seekers>
Murphy, F 2014, Editor of Sustainability Thread for Allegra: A Virtual Lab of Legal Anthropology, Introduction http://allegralaboratory.net/introduction-thread-on-sustainability/. Allegra: A Legal Anthropology Blog. http://allegralaboratory.net/introduction-thread-on-sustainability/
Murphy, F 2012, Review of Maurice Godelier, The Metamorphoses of Kinship, Verso, in The Irish Times, Sat May 12th 2012. The Irish Times. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-ties-that-bind-us-1.519126
TEDx Talk:
Displacement is about all of us TEDx talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwFYBId9Uco
Film:
Ordinary Treasures: Objects from Home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAa3eWbU4DM
Podcasts:
Murphy, F 2020, Refugees and the pandemic. https://open.spotify.com/show/3GLKAmTIEyS8QQEkdoTtHs?fbclid=IwAR1T1_F32_7E4VgeqLHzF1VGqonT1PBb_SI3MFqJUSWJGUW6rT_xMsXE6Wo.
Chatzipanagiotidou, E & Murphy, F, Social Charter Podcast Series: Knitstanbul and Social Enterprise, 2020, Queen's University Belfast. https://www.qub.ac.uk/social-charter/SocialCharterPodcast/.
Edited Book:
In process with Eva Van Roekel “Ethnographic Shorts.” Palgrave Literary Anthropology Series
Conference:
The ethnographic salon with Eva Van Roekel and Alisse Waterston, EASA Belfast 2022. https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easa2022/p/12211
- Teaching
Writing silence through ethnography, intimate and otherwise
Fiona Murphy and Evi Chatzipanagiotidou (forthcoming 2024) in "The Creative Ethnographer’s Notebook” edited by Jacobson and Cahnmann
Abstract
This exercise focuses on how students might conceptualise and write silence in their ethnographic texts. Silence features large in our ethnographic encounters. Nonetheless, it is a challenging endeavour. Students are asked to write a dialogue with an intimate other (real or imagined) to think through the role of silence in writing. The writing of dialogue has many generative possibilities not least that it is an obvious space to reflect on voice/voicelessness. This exercise encourages students to consider whether dialogue is the best way of reflecting on anthropological encounters and narratives or if it also produces other silences.