How many Scotlands

1
How many Scotlands?
EATE Summer Seminar Pärnu, 2223 August 2007

• Ülle Türk
• Department of English, University of Tartu
• ulle.turk_at_ut.ee

2
Names

• Scotland
• derived from the Latin Scoti applied to Gaels of
  Hibernia what is now Ireland
• used only of Gaelic-speaking Scotland
• for all of Scotland common only in the Late
  Middle Ages
• Caledonia
• the Latin name given by the Roman Empire to a
  northern area of the island of Great Britain
• "Wooded Land
• now a romantic or poetic name for Scotland
• Alba
• the Gaelic language for Scotland
• used by the Gaels to refer to the island as a
  whole until roughly the 9th or 10th centuries
• the name given to the kingdoms of the Picts and
  the Scots

Activity 1
Scottish Songs 1
3
Facts and figures geography

• Area 78,789 sq km including the islands
• 787 islands, around 130 of them inhabited
• Size
• 441 km from north to south.
• From east to west from 38.8 km to 248 km.
• The overall coastline including the islands is
  10,000 km! (69 of the total UK coastline)
• Highest Point Ben Nevis 1,343m

4
Facts and figures geography

• Lowest point Loch Morar (310 meters deep)
• Longest river River Tay 193 km
• Shortest river River Morar 500 meters
• Largest Lake Loch Lomond 60sq km (40 km long)
• Average Temperature January 3ºC July15ºC
  (measured in Edinburgh)

5
Facts and figures population

• Population Around 5 million (Jan 2002)
• Density 64 people per sq km
• Languages English and Gaelic (1.4 )
• Capital Edinburgh

6
Facts and figures population

• Major cities and inhabitants
• Glasgow (580,000)
• Edinburgh (450,000)
• Aberdeen (210,000)
• Dundee (150,000)
• Inverness (65,000)
• Religions 3.3 million Christians
• Church of Scotland (Presbyterian)
• Scottish Episcopal Church
• Roman Catholicism
• Activity 2

7
Scottish Stories

• Benedict Anderson nation as an "imagined
  political community that is imagined as both
  inherently limited and sovereign"
• David McCrone Scotland is a landscape of the
  mind, a place of imagination.
• Gerry Hassan the eleven basic stories of
  Scottish history
• Enterprising Scotland
• this is the land of engineers, inventors and
  imagineers a nation which built bridges,
  railways and roads across the world.
• This is a rich territory which offers some of the
  most powerful archetypal Scots role models
  through the generations, such as Scotty, the
  engineer in the Star Trek TV series.
• Empire Scotland
• this is the Victorian and post-Victorian ideal of
  warrior Scotland, whereby Scottish regiments
  fought across the world for empire, imperialism
  and colonialism.
• This tradition exists to this day as Scotland
  continues to play a crucial role in the
  post-empire imperial tradition in Iraq and
  elsewhere.

8
Scottish Stories

• Enlightenment Scotland
• this is the Scotland of learned debate,
  intellectual enquiry, rationalism, and a belief
  in the power of ideas, logic and science.
• This is a Scotland connected to Unionist and
  Empire Scotland, inspired to understand the
  universe, but so nervous about its Scottishness
  that it tried to eradicate it.
• Educational Scotland
• the importance of the democratic intellect, the
  lad o pairts, the Kirriemuir career and so on.
• These add up to a belief that Scots education is
  part of an egalitarian Scotland where people from
  the most humble background get on.
• Calvinist Scotland
• the nation as Gods chosen country, shaped by the
  theocracy of the Reformation.
• This has percolated down through the years, and
  can still be seen today in the Scots sense of
  unease about sex, the body and emotions.

