Scot-Land?

…
1977
“The modern Scots can complain about what they are, in the sense of not liking it; but it
is mildly absurd of them to complain about lacking identity, in the sense of not being
different enough from everybody else. However ill to bear, the thistle can hardly be seen
as deficient in character.” Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain (rpt. 2003: 160)

1995
“When it comes to tourism, the Scottish tourist industry presents Scotland as a ‘land out
of time’ […]. Scotland is, currently at least, a stateless nation in which there is very little
direct democratic control over the means of its own cultural reproduction. Its capacity to
shape its representation is severely limited. Until such time as this is regained, then the
charge that Scotland exists simply as ‘land of dreamtime’ will remain.” David McCrone,
et al., Scotland – the Brand (200, 209)

2006
“Devolved matters (decided by the Scottish Parliament) include: agriculture, forestry and
fishing; education and training; environment; Gaelic; […]; tourism and economic
development.” How the Scottish Parliament Works (2)

“Scotland is the best small country in the world: a wonderfully varied and intensely
attractive country where visitors are met with a warm welcome and leave with a
collection of memories and a longing to return.” Scotland 06: Your Essential Guide

“Scotland is where you can follow your heart’s desire.” Scotland: Inspiring Places for
Special Times

“The ‘real’ Scotland is the people and the culture. […] Our land is not just the pretty
scenery, but the people who really live there.” Sales manager, Rabbie’s Trail Burners,
Edinburgh

“A lot of stuff is what people think about Scotland from films. It’s not even Scotland!”
Proprietor, Pride of Scotland Shop, Edinburgh

“I studied in Poland for a little while and was standing in a queue one day with a friend
from home when a man overheard us and asked, ‘So do Scotsmen really wear kilts, eat
haggis and play the bagpipes?’ Well, I thought of [my husband] and had to answer, ‘Yes,
yes they do.’ I think he was a little shocked.” Professional musician, Edinburgh
“I’m not British, and I don’t want to be called that. I’m Scottish—Scotland is my home,
nowhere else.” 18-year old Glaswegian, University of Edinburgh

“The ‘real’ Scotland depends on your perceptions.” Tour agent, Fredericksburg, Virginia

Edinburgh, 2006
As I write this it is late May in Edinburgh and the weather has turned chilly again.
On the Castle Esplanade the work crews are setting up spectator stands for the annual
Military Tattoo. Festival season is just around the corner while high season for tour
operators has already begun, and the number of visitors in the city seems to increase day
by day. Each of these tourists will see Edinburgh (and Scotland) differently. Their
travels, their expectations, even the weather (especially the weather) create a particular
lens through which they experience the city. How Scotland has been represented to them
prior to their visit is crucial. Those anticipating Highland bagpipes and tartans may be
gratified by the kilted buskers who play along Princes Street and the Royal Mile, while
those looking for a douce, literary Edinburgh may shun such sites and head north into
New Town. The truism that you generally find what you seek is particularly potent in
tourism, where the seekers have been encouraged and prepared by the sought. Even
internationally, Scotland is easily represented and recognised: thistle and heather, a
lochside castle, a piper. Symbols like these may be convenient ways of referencing
Scotland, of conceiving of the place quickly and easily, but they may also obscure and
distort the identity of a modern country. This concern lies at the heart of the Scottish
Culture Debate, a scholarly flyting1 that periodically spills out into the popular arena.
With devolution accomplished, discussions on what constitutes Scottishness may not
have the same urgency as before, but they still resonate in a country that is consciously
carving out a new identity. How Scotland is portrayed for tourism, how this portrayal is
received, and how the resulting image feeds back into mainstream Scottish culture remain
valid issues. Focusing on cultural heritage tourism (“travel concerned with experiencing
the visual and performing arts, heritage buildings, areas, landscapes, and special
lifestyles, values, traditions and events”2) in Scotland has allowed me to explore those
themes of collective identity and representation that make the Scottish Culture Debate so
potent. First, however, a bit of history.

