A Taste of Scotland?: Representing and Contesting Scottishness in Expressive Culture About Haggis

PhD diss., Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada (2011)

This thesis investigates the corpus of expressive cultural materials that have developed, over the past two and a half centuries, around haggis as a symbol and stereotype of Scottish ethnicity. Interpreting the dish as a key site of “the contention that is Scotland” (McCracken-Flesher 2002), I argue that these diverse cultural texts and traditions encode multiple and often competing representations of Scottishness as created and disseminated by both in- and outsiders. The thesis explores three strands within the expressive culture surrounding the dish. Firstly, it traces the emergence of haggis as a culinary stereotype of Scottishness within eighteenth-century English cultural discourse, as part of the caricature of the “beggarly Scot.” The exoteric construction of haggis as distinctively Scottish is contextualised as part of a much wider cultural phenomenon, whereby derogatory representations of their food and eating habits were used to stigmatise the Scots as England’s closest ethnic Other. The evolution of such stereotypes reflects the complex tensions inherent in Anglo-Scottish relations throughout this period. Secondly, I consider the motif of the grotesque body as a prominent theme within expressive cultural portrayals of haggis. Two distinct but interrelated manifestations of this theme are identified and discussed: 1) a preoccupation with the dish’s physiological effects on the bodies of its consumers; and 2) the frequent figuration of haggis itself as a grotesque body. I argue that in these depictions the dish acts as a culinary metaphor for the Scottish body politic, embodying competing conceptualisations of Scottishness as represented from esoteric and exoteric perspectives. Thirdly, I analyse the dish’s status as a contested symbol of Scottish identity among Scots themselves. I examine its role within the symbolic iconography by which Scotland has traditionally represented itself to the outside world, and its subsequent entanglement in debates concerning the authenticity and cultural legitimacy of such representations. These issues are further explored through a case study of the ritual that surrounds the dish in the context of the annual Burns Supper and other public celebrations of Scottishness.

Mummers on Trial: Mumming, Violence and the Law in Conception Bay and St. John’s, Newfoundland, 1831-1863

Published in Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures 3, no. 2 (2009): 70-88

This paper investigates the violence surrounding the custom of Christmas mumming as practised in the urban centres of Conception Bay on Newfoundland’s northeast coast, and in the island’s capital, St. John’s, in the mid-19th Century. Until recently, few contemporary accounts have come to light between the first known description of mumming-related violence in this area in January 1831 and the alleged murder of Isaac Mercer by mummers in the town of Bay Roberts in December 1860. This paper argues that the proceedings of several criminal trials involving mummers recently uncovered at the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador provide significant new evidence of a close relationship between mumming, violence and the law in Conception Bay and St. John’s during this period. The paper also explores the insights that the trial proceedings offer into the practice of mumming itself, the backgrounds of participants and the motivations underlying the violent incidents. In light of this new evidence, I argue for the need to re-examine the links that have been posited between mumming-related violence and the wider social, ethnic, religious and political tensions that affected life in mid-19th Century urban Newfoundland.

Performing Tradition and Ethnicity at the Newfoundland St. Andrew's Society Burns Supper

Published in Ethnologies (Journal of the Folklore Studies Association of Canada) 30, no. 2 (2008): 181-200

This article explores competing conceptualisations of tradition and ethnicity as they are enacted at an annual celebration of Scottishness in St. John’s, Newfoundland: the Newfoundland St. Andrew’s Society Burns Supper. It begins by discussing the significance attached to notions of maintaining tradition and celebrating ethnicity on the part of the event’s organisers and participants. It goes on to focus in depth on two performances by local poets and entertainers, Christopher and Michael Pickard, invited speakers at the January 2007 event. These performances are shown to encode markedly different attitudes towards tradition and ethnicity to those which underpin the celebration of the Burns Supper as a whole. Analysis of the Pickard brothers’ performances thus affords a valuable opportunity to investigate the tensions which are set into motion when these two competing perspectives confront each other in the context of an organised public event like the Burns Supper. It also helps to illuminate wider issues relating to tradition and ethnicity at play within the discourse of the event.

A Study of Scottish Gaelic Versions of'Snow-White'

Never Give Up the Ghost: An Analysis of Three Edinburgh Ghost Tour Companies

MA thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada (2005)

This thesis is a discourse analysis of three Edinburgh-based ghost tour companies: Mercat Tours, Witchery Tours and City of the Dead. It explores the attitudes, values and aesthetics of these companies and their construction and presentation of self-images to their audiences. It identifies key characteristics of the tours and links them to important themes in scholarship on contemporary tourism. Firstly, the construction of an ideology of authenticity within the Mercat Tours discourse exemplifies the model of modern tourism as a "quest for authenticity" (MacCannell, Tourist). In contrast, the light-hearted performance aesthetic of Witchery Tours reflects recent scholarship on postmodern- or post-tourism, in which tourism is seen as a playful game rather than a serious quest. Lastly, the case of City of the Dead offers an insight into the role of fear as a motivating factor in visits to tourism sites.