Kirk Simpson

Kirk joined the Transitional Justice Institute as a Post Doctoral Research Fellow in February 2006 and later took up a Lectureship position in the School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy.. He graduated from Queen's University Belfast (QUB) in 1998 with a BA (Hons) in Politics and Modern History. After gaining a PGCE (Politics) in 1999 at Queen's, he studied for a PhD also at QUB. He graduated in 2002 with a PhD examining the interaction between citizenship education and identity in Northern Ireland (with a particular focus on Habermasian theory). Before joining the TJI he was Research Fellow at the School of History and Anthropology QUB. Kirk is interested in qualitative social and legal research methods, in particular the use of phenomenological and critical methodologies that enable nuanced examinations of complex issues pertinent to transitional justice and truth recovery. He is a member of the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA).

Research Interests

Kirk’s research at the TJI involves work on Transitional Justice, ‘Victim-hood’ and Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland. The aim of this research is to more fully understand the complex relationship between contested notions of political, social and legal ‘justice’ and lasting, durable peace in Northern Ireland amongst both unionist and nationalist victims of political violence. He is examining the ways in which the communicative consensual model of conflict resolution and the definition of ‘truth’ (factual, normative, truthful) offered by Jurgen Habermas can be applied in the case of Northern Ireland, in order to assist the transition from conflict to stable democracy, justice and peace; and how this theory informs understandings of the relationship between justice and peace not only in Northern Ireland, but in other transitional justice contexts in which political violence has created an unstable legal and political landscape. Kirk's research also focuses on interpretations of the past, and on examining the manufacture of conformist narratives in post-conflict societies that restrict the possibility of counter hegemonic discourse. This research involves theoretical analysis of the importance of language reclamation and dialogue in transitional societies, and examines the problems inherent in the manipulation of history in the post-conflict context. More recently, Kirk's research has concentrated on unionists in Northern Ireland, in particular their attitudes to remembering the past, truth recovery, and their memories of the conflict. This research has been supported, in part, by the award of a Small Research Grant by the British Academy.