A Look Back
1
Scots, “verbal joust”
2
Walter Jamieson, “Cultural Heritage Tourism Planning and Development: Defining the Field and Its
Challenges,” APT Bulletin 29.3-4 (1998) 65.
 Scotland has been a tourist destination since the latter half of the eighteenth
century, with the roots of modern tourism and tourist imagery rising out of failure of the
Jacobite Rising of 1745 to 1746. In the aftermath of that rebellion, the British military
occupied the Highlands, building roads and making maps of the region that would in time
be of benefit to visitors. With the leaders of the rebellion executed, imprisoned, or in
exile and with many of those involved having fled the country, the feeling that the
Highlands were a dangerous, seditious place ebbed away. The 1746 Act of Proscription,
which had prohibited the Highland dress inter alia, was repealed in 1782, and within two
years a Highland Society of Edinburgh was formed.3 Wars abroad in the later years of
the 1700s made Continental tours difficult, so would-be travellers looked to Scotland to
provide them with a taste of the foreign. In Scotland, specifically in the Highlands, they
found a fertile ground for their tourist gaze. The “Celtic”4 Other, now a tragic Romance
figure (as opposed to an extant threat), could be claimed and eulogized. By the turn of
the nineteenth century, the seat of rebellion was tamed; the Forfeited Estates Board, the
Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, agricultural Improvement,
and emigration had done their work. The British Army itself absorbed bagpipes and
tartan in the process of creating its famed Highland regiments. This rapidly changing,
increasingly depopulated region could now be used as a scrim against which fantasies of
wildness and wilderness were played. As Murray Pittock describes it, a “Tartan Curtain”
fell that “divided the new Scottish identity from the realities of both the national struggle
of the eighteenth century, and the current tragedy of the Highlands.”5
This “Tartan Curtain” is exemplified in the August 1822 visit of George IV to
Edinburgh. Sir Walter Scott orchestrated the event, deliberately setting a Highland
theme. Clan chiefs (now modern landowners and businessmen) were to bring clansmen
in full Highland dress with them, the people at large were encouraged to dress in tartans,
and George IV himself wore the kilt. The Museum of Scotland, in its Textile Trades
gallery, offsets a display of costumes from the visit with an anonymous quote from the
time, showing contemporary criticism: “Sir Walter Scott has ridiculously made us appear
to be a nation of Highlanders, and the bagpipe and the tartan are the order of the day.”
This visit provided the impetus for the creation and production of the tartans we know
today, which are rather questionably linked to specific families both Highland and
Lowland. With the accession of Queen Victoria and the beginning of the Royal Deeside
era in 1852, that idea of Scotland put forward by Scott and his fellows gained a new
standing in the eyes of the public. Highland imagery soon came to stand as shorthand for
3
Dr. William Gillies, “Gaelic Scotland after Culloden,” Celtic Civilisation, University of Edinburgh, 2 Feb.
2006
4
“Celtic” here is meant both in the linguistic sense, as Scottish Gaelic is classified as a Celtic tongue, and
the popular, as the term is often (erroneously) used for the British periphery.
5
Murray G.H. Pittock, The Invention of Scotland: The Stuart myth and the Scottish
identity, 1638 to the present (London: Routledge, 1991) 80.
the nation at large, ignoring the urban, often industrial lives, of a significant portion of the
Scottish people. This romantic imagining of Scotland, so typical of Victorian
sentimentalism, has persisted well into the twentieth century with the help of literature
(e.g. the Kailyard School), art (Landseer paintings), and—latterly—film and television
(Brigadoon, Highlander, Monarch of the Glen). One of the most influential sources of
modern imagery is the Scottish tourist industry.

