The Norwegian Scots is all about the construction and negotiation of Orcadian (Orkney Islands) identity through the performance of stories about self and place. The Orkney Islands lie just off the north coast of Scotland, and their citizens assert their identity as distinct from both the Scots on the mainland to the south and the Shetlanders in the islands to the north. The islands themselves bear strong traces of influence from layers of settlement: Picts, Vikings, Scots, and others, dating from the Neolithic era. Scandinavian place names—including island names ending in—ay and frequent use of the word holm (Old Norse “island” and “islet,” respectively) permeate the region, while Scandinavian family names reflect the same set of influences from the far north. Yet the Orcadian identity is based at least partly on what the islands and their residents are not, and on how they came to be that way.
The six chapters of The Norwegian Scots begin with a historical survey of the islands in chapter 1. From the past among the megalithic peoples and folk of mythology to the present status of the islands as a tourist destination, the Vikings were clearly just one of the major groups to pass through the islands. Chapter 2 explains the term “bigsy”—arrogant, a negative value in the islands—and notes the local importance of stoicism. Language is the focus of chapter 3—its use in Britain, the impact of the media, what issues crop up in relation to authenticity, and other features. Heritage—in chapter 4—is branded, cited, remembered, defined, and commodified. The heart of the book, “Belonging: Orkney Identity, Orkney Voices,” identifies in chapter 5 what it means to be of and from the islands; to be Scottish and Norwegian, or more than just not Scottish. A very brief conclusion summarizes the arguments and focuses reader attention on the “stateless nation” of Orkney.
One of the main features of Orcadian identity has been its relative stability in relation to the upheavals of the islands to the north—in which Shetlanders frequently worked in far-flung regions like the north Canadian woods—and to the Scottish mainland, which has seen change and development outstrip its collective self-image. In holding onto one of their central systems of communication—the collective use of the tools of social isolation to reinforce local standards of behavior and to keep incomers at bay—the Orcadians simultaneously strengthen their sense of difference and outsider status in relation to the rest of Scotland. The stories they tell about themselves are further enhanced through their assertion of difference in linguistic dialect from that of other areas as well as their full participation in the mythologizing of Orkney as a separate and magical place.
Using anthropological and folkloric models to develop his analysis, author Michael Lange spent time in the Orkneys engaging in classic participant-observation fieldwork. He interviewed fifty-eight inhabitants of the islands, eliciting stories, joining in social events, and building his own social networks. The resulting tone of the study is very personable, and often written in first-person present tense, as in “my host bustles into the kitchen to retrieve the tea and sweets that are an automatic part of entering a Scottish home” (24). Furthermore, first-person testimonies abound in the text, which serves the simultaneous purpose of allowing the Orkney islanders to use their own turns of phrase, as well as bring the reader closer to the author’s own set of experiences.
The usefulness of this text extends beyond its function as an indispensable resource for Scottish studies. It holds up well in comparison with other Scottish island studies, including Sharon Macdonald’s broader Reimagining Culture and Tamara Kohn’s work on tourists and incomers to the island of Coll, though its focus is quite specific to Orkney. It is also generally informative for scholars of the region (including those who study the rest of Britain and Ireland, and scholars of the Scandinavian nations). Brief references to elements important in other fields (choice of musical instruments as a determinant of local or incomer, for example) add significant interest for ethnomusicologists, folklorists, cultural geographers, and linguists. The maps selected for this volume are helpful in emphasizing the proximity of the islands to Scandinavia (the Faroes to the northwest and Norway to the east). The use of color photographs offer some rather general tourist snapshots of archaeological sites and a few contemporary scenes; while pleasant to look at, they do not particularly contribute to the discussion.
In engaging the politics of difference, the Orcadians have succeeded in developing a buffer between themselves—as members of a small but thriving agricultural community rich in archaeological monuments—and the hegemony (real or imagined) not only of Scotland, but of the European Union, North America, and the rest of the world. Through their resistance toward enthusiastic incomers, including displaying deep contempt toward an outsider who volunteers to serve on a local committee, Orkney islanders retain a consistent sense of who they are. Lange has presented the islanders and their voices with compassion and great affection; one only hopes that they did not regard the publication of this valuable book as Lange’s attempt to become “bigsy.”
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[Review length: 849 words • Review posted on May 12, 2009]