9
Scottish Stories

• Tartan Scotland
• the world of kilts, heather and tartan dress and
  symbols, and the Highlands as romantic, defiant
  and ultimately defeated.
• This is a problematic iconic story used to sell
  Scotland to the world, but filled with ambiguity
  and a sense of unease about the history invested
  in it, and its relation to modern Scotland.
• Kailyard Scotland
• an idealised backward rural society set in the
  nineteenth century based on a longing for the
  virtues of small town Scotland against urban
  industrialisation.
• In the twentieth century this was articulated by
  among others DC Thomson publishers and the Sunday
  Post newspaper.
• Divided Scotland
• this is the land of the divided self seen in Dr
  Jekyll and Mr Hyde, RD Laing and, more recently,
  Tom Nairns studies of Scots identity.
• This is a nation split between Highland and
  Lowland, Catholic and Protestant, heart and mind,
  euphoria and self-doubt, which pathologises
  itself into believing it has a schizophrenic dual
  identity.

10
Scottish Stories

• Collectivist Scotland
• this is the progressive Scotland which gave birth
  to Labours institutional dominance of Scotland
  for most of the twentieth century.
• An alternative version of this story is
  dependency culture Scotland the Thatcherite
  explanation for Scotlands resistance to its
  charms, which has more recently been adopted by
  Blairite New Labour.
• Unionist Scotland
• this stresses the benefits of the Union, and in
  its modern version emphasises the degree to which
  Scotland is subsidised by the rest of the UK.
• It also still draws on an older argument,
  questioning the capacity of Scots to govern
  themselves.
• Nationalist Scotland
• this rests on the Scotland Why Not? argument
  which is centred on the premise that Scotland is
  a nation, therefore it follows logically it
  should be independent.
• As Scottish identity has become more pronounced
  it has celebrated a negative story of who we
  are not, ie were not English, and a sense of
  anti-Englishness.
• Scottish Songs 2
• Activity 3

11
Stories for a future Scotland

• Labour minimalist devolution
• Labour holds on to its position as the leading
  party of Scottish politics despite the challenge
  of a more pluralist politics.
• It manages to restrain the potential of politics
  and the new institutions, and thus a minimalist
  devolution is characterised by the politics of
  continuity, rather than change.
• Post-nationalist Scotland
• the SNP explicitly abandons the idea of
  old-fashioned nationalism, and embraces a
  politics of shared sovereignty, governing in a
  devolved Scotland, and challenging Labours
  ossified version of social democracy, as well as
  its role as the nations leading party.
• Black and white Scotland
• this is the continuation of contemporary Scotland
  along the lines we have seen in the early years
  of devolution.
• This would continue to question the Scots
  ability to govern themselves, and encourage a
  blame and betrayal culture where cynicism and
  disillusionment are the norm.
• This is a self-perpetuating cycle which will
  bring about the doom and gloom thesis it is
  railing against.

12
Stories for a future Scotland

• Smart Scotland
• a marketised Scotland where the country is driven
  by the dynamics and logic of the knowledge
  economy, upskilling and egovernance.
• This Smart Scotland is a country fearlessly
  embracing change and flexibility, opening itself
  to globalisation and the international market,
  and aspiring as everyone does to be the new
  Finland.
• Adaptive Scotland
• a personalised Scotland of learning and
  listening, and evolving government, organisations
  and public agencies.
• Radical, innovative forms of public service
  emerge which are flexible, cross-cutting and
  championed by new practices of working,
  collaboration and leadership.
• New progressive Scotland
• this story embraces thematic ways of
  understanding Scotland and promotes a confident
  Scotland and the need for widespread cultural
  change.
• It stresses that for too long the Scots have put
  the emphasis on politics and politicians as the
  means of how to change the world. Instead of
  conventional programmatic methods, it emphasises
  health, well-being, status, self-worth and other
  subjective indicators.
• Activity 3

13
Scottish icons

• The Gaelic Language
• Some Facts 1
• The Thistle
• The Saltire Flag of Scotland
• St Andrew

14
Scottish icons

• The Honours of Scotland
• The Stone of Destiny
• Some Facts 4

15
Scottish icons

• Whisky
• The Burns Supper
• Some Facts 2
• The Scottish Kilt
• Scottish Tartans
• The Bagpipe

16
The Scottish Parliament
Holyrood Building officially opened in October
2004

• set up by the Scotland Act 1998 following the
  referendum of 1997
• assumed its full powers and duties on 1 July 1999