Tourism in Scotland

In 1969 the Development of Tourism Act established the Scottish Tourist Board
(and thirty-five area tourist boards) with the purpose of attracting holiday-makers,
encouraging development of facilities, and coordinating tourism interests in Scotland. By
the 1990s tourism was estimated to be bringing in almost £2 billion annually and directly
employing 180,000 people, making it the country’s biggest employer.6 With the primary
aims of generating income and creating jobs, this organisation fell under the
responsibility of the Scottish Office Industry Department. Devolution and the
establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 brought reorganisation, and the Board,
now known as VisitScotland, is currently under the control of the Scottish Executive
Education Department. The core objectives of VisitScotland are to attract visitors, to
engage and work in partnership with the tourism industry, to add value to the visitor
experience, to provide strategic direction to the industry, and to manage their business
efficiently and effectively.7 Also coming under the umbrella of the Education
Department are cultural and heritage organisations including Historic Scotland, which
cares for and provides access to over 300 properties, among them some of the most
popular tourist attractions in the country. While the connection of heritage and tourism to
education has its roots in politics (the control of New Labour), it makes sense at an
operational level. The educational service provided for tourists at heritage sites can
simultaneously attract custom and enhance visitors’ experiences by creating a fuller
picture of a place or history.
Whatever its organisation, tourism in Scotland is big business. In 2005 more than
17 million tourists took overnight trips to Scotland, with the annual tourist expenditure
reaching over £4.2 billion. Tourism, employing an estimated 204,000 people for the
whole of Scotland, made up nearly 9% of all employment in the country. In some
regions, the percentage was even greater; 13.5% of employment in the Highlands, for
example, was tourism-related in 2004. Edinburgh and the Lothians, my base of
operations, held steady at 9%. While the U.K. remains, not surprisingly, the place of
origin for the majority (86%) of tourists to Scotland, the United States as the largest
6
David McCrone, et al., Scotland—the Brand (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1995) 78.
7
“About Us”
overseas market comes second.8 In Edinburgh itself, 27% of overseas tourist trips were
undertaken by Americans, who also accounted for 24% of overseas tourism expenditure.9
For Edinburgh and Scotland as a whole, overseas holidaymakers such as Americans were
more likely to visit heritage and cultural sites than U.K. holidaymakers. Just as their
business is crucial, their expectations are of some importance to the tourist industry.

Scotland the Brand

Tourism, like any industry, boils down to the basic principle of supply and
demand. Consumers, or tourists, demand a particular product which is accompanied by a
particular form of consumption. Since the product (the place) already exists, the tourist
professional’s job is to make it a saleable commodity by managing its image and
controlling access to it. Authenticity is an important driving factor in tourism marketing;
visitors want to believe they are getting “the real thing” even if “the real thing” is
carefully designed and constructed. In order to sell Scotland, the Scottish tourist industry
must first define it in a way that satisfies the demands of consumers for something unique
and authentic. In marketing terms, they must develop their brand.
“Scotland’s Brand Promise” is the result of research conducted by VisitScotland
from late 2001 to early 2002 and attempts to formulate Scotland’s attraction to tourists.
The main conclusion reached was that the Scottish brand can be represented by three key
words: enduring (buildings, architecture, history, culture and tradition), dramatic (scenery
and changing light and weather), and human (down to earth, innovative, dependable
Scots who are also full of integrity and pride). In this last category, the research
summary states, “The survey showed that people felt they got the genuine article when
they came to Scotland and that there was nothing synthetic about Scotland.”10 As we
shall see, the authenticity of the Scotland offered to tourists has been debated for well on
thirty years within both academia and the national media. The need to “create a clear and
almost irresistible image of Scotland in potential visitors’ minds” has led VisitScotland to
try to capture the intangible: the true spirit of Scotland, which is, they suggest, “awe-
inspiring rural and urban scenery; an ever-present sense of history; welcoming people,
passionate about and proud of their country.”11 Certainly there is little to offend in this
generalisation of Scottishness; after all the main objective of VisitScotland is to attract
visitors, and they can scarcely do that by declaring “Scotland: Really diverse and
interesting.” However, issues arise from tourism demanding a coherent, cohesive
Scotland when, as Anthony Cohen writes, “Anyone’s Scotland can be substantially

