Fishing for Heritage: Modernity and Loss along the Scottish Coast

262 Pages·2003·0.82 MB·English

by  Jane Nadel-Klein

Fishing for Heritage
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Fishing for Heritage
Modernity and Loss Along the Scottish Coast
Jane Nadel-Klein
Oxford•New York
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First published in 2003 by
Berg
Editorial offices:
150 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JJ, UK
838 Broadway, Third Floor, New York NY 10003-4812, USA
© Jane Nadel-Klein 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means without the written permission of Berg.
Berg is an imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nadel-Klein, Jane, 1947–
Fishing for heritage:modernity and loss along the Scottish coast/
Jane Nadel-Klein.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN1-85973-562-2 – ISBN1-85973-567-3 (pbk.)
1.Tourism–Scotland–History–20th century. 2.National characteristics,
Scottish–History–20th century. 3.Historic sites–Interpretive programs–
Scotland–Public opinion. 4.Cultural property–Protection–Scotland–Public
opinion. 5.Heritage tourism–Scotland–Public opinion. 6.Scotland–
Economic conditions–1973– 7.Fishing villages–Scotland. 8.Public
opinion–Scotland. 9.Coasts–Scotland. I.Title.
DA867.5.N33 2003
941.1085–dc21
2002013469
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1859735622(Cloth)
ISBN 1859735673(Paper)
Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Wellingborough, Northants.
Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
1 Archetypes, Fantasies and Ethnographic Destinations 1
2 Stigma and Separation: Fisherfolk as a “Race Apart” 21
3 Fisher Lassies: Gender, Stereotypes and Marginality 51
4 Ferryden: Place, Power and Identity 93
5 Perpetual Crisis and the Making of the Fisherfolk 133
6 Fisherfolk under Glass? Memory and the Heritage Wars 171
Afterword: Scotland in the General and the Particular 213
Bibliography 221
Index 245
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Acknowledgements
This book has had a long gestation period. Many people have helped to
give it birth. My first thanks go to my husband, Bradley S. Klein, who, by
dint of loving, nagging, browbeating and encouraging me (as well as by
brewing endless cups of coffee) gave me the strength and persistence to
complete the task. He is also a ruthless editor. My next thanks go to my
dear friends and colleagues, Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington,
whose brilliant, patient and painstaking editing skills rescued me from
many blind alleys. Their courage has also taught me much about the
meaning of loss and resilience.
Others have also given very helpful critiques along the way, in part-
icular: Joan Hedrick, Margo Perkins and Barbara Sicherman, from Trinity
College, with whom I spent many productive afternoons as part of a
writers’ circle. With Dona Davis of the University of South Dakota, I have
had countless stimulating discussions comparing Scottish fishing com-
munities to those in Newfoundland and Norway.
I owe an incalculable debt to the fisherfolk of Scotland. Many people
in Ferryden, Anstruther, Pittenweem, Eyemouth, Buckie and Nairn endured
my questions with great patience and good humor. They have given
generously of their hospitality, time and information. I must particularly
thank members of the Buckie Heritage Society, the Nairn fishertown
museum, and the Scottish Fisheries Museum. In Anstruther, David Smith
and James Tarvit have been especially helpful in explaining the very
complex workings of a fisherman’s life. I thank them and also apologize
for never being able to keep straight the differences between a Zulu and a
Fifie. The errors and omissions here are mine alone.
I cannot find words to express my affection for and gratitude to James
and Olive Halliday of Broughty Ferry. They have been my true friends,
surrogate family and key interpreters of Scottish life and politics for
a quarter of a century. We have logged many miles on Scottish roads
together. Also, Sheila and Richard Suddaby of Buckie have been good
friends and hosts.
The research has been generously supported by grants from the National
Endowment for the Humanities; first through their Summer Stipend
program and later through the College Teachers Fellowship program. I
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Acknowledgements
must also thank the Faculty Research Program of Trinity College, which
has supported this effort with funding and leave time. In Scotland, I wish
to thank the following at the University of Edinburgh: the International
Social Science Institute for giving me office space and institutional affil-
iation; the Department of Social Anthropology (particularly Alan Barnard,
Charles Jedrej, Iris Jean-Klein and Jean Cannizzo) for their warm rec-
eption of a foreign colleague; and the School of Scottish Studies and its
Director, Margaret McKay, who gave me full access to the School’s
wonderful library.
In writing this book I felt the difficulty of my position as ethnographer,
knowing full well that, no matter how sincere and strenuous my attempts
to present my informants’ points of view as I think they would want them
presented, I have made mistakes and committed serious transgressions in