17
The Scottish Parliament

• 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs)
  elected for a fixed four-year term by the
  Additional Member System of proportional
  representation
• can produce primary and secondary legislation in
  the devolved matters
• Devolved matters most of the issues of
  day-to-day concern delegated to the devolved
  bodies
• health, education, justice, rural affairs,
  transport
• Reserved matters any powers which remain with
  the UK Parliament at Westminster
• Constitutional and international matters
• limited tax-varying powers of up to 3p in the .
• Some Facts 3

18
Education
19
Examinations

• Scotland has its own qualification system,
  administered by the Scottish Qualifications
  Authority (SQA).
• Standard Grade
• normally taken in the fourth year of secondary
  school
• courses in a wide range of subjects across the
  curriculum
• Higher Still
• a broad range of subjects, academic and
  vocational, at fifth and sixth year
• modular units may be taken on a free-standing
  basis or grouped together into courses at
  appropriate levels
• five levels - Access, Intermediate 1 and 2,
  Higher and Advanced Higher.

20
Universities

• 13 universities and one university college
• the four ancient universities founded in the
  medieval period
• University of St Andrews (1413)
• University of Glasgow (1451)
• University of Aberdeen (1495)
• University of Edinburgh (1583)
• Students studying towards Bachelor's degrees at
  Scottish universities study for 4 years
• graduating with an ordinary degree after 3 years
• a fourth year of study for a honours degree.
• Unlike the rest of the United Kingdom, Scottish
  students studying at a Scottish university do not
  have to pay tuition fees
• Some Facts 5
• Scottish Songs 3

21
References

• B Anderson, Imagined Communities reflections on
  the origin and spread of nationalism (London
  Verso, 1983).
• G Hassan, That was Then and This is Now
  Imagining new stories about a northern nation.
  In G Hassan, E Gibb L Howland (eds) Scotland
  2020. Hopeful stories for a northern nation
  (London Demos, 2005, http//www.demos.co.uk/publi
  cations/scotland2020book).
• D McCrone, Understanding Scotland the sociology
  of a stateless nation (London Routledge, 1992),
  p 17.

22
Useful sources

• Scotsmart (Scottish Directory of websites about
  Scotland, things Scottish or organisations based
  in Scotland http//www.scotsmart.com/index.html
• Rampant Scotland (for everything about Scotland)
  http//www.rampantscotland.com/index.htm
• Scotland Now (the quarterly online magazine of
  Global Friends of Scotland) http//www.friendsofs
  cotland.gov.uk/scotlandnow/issue-08/index.html
• Global Friends of Scotland (a dynamic showcase of
  the best that Scotland has to offer the world)
  http//www.friendsofscotland.gov.uk/

23
Useful sources

• Talentscotland.com ? About Scotland
  http//www.talentscotland.com/
• VisitScotland ? About Acotland(the official site
  of the Scottish tourist board)
  http//www.visitscotland.com/aboutscotland
• EatScotland (the VisitScotland guide to eating
  and drinking in Scotland) http//eatscotland.visi
  tscotland.com/
• Scottish Songs http//www.rampantscotland.com/son
  gs/blsongs_index.htm
• Cantaria (a library of "bardic" folk songs,
  mostly from Ireland, Scotland, and England)
  http//www.chivalry.com/cantaria/
• Scottish/Celtic Music An MP3 Compilation
  http//www.electricscotland.com/music/mp3_compilat
  ion.htm

24
Useful sources

• BBC Alba Learn Gaelic http//www.bbc.co.uk/scot
  land/alba/foghlam/learngaelic/index.shtml
• Education UK Scotland http//www.educationuksco
  tland.org/
• Quizzes Scotland http//www.funtrivia.com/quizze
  s/geography/europe/scotland.html
• Essential UK Destination UK Scotland (six
  classroom tasks) http//www.britishcouncil.org/la
  nguageassistant-scotland.htm
• Frosts Scottish Anatomy http//www.martinfrost.w
  s/htmlfiles/scottish_anatomy/anatomy_contents.html