8
“Tourism in Scotland 2005”
9
“Tourism in Edinburgh and Lothians 2003”
10
“Scotland’s Brand Promise”
11
ibid.
different from anyone else’s.”12 In addition, the symbolization of Scotland—the
shorthand used to refer to something far larger and more complex—is a distillation of an
idea of Scotland that is not far removed from the romanticism of the Victorians.
As a case study of how Scotland is represented to tourists, an examination of
VisitScotland’s courting of the American market is useful. VisitScotland is keenly
interested in maintaining Scotland’s draw on American tourists and to that end conducted
focus group research in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and New York City during the
summer of 2003. The principal conclusions were, as follows, that the idea of interacting
with and even feeling like locals was a strong motivator especially given the special sense
of ‘kinship’ between Scotland and the U.S.; that while Americans have a positive
perception of Scotland they needed help in transferring those feelings into actions and
moving beyond ideas to an actual holiday; and that while landscape images alone would
not provide sufficient motivation, the distinctive “Scottishness” characterised by the
Scottish brand would. One of the more interesting statements resulting from this study is
that VisitScotland should “affirm the likelihood that [Americans] will encounter famous
icons of Scotland (kilts, bagpipes, castles), which they require to see” [my emphasis].13
As part of the focus group research, a collection of the “Top Ten Most Motivating
Images” was produced and a new advertising campaign (“Real Travellers”) was launched
(see below). VisitScotland has also implemented a programme by which travel agents
may receive a Scots Agent or Scotsmaster classification. Scotsmasters take a five book
course set by VisitScotland that covers history and attractions. Every April they are
invited to the ScotExpo (last year’s was in Glasgow) where companies try to attract their
and their clients’ patronage. Sweater sellers, castles for rent, wedding outfitters, tour
promoters, and many different regional interests are represented. Despite the wealth of
choices now on offer for those planning trips to Scotland, the things “everyone wants to
see [are] pipe bands, Scottish dancing, and Highland Games.”14
In marketing Scotland the brand, the Scottish tourism industry relies heavily on
those “famous icons of Scotland” that accompany the preconceptions many tourists have
of the country. One tour operator said that people come looking for what they see in
films or on the television: mountains, hills with heather, Nessie, and Braveheart. Still,
she felt that whatever brought them to Scotland, once they got off the main roads, they
would experience and appreciate Scotland on the same level as locals. While a few of the
coach tours I collected information on emphasized the local human element, all still
relied on tried-and-true pitches: “Monarch of the Glen Country,” “Castle and Whisky