reflecting their views of truth. For this, I can only apologize.
Our daughter, Cory-Ellen, who almost became an anthropologist but
wisely chose instead to be a poet, endured many fieldwork absences
during her childhood, but also learned many obscure Scottish folk songs.
I dedicate this book to Brad and to Cory-Ellen, with all my love.
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Archetypes, Fantasies and
Ethnographic Destinations
“In Viking days they put all the social anthropologists to the sword”
Cooper, The Road to Mingulay
Introduction
Some might think a book on Scottish fishing villages to be a mite esoteric,
even obscure. How many could there be, after all, and why should we care
about them, other than as pretty places to visit on a holiday? I have spent
a quarter of a century studying these villages and the people who live
there, thinking about them almost daily. I have come to know many as
informants and some as friends, so I feel entitled to give an answer.
Actually, three answers.
The first is simply the one that any right-minded anthropologist or
humanist might give, that all people, “great and small,” deserve our
attention, not least because “human populations construct their cultures in
interaction with one another, and not in isolation,” as Eric Wolf said in his
preface to Europe and the People Without History (1982: ix). Fishers have
been part of the larger story of Scotland, Europe and the world beyond.
The second is that by studying Scottish fishing villagers we learn
something about the conundrums of modernity and perhaps of post-
modernity (should it exist); for in their histories and in their present
circumstances, they have experienced how capitalism can create and then
dismiss a way of life. Living in small places initially adapted to a small-
scale, decentralized industry, they now find themselves struggling to stay
afloat in a world run by much larger players. Adapting to these changes
over the years has given the fishers a toughness and resilience as well as
a sharply critical eye and tongue. As I have said elsewhere, they are not
about to watch their eclipse happen silently (Nadel-Klein 1991a). They see
themselves as survivors. They are not sure, however, what legacy they can
leave to their children.
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Fishing for Heritage
Thirdly, I also know, as an anthropologist, that ethnographic investig-
ation can teach us much about the experience of what it is now fashionably
called globalism. To understand the consequences of public attitudes,
policies, national agendas and transnational economic forces upon local-
ities, we cannot afford to look only at statistics on employment and
migration. We must remember Geertz’s exhortation that ethnography is a
“craft of place” (1983: 167) and look at – and listen to – people. The
fisherfolk are fabulous – and generous – storytellers who can teach us
much about survival, integrity and strength in the face of hardship. By
listening to them and by setting their tales in present-day, as well as in
historical context, we engage with memory as a tactic that builds and
rebuilds identity. For it is not just the body that must perpetually renew
itself; it is our sense of self, as well.
The best way to find local experience is to live with people in the places
they call “home.” My strategy here is to let my informants speak about
identity, time, place and community and to set their views against those
of “outsiders” as much as possible. In this way, I examine how Scottish
fishing people define themselves, how others define them, and how these
contrasting perceptions shape an ongoing, but rarely equal dialogue,
similar in many ways to that encompassing Highlanders, Celts, Gypsies
and others who occupy stereotyped and often stigmatized categories.
Identity-in-dialogue is a never-completed process, rather than an
object, so my book is historical as well as ethnographic. Stereotype, stigma
and, indeed, marginalization, have molded fishers’ lives. Scholarly,
popular and touristic descriptions have, each in their own way, contributed
to that marginalizaton. Nonetheless, the people of fisher communities
have managed to construct a positive sense of their own value. They do
not regard the past as something to be transcended or forgotten but as an
educational resource, a school of hard knocks that helps them to endure
modern burdens. For them, the past is not so much a foreign country (cf.
Lowenthal 1985) as a familiar attic in which they rummage at will, pulling
out bits and pieces that can be recycled for present use. These bits and
pieces are not randomly chosen, but provide evidence of a strategy of
negotiation in the face of long-term social stigma and economic struggle.
The rise, decline and transformation of Scottish fishing villages pro-
vides the book’s framework. Each chapter looks both at material circum-
stances as well as at different ways that fishers have responded to power.
In this first chapter, I introduce the intersecting layers of discourse, the
community imaginings in which fishers are embedded (Anderson 1983).
To reach the local level, so as to achieve an anthropological understanding,
we must move through the national; we are helped along the way by
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