Reimagining Culture by Sharon Macdonald

Author:Sharon Macdonald [Macdonald, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, General
ISBN: 9781000181401
Google: MEQHEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-05-15T03:50:41+00:00

Place and Community

The idea of belonging to a place is very strongly articulated in Carnan (as in the Highlands more generally, cf. E. Ardener 1989: ch.14). Visitors such as myself would be asked — often before we had been asked our names— 'Co as a tha thu?' — 'What place are you from?' It was a question which always threw me into a stuttering confusion. Where was I from? Having moved often it was not a question with an obvious answer. Sometimes I simply ventured 'England' but that was too unspecific. 'But where?' I would be pressed. 1 suggested 'Oxford', where I currently lived, but as I had only been there since becoming a student this was dismissed as the place where I was from. 'Where are your people from?' I was asked, but neither the place to which they had recently moved, nor any of the places which they had left, seemed to be of sufficient permanence to constitute my place of belonging. In the end it was my place of birth that seemed to come closest to what was required, though as I have no memories of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (which I left as a baby) nor any enduring connections with it (no relatives, no reason to return) I felt most uneasy when one man composed a song about it which he would sing whenever we met: Caisteal Nuadh. Caisteal Nuadh ...

Placing seems very important in local conceptions of identity —people must be placed—where you are from is a key part of who you are. These geographical locations are typically very specific: a particular township or island. Terms such as Sgitheanach, Leodhasach, and Niseach, which indicate individuals from Skye, Lewis and Ness respectively, are widely used; though for answering the question 'Where are you from?' they will often be specified further. Such placing typically locates individuals not just in a particular geography, but in a set of kin and neighbours. Locals often specify clearly where incomers are from — 'Sheila and Roy are from Oldham. Do you know it?' — partly, it seemed, in the hope of eliciting further information which could 'place' them more fully, but also as a reminder of their non-localness. For those versed in the genre, conversations which begin 'Where are you from?' move swiftly through a discussion of place, in which island is narrowed down to township, and then perhaps to the croft itself ('By the jetty?' 'Is that near the Wee Church?'), and draw in neighbours, relatives, church ministers, and perhaps tales of visits to the place. The place of belonging is, then, also a social network; it is the place of the family croft — passed down over the generations; the place to which relatives exiled to the mainland return for holidays, family weddings and funerals, and even to be buried themselves. Indeed, when I was trying to deal with the question about my own placing I was once asked 'Where will your remains go home to?' 'Place' is a place of return —an enduring location which outlasts all the sites in which a person may temporarily reside.

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