12
Anthony P. Cohen, “Personal Nationalism: A Scottish View of Some Rites, Rights, and Wrongs,”
American Ethnologist 23.4 (1996): 805.
13
“United States Campaign,” VisitScotland (or ScotExchange?), Marketing, DATE, VisitScotland, 16 June
2006 <http://www.scotexchange.net/marketing_opportunities_main>. Check internet address
14
Richard Schwartz, personal interview, 16 June 2006. HOBSWAM THE INVENTION OF TRAD.
Country,” “Highlander, Rob Roy and Mary Queen of Scots,” “Monster Hunting at Loch
Ness,” and “Quest for the Holy Grail” (admittedly a more recent addition but fast gaining
in popularity with the release of The Da Vinci Code). It may be hoped that the
importance is in actually getting people out into the countryside to see Scotland for
themselves. However, the narration given by the tour guide, the size of the tour, the
chances given to get off the coach and explore, and the route itself have a significant
impact on the perceptions formed by visitors. Furthermore, tours of the Borders,
Lothians, Fife, and other more southerly parts were mostly neglected by these companies.
The pictures chosen for tourist publications are a prime example of how images
can be message-bearing entities. In 1995 John and Margaret Gold came out with
Imagining Scotland, which contains a detailed description of what they considered to be
the most frequently used images in travel brochures. Eleven years on these descriptions
are worth taking another look at. Since the book’s publication, the tourism industry has
continued to grow and its reorganisation under the Scottish Executive is particularly
important. Would the photography reflect this new Scotland, a growing modern country
with its own devolved government? Would the centralising tendencies of VisitScotland
(from thirty-five area tourist boards to fourteen regional boards which have recently been
subsumed under the control of the main organisation) be reflected in more coherent, less
parochial imagery? Or would the same images of isolation and wilderness prevail?
Helped by the staff at the Edinburgh & Scotland Visit Centre, I amassed a representative
collection of the publications currently on offer. These ranged from leaflets touting local
Edinburgh tours to glossy booklets advertising the entire country. In the Golds’ book the
clichéd shots identified were (with my comments and modern photographic examples):
-Photographs of hills and distant mountains, invariably in warm summer colouring.
Although there may be mists or striking cloud effects, the scenery usually seems accessible to the
casual hill-walker rather than that which would challenge the dedicated mountaineer. The terrain
is inviting, never menacing. [These shots remain popular. Scotland’s scenery, particularly
the dramatic Highland region, was a motivating factor for the visits of several tourists I
talked with. Edinburgh is the staging zone for a large number of bus tours that take
visitors into the North. The scenic routes taken by these buses present a selective vision
of a landscape into which few day-trippers will actually venture.]
-Two walkers, one male and one female, admiring a sunlit panorama of mountain and
glen. In line with the theme of accessibility, they look more like car-travellers than serious hikers
or ramblers. Although both are wearing suitable clothing (light walking boots, sweaters), they are
not unduly encumbered by rucksacks or waterproofs. The male, who is the dominant figure in
the composition, clutches binoculars or, somewhat incongruously for the 1990s, a walking stick.
He stands slightly in front of his companion and points authoritatively at an item of interest in the
far distance. She gazes appreciatively in the appropriate direction. Some thistles in full bloom in
the foreground are an optional extra.
 -A solitary piper, in full regalia, either playing the bagpipes or with the pipes resting on
his shoulder. He stands on the brow of a hill, knee-deep in purple heather or a thick textured
grass. A light breeze is sufficient to cause the vegetation to undulate gently but is clearly not
strong enough to disrupt proceedings. [I found no shots of this sort in my sample. Pictures
of massed pipe bands or of other musical gatherings were common. Such photos
emphasize accessibility and feed into the desire of blending in or “going local.”]
-A building (normally a highland castle or white-walled thatched croft-house), situated by
the lochside. A rowing boat is usually moored at the water’s edge to give foreground interest, but
the view lacks any other sign of human habitation. The scene is usually illuminated by a bright
shaft of sunlight, but dark-toned skies suggest shelter and warmth in the face of an imminent
storm.
-Deserted Hebridean shore pictures, which come in two versions. The first type are wide
angle shots taken from a low angle of regard. They reveal endless strands of shimmering white
sands lapped by gentle waves. Some strands of kelp, shells or a small rock in the foreground help
to lend a sense of scale. The other version consists of higher-elevation, contre-jour pictures of
rock- and island-strewn coasts shot against a vivid west coast sunset.
-Golfers on a coastal links course. Driving off from a tee adjacent to the ocean, they stare
intently into the distance to watch the flight of a ball driven impeccably by one of their number.
Tartan trousers or tartan fabrics on a golf bag are a common additional referent. [Golf is more
popular than ever, but it is also just one of the many recreational options advertised in
tourist brochures. Visitors hike, bike, go surfing, sail, row canoes, and do a myriad of
other athletic, outdoorsy activities. Although I am not interested in the marketing of
adventure holidays or the like, I will point out that the photos of these recreational
tourists show the activity itself as a way of accessing a landscape that appears cut off
from modern civilisation.]
-A ‘fishing picture’, either a solitary angler dressed in waders fishing in a Borders salmon
river or the brightly painted prows of fishing boats moored in line at the quayside of a highland
fishing village. The latter normally shows a clutter of fishing tackle lying on the quay and often
hints at the bounty of the sea (e.g. a lorry being loaded with crates or a fisherman showing a live
lobster to an admiring tourist). [While similar pictures are still found today, many fishing
village photos focus on quaint, quiet decay. This is more in line with the reality of life
along the coasts today.]
-The profile of Edinburgh’s Castle and Old Town, taken either from the Prince’s Street
Gardens or from Calton Hill. Unwanted detail, such as the roofs of Edinburgh’s Waverley
railway station and its associated tracks, is normally filtered out by choice of lens, camera angle,
or careful foreground screening. 15
“Natural Scotland” pictures, where only ruins or a visiting couple in the foreground
might hint at a human presence, remain popular. Scotland the wild, Scotland unchanged:
the creation of the landscape—be it through crofting, droving, forestry, or hunting—is
15
John R. and Margaret M. Gold, Imagining Scotland: Tradition, Representation and Promotion in
Scottish Tourism since 1750 (Aldershot: Scolar, 1995) 5-6.
obscured. Furthermore, if one is to believe the literature at the national level, Scotland is
a country with two cities (Edinburgh and Glasgow), a few hamlets dotting the coasts and
isles or nestled near inland lochs, and plenty of rolling green hills. On the positive side,
urban life plays a more important role in advertisements than previously, even if it is
limited to the Festival City and its rougher neighbour to the west. This trend, perhaps
responding to focus group research [see American Top Ten Motivating Images below],
does help counter criticisms that tourism portrays the areas inhabited by only a small
percentage of Scots where the society is quite different from the rest of the country’s.
Also, regional advertisements do a good job of focusing on the individual charms of
places like Fife and Dundee instead of replicating clichéd themes. Overall, however,
contemporary tourist publications are not free of those representations of Scotland which
have provoked such controversy among the social sciences.

