Article published In:
Metaphor and the Social WorldVol. 4:2 (2014) ► pp.265–291
Migration as a metaphor for time
‘Dealing with’ the past and ‘dealing with’ the future
Two previous articles proposed the reframing of metaphors for metaphor and time in terms of migration as a device or tool for promoting public understanding. They addressed the difficulty in the social world of explaining the world of metaphor and the world of time (Lambkin, 2012, 2014). The latter was concerned with a particular difficulty of time: explaining how we access the world of the past and the world of the future from the world of the present. The concern here is with a further difficulty of time: explaining how, once ‘accessed’, we ‘deal with’ the past and ‘deal with’ the future. It is argued that a better understanding of the simultaneity of these two inextricably linked actions is important in the social world, especially in the discourse of conflict resolution when the tension between ‘dealing with’ the past and ‘dealing with’ the future is an intractable problem, as currently in the Northern Ireland ‘peace process’. The metaphorical representation of that tension is examined in a recent document of the Northern Ireland peace process (Haas & O’Sullivan, 2013) and in three other illustrative texts (Hughes & Hamlin, 1977; Giddens, 1999; Cameron, 2011). A proposal is made for reframing the phenomenon of ‘simultaneous pluralism’ or ‘plural singularity’ in terms of migration, as a way of promoting the public understanding of time in particular, and as an aid to resolving or ‘dealing with’ the tension between ‘dealing with’ the past and ‘dealing with’ the future when in the social world it becomes problematic.
References (59)
Adams, D. (1979). The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy. London: Pan Books.
Akenson, D.A. (2011). Ireland, Sweden and the great European migration 1815–1914. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. 
Arbaugh, G.E., & Arbaugh, G.B. (1968). Kierkegaard’s authorship: A guide to the writings of Kierkegaard. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Arkiv Group. (2014). Haas/O’Sullivan after Downey. [URL], accessed 13 Mar. 2014.
Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). Zero degrees of empathy: A new theory of human cruelty. London: Allen Lane, Penguin.
BBC. (2013). Richard Haas talks: Final proposal document published’. 31 Dec, [URL], accessed 13 Mar. 2014.
Bell, C. (2002). Dealing with the past in Northern Ireland. Fordham International Law Journal, 26(4), 1095–1147.
Bragg, M. (2014). States of matter. In our time. 3 Apr. (32–34 mins) [URL], accessed 20 Apr. 2014.
Cameron, L.J. (2007). Patterns of metaphor use in reconciliation talk. Discourse and Society, 18(2), 197–222.
. (2011). Metaphor and reconciliation: The discourse dynamics of empathy in post-conflict conversations. Abingdon: Routledge.
. (2012). Dyspathy: The dynamic complement of empathy. Living with Uncertainty Working Paper 5. [URL], accessed 13 Apr. 2012.
Cengel, Y.A., & Turner, R.H. (2004). Fundamentals of thermal-fluid sciences. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
Chambers, I. (1994). Migrancy, culture, identity. London: Routledge.
Corfield, P.J. (2007). Time and the shape of history. New Haven, CN & London: Yale University Press.
Crocker, C.A., Hampson, F.O., & Aall, P. (2004). Taming intractable conflicts: Mediation in the hardest cases. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.
Currie, J.R.L. (1971). The runaway train: Armagh 1889. Newton Abbot: David & Charles.
Clayton, P. (1996). Enemies and passing friends: Settler ideologies in twentieth-century Ulster. London: Pluto Press.
Consultative Group on the Past. (2009). Report of the consultative group on the past: Executive summary. [URL], accessed 17 Mar. 2014.
Elliott, J.H. (2006). Empires of the Atlantic world: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830. New Haven, CN & London: Yale University Press.
English, C.J. (1972). Leaving home: A typology of runaways. Society, 10(5), 22–24.
Fitzgerald, P., & Lambkin, B. (2008). Migration in Irish history, 1607–2007. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Frankis, P.J. (1973). The thematic significance of enta geweorc and related imagery in The Wanderer
. Anglo-Saxon England, 21, 253–269.
