Description
This paper seeks to examine the ways in which myth and magic become written onto traumatic events, such as colonialism and oppression, across international relations. I argue that cultural myths often emerge as coping mechanisms to help societies think through, and process, previously unimaginable suffering. Taking the example of folklore across the island of Ireland, this paper examines the tales that took hold during colonisation and positions them as efforts to write certainty onto greatly uncertain times. Using Foucault’s genealogy, I analyse how a narrative of a capricious nature of magic emerged amidst colonisation and took hold, despite running directly counter to the deep institutionalisation of religion in society. Crucially, then, this paper seeks to present the layers of meaning and layers of experience that these myths and legends untangle and overwrite as a way of making sense of the senseless and as a way of coping with the horrors of invasion, oppression, and colonisation. In all, the paper seeks to trouble a singular reading of international relations and highlight the centrality of myths and mythmaking to the discipline.