The Scottish Culture Debate

Although, as noted above, grumblings about the image of untamed, tartan-

wrapped Scotland have been heard for quite some time, it was not until the twentieth-
century came that a debate developed. While George Scott Moncrieff fussed about the
“deadening slime of Balmorality” in his 1932 volume Scotland in Quest of Its Youth, the
true start of the discussion came in the 1970s with the work of the Marxist-nationalist
academic Tom Nairn.16 The seventies saw questions of political and cultural identity
brought to the fore both as a natural follow on from the folk revival and as a response to
discovery of oil in Scottish waters; support for the Scottish National Party increased
through the decade. Amid this atmosphere 1977’s The Break-Up of Britain received a
good deal of attention from the media. In it Nairn writes on the “tartan monster” and
complains that
The popular consciousness of separate identity, uncultivated by ‘national’
experience or culture in the usual sense, has become curiously fixed or fossilized
on the level of the image d’Epinal and Auld Lang Syne, of the Scott Monument,
Andy Stewart and the Sunday Post—to the point of forming a huge, virtually self-
contained universe of Kitsch.17
The worry was that the dominant image of Scotland in essence emasculated the country
politically and reproduced its inferiority within the United Kingdom. Over ten years later
Craig Beveridge and Ronald Turnbull would advocate an “attempt to recover and re-
assert alternative images and discourses: ways of conceiving Scottish history and culture

16
Dr. Gary West, “Inventing Tradition: Tom Nairn and the Scotch Myths School,” Scottish Ethnology,
University of Edinburgh, 16 Jan. 2006.
17
Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism 3rd ed. (Altona, Victoria: Common
Ground, 2003) 150.
which do not and could not service external control […].”18 By this time Barbara and
Murray Grigor’s Scotch Myths exhibition, which showed tourist products and the like, at
the 1981 International Festival had brought further attention to the “awfulness of national
popular culture.”19 Tartantry and parochial “kailyardism” were condemned as a cultural
hegemony that had infiltrated Scotland and made the Scots into parodies of themselves.
These images, from the Nairn school of thought, paralyzed contemporary social criticism
and enfeebled a Scotland that needed to take its place as a nation. Some scholars
advocated the adoption of new “themes” such as gritty clydesidism; others argued for
academics to shake “the people” out of their “opiated” complacency.
What such viewpoints failed to account for, however, is the reception and creation
of these representations. “The people” are not passive recipients of their society but in
fact actively create it. Indeed in the postmodern era the question arises whether a
national culture can be described at all. A lecturer with the School of Scottish Studies
described the Braveheart, Rob Roy brand of Scottishness to me as an invented history
that resonated with the population pre-devolution because Scottish history was such a low
priority in schools. He felt that the embellished histories and invented traditions
(Highland Games, for one) are used to characterise Scotland currently could diminish, at
least among Scots, regional and local identities and histories. Another sceptic of current
culture is David McCrone who writes that any “search for a truly Scottish culture is
inevitably retrospective and romantic, a celebration of the past.”20 But if Scotland is to
stand as an independent entity it must define itself in terms of the present and the future
as well as the past. It is towards this end that the questions and scrutiny of the Scottish
Culture Debate remain useful. Examining tourism has allowed me to explore these
issues, both in print and, more importantly, through experience.

The Streets of Edinburgh

Edinburgh, as the seat of the Scottish Executive and Parliament and the hub of
tourism activities, has proved an excellent “field” location for my research.
Advertisements for tours are available up and down High Street, brochures and advice
can be had from the Edinburgh and Scotland Visit Centre on Princes Street, tours are
always running at the principal attractions, and there are plenty of shop owners and
tourists to talk to. Additionally, having studied at the University of Edinburgh since last
September, I have access not only to its excellent library but to its staff as well. Their
thoughts and theories have greatly informed my work on the subject.

