ARK has two qualitative archives based in Northern Ireland reflecting social and political changes and developments over the years. Please note that these archives have not been updated since 2012.

Qualitative Archive on Ageism

ARK has developed a small archive of in-depth interviews with older people looking at attitudes to ageing and ageism. The valuable information contained within these qualitative interviews complements the facts and figures produced by our other projects including: Attitudes to Older People, Grandparenting, Pensions and Pensioners and Older People in Northern Ireland, as well as the ARK Ageing Programme.

In this section you can view interview extracts from these interviews. Depending on the consent given by the interviewees, you can either listen to them, see them talking or read what they had to say. The extracts are ordered by subject areas, such as employment, family, health, housing, fear of crime, finance matters and entertainment. Click to view this section.

Qualitative Archive on Conflict

The conflict in Northern Ireland over the last 35 years has generated a vast body of qualitative material such as interviews, video and audio recordings, photographs etc. that can be utilised to address the issues of violence and reconciliation. Effective use of the bulk of this material, however, has been thwarted by its wide dispersion, much of it located outside Northern Ireland, and the lack of any central index or cataloguing system. The situation has been that some people may know quite a bit about some of the material but no one has a comprehensive overview of it all. This project will centre on:

• the collation of information about qualitative material covering the 35 year span of 'the Troubles' in NI (content, availability, recording format etc.) into a single catalogue;
  
• particularly in instances where the material is 'at risk' of being lost, the project will take steps to procure or copy the material and lodge it in the Qualitative Data Archival Resource Centre (QUALIDATA) of the Data Archive at the University of Essex.

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