Gardner, H. (1972). The new Oxford book of English verse 1250–1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
. (1999). Runaway world: How globalization is reshaping our lives. London: Profile; see also [URL], accessed 23 Mar. 2014.
Gregoryantz, E., Lundegaard, L.F., McMahon, M., Guillaume, C., Nelmes, R.J., & Mezoar, M. (2008). Structural diversity of sodium. Science, 3201, 1054–1057.
Haas, R., & O’Sullivan, M. (2013). “Proposed agreement”: An agreement among the parties of the Northern Ireland Executive on parades, select commemorations, and related protests; Flags and emblems; and contending with the past. Belfast: available at: [URL], accessed 24 Jan. 2014.
Halpern, J., & Weinstein, H.M. (2004). Rehumanizing the other: Empathy and reconciliation. Human Rights Quarterly, 26(3), 561–583.
Harris, R. (1972; 1986). Prejudice and tolerance in Ulster: A study of neighbours and ‘strangers’ in a border community. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Hartley, L.P. (1953). The go-between. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
House of Commons. (2010). Northern Ireland affairs committee: The report of the consultative group on the past in Northern Ireland, Second session 2009–2010, [URL], accessed 17 Mar. 2014.
Hughes, K., & Hamlin, A. (1977). The modern traveller to the early Irish church. London: SPCK.
. (1981). Celtic monasticism: The modern traveler to the early Irish church. New York: Seabury Press.
. (1997). The modern traveller to the early Irish church. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
. (2013). The modern traveller to the early Irish church, [with a new introduction and further suggestions for reading]. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
Kirkup, J. (2010). David Cameron, Winston Churchill and broad, sunlit, uplands. The Telegraph, 25 Oct, [URL], accessed 10 Mar. 2014.
Lambkin, B. (2012). Migration as a metaphor for metaphor. Metaphor and the Social World, 2(2), 180–200.
. (2014). Migration as a metaphor for time: Past, present and future. Metaphor and the Social World, 4(2), 242–261.
Lanier, J. (2013). Who owns the future? London: Allen Lane.
Laslett, P. (1965). The world we have lost. London: Methuen, University Paperbacks.
Lovelock, J. (2007). The revenge of Gaia: Why the earth is fighting back – and how we can still save humanity. London: Penguin.
Lowenthal, D. (1985). The past is a foreign country. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
McCaughan, M. (2012). Titanic,icon of an age: An illustrated chronicle from design to disaster. Belfast: Blackstaff.
McGarry, J. (2001). Northern Ireland and the divided world: The Northern Ireland conflict and the Good Friday agreement in comparative perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McKittrick, D., & McVea, D. (2000). Making sense of the troubles. Belfast: Blackstaff.
Mitchell, G. (1999). Making peace: The behind-the-scenes story of the negotiations that culminated in the signing of the Northern Ireland peace accord. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
O’Neill, T. (1969). Ulster at the crossroads. London: Faber & Faber.
Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. (2005). A shared future: Policy and strategic framework for good relations in Northern Ireland. [URL], accessed 17 Mar. 2012.
Partington, A. (Ed.). (1992). Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rosenzweig, R., & Thelen, D. (1983). The presence of the past: Popular uses of history in American life. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rowan, B. (2014). How Haass talks got stuck in the political mud: Wordplay, toxic issues, arguments and despair. Belfast Telegraph, 4 Jan.
Shirlow, P. (2013). John Larkin’s call to draw a line under the past is not adequate, but repetitive arguments about the Troubles will not deliver reconciliation. Belfast Telegraph, 22 Nov.
Walker, G. (1995). Intimate strangers. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers.
Watkin, C. (2007). A different alterity: Jean-Luc Nancy’s ‘singular plural’. Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical Theory, 30(2), 50–64.
Weiss, R. (1969). The renaissance discovery of classical antiquity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
White, T.J. (Ed.). (2013). Lessons from the Northern Ireland peace process. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Whyte, J.H. (1990). Interpreting Northern Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Woodward, C.V. (1991). The old world’s new world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wright, R. (2005). A short history of progress. New York: Carroll & Graf.