18
Craig Beveridge & Ronald Turnbull, The Eclipse of Scottish Culture (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1989) 1.
19
ibid. 13.
20
McCrone, 70.
 The Royal Mile stretches from Edinburgh Castle to the new parliamentary
buildings and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. A few blocks south of the Mile, on
Chambers Street, lies the Museum of Scotland, which is designed to show Scotland to the
world. These four locations describe Scotland and Scottishness in very definite terms.
The Castle, a British Army possession, retains a grip on the sort of bloody militarism that
characterises the clan and broadsword, Bonnie Prince Charlie view of history. Kilted
private guides regale visitors with the exploits of Scotland’s brave regiments, and tourists
crowd together to watch the firing of the one o’clock gun because, as one remarked, “it’s
tradition.” The convoluted path to the Honours of Scotland takes visitors on their own
adventure past life-size tableaux of important moments in Scottish history, so that one
may come “face to face” with kings, conquerors, and even Sir Walter Scott before
reaching the crown jewels and “another powerful Scottish National [sic] symbol, the
Stone of Destiny.”21 Still, the site itself affords an excellent view of the city from the
Pentlands to the Forth and the hills beyond. At the bottom of the Royal Mile, genteel
Balmorality (Victorian royal romanticism) is the theme at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
This royal residence features lavish furnishings and sports many portraits of the monarchs
who have ruled over Scotland. In the gift shop tartan and gold tone accentuate royal
monograms and the general feeling is sedate. The history and grandeur of the palace
make it a popular destination for international tourists, but for the Scots I know the
monarchy and its paraphernalia are irrelevant to their definition of themselves or their
country. Across the street, almost as if in defiance both geographically and
architecturally, the Scottish Parliament complex emanates an angular, modern energy.
Scottish landscapes (e.g. concrete twigs), heritage (upturned boats), and history
(important quotations) are referenced in its buildings, which—for all that they are reviled
—do communicate a sense of accessibility as well as of activity. The Museum of
Scotland is also a contemporary building that reinvents traditional images and forms.
Dominated by a keep-inspired tower, the museum has modern takes on circular stairs,
arrow slits, bridges, and chapels. Here the emphasis is on the diversity of Scotland’s past,
an important message when the Scottish Executive is actively promoting the idea of “One
Scotland, Many Cultures.” For one tour guide, the museum’s display of everyday items
also balances out the masculine ruggedness of the typical tourist image. He cited a
nineteenth-century creel as “the most important item in the museum,” because it
showcased the strength and industry of Scottish women, who are often absent from
histories (excepting queens and saints). A professor of mine at the University of
Edinburgh did criticise the museum’s representation of Scotland as giving short shrift to
immigration and emigration, while a tutor noted that object arrangements, especially in
the Early Peoples gallery, often obscure differences in regional histories. However, both
the Museum and Parliament offer depictions of Scotland and Scottishness that are
21
Brochure, Edinburgh Castle: The Jewel in Scotland’s Crown, Historic Scotland, 2006.
commensurate with the country’s current standing but have yet to find their way into
tourist publications.
In contrast, the souvenir shops along the Royal Mile and Princes Street showcase
the worst excesses of the “tartan monster.” From Nessie Droppings to tartan decorated
whisky bottles, endless variations of mawkish or “what’s under your kilt” items are
available. These shops are difficult to ignore, both because of their sheer number and
because of their tendency to play bagpipe music discs quite loudly. Many have items
spilling out onto the pavement as well so that travelling down from the Castle to
Holyrood may entail avoiding baskets of kilted sheep. Certainly these products have
their humorous side, and can be bought for fun; several international students picked
them up for just that purpose. The shop employees also tend to keep a light view of
things. One lady remarked, “You don’t have to like the stuff to sell it. What matters is
what the customers like,” and another affirmed that there are definitely some items she
wouldn’t want to live with. It does seem, though, that the Scotland being bought and sold
in the souvenir shops is the one stuck in an identity rut, all “Skye Boat Song” and silly
“Hielan’ Coos.”
Dismissing the joke items (for no country should be judged on the cheapest of its
souvenirs), I’ll focus on the ever-popular clan-related items. The proprietor of the Pride
of Scotland, one of the larger stores on Princes Street, stated that most of his customers
came from America and were of Scottish descent . American pipe bands were
particularly big business, and the past year, when the World Pipe Band Competition had
been held in Edinburgh, had been quite profitable. So far nothing surprising: Americans
were top customers for the tour companies I talked with as well. Interestingly—and this
held true for tour organisers—London-based Scots were also an important source of
custom for tartan-related goods. To quote: “They want reminders of where they come
from. So that’s why we carry a lot of clan stuff.” Instead of being merely representative
of tartanry, balmorality, and the other “diseased” portions of Scottish culture (as the
Nairn School would have it) stereotypical clan-related items serve a symbolic purpose
that takes them beyond the tourist image. However dubious their historical origins, clan-
linked tartans have come to represent (for tourists and for Scots) family, history, and
heritage. This explains why, while not the everyday kit of your modern Scotsman,
family-tartan kilts emerge at fancy dinners, weddings, and other shows of status and
standing (maybe, just maybe, including the multi-coloured, stereotype-bedecked Tartan
Army who root the national football team on to infrequent glory. But they are a topic in
and of themselves).

