"...or else, they lie around" Time, space and the everyday in post-independence Dublin

Sammanfattning: The overall aim of the essay is to understand the time and space of the everyday through a critical hermeneutical approach. Specifically, the analysis focuses on post-independence Dublin. Three theoretical conceptualisations of the everyday are discussed. Using the works of Martin Heidegger and Henri Lefebvre, an ideal everyday is conceptualised in terms of “dwelling;” the human appropriation of time and space. The concept of “dwelling denied” describes the disrupted everyday life of the modern Westphalian state. Then, a critical epistemological approach to the everyday as an existence in “non-synchronous” time and space is outline using Homi Bhabha’s “the unhomely.” The empirical analysis has two focal points: the Magdalen Asylums and Irish emergency legislation. The investigation of the infamous Magdalen Asylums describes the everyday urban temporality as time bifurcated: While time is “quarantined” and made into an eternity for the institutionalised women progression is made a feature of the new capital. In terms of spatiality, a reading of the Offences against the State Act 1939 in relation to urban politics and policing outlines how Dublin inner-city becomes moulded on the troublesome Northern Ireland and made into a space of “urban terror.”