Collective Identity in a Small Country

 So, how does all this affect Scottish identity? Is Scottishness being overwhelmed
by a sea of stuffed sheep and ceramic Nessies? In a word, no. These things are part of
what Scotland is. Any country is a conglomeration of the extraordinary and the
embarrassing, the breath-taking and the brutal. Stereotypes, for all their evil potential, are
also ways of laughing at ourselves. “Hot-Shot Hamish” may seem a throwback to a
different era with an outmoded view of Scotland, but the cartoon still appears in the
Sunday Mail. Something about it remains relevant, if only in a humorous sense. And
what of the simplifications and constructions of the tourist industry? Are they really
poisoning Scottish culture? Not poisoning Scottish culture, but perpetuating a deceptive
image of Scotland that plays into some basic desires of tourists. However, while I have
focused on the clichés, there are signs that in tourism the image of Scotland is changing.
Scotland is being sold to new, often more sophisticated and better informed, markets. It
has become profitable for the tourist industry to expand their traditional repertoire of
images and ideas to accommodate these demands. It is also likely that many of these
changes have resulted from the general debate surrounding Scottishness. In an online
article published July 5, 2006 the Scotsman asked whether “we ‘fake it’ for the tourists
[…].” Concluding that so long as a balance was maintained between the real and
imagined Scotland there was no real harm done (especially as “tourist tat” brought money
in), the piece attracted forty-three comments before it was closed. Most stressed the
importance of locality and dismissed the souvenir shop Scotland as annoying but
unimportant to their lives.22 In conceiving of Scotland, the difference between
VisitScotland and the man on the street lies in how each constructs the nation.
Nations truly are “imagined communities,” as Benedict Anderson suggests,23
constructed out of the raw material of history, landscape, language, traditions, and other
social facts. Where VisitScotland and other organisations fail in defining Scotland is in
their inability to stop defining Scotland, to stop summarising and packaging and to,
instead, recognise the diversity of regions and lifestyles that constitute today’s Scotland.
As Anthony Cohen wrote in his essay on personal nationalism,
It is to say, ‘I am Scottish,’ when Scottishness means everything that I am; I
substantiate the otherwise vacuous national label in terms of my own experience,
my reading of history, my perception of the landscape, and my reading of
Scotland’s literature and music, so that when I “see” the nation, I am looking at
myself.24

22
Robert Bain, “Do we ‘fake it’ for the tourists?,” The Scotsman, 5 July 2006, Scotsman.com Business, 5
July 2006 <http://business.scotsman.com/media.cfm?id=976482006&format=print>.
23
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
(London: Verso, 1983).
24
Cohen 805.
This is why the tourist image of Scotland, no matter how false, will ultimately have little
effect on the way Scots view themselves. People construct their identities by referencing
their own experiences of Scotland, their daily lives, families, and friends. In turn,
collective identity will always be a combination of individual viewpoints. This Scotland,
an intangible, evolving thing, is something that cannot be sold.