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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on the representation of the Highland Clearances - one of the most painful and controversial themes in modern Scottish history - in Scottish museum spaces. It brings to light the social, economic and political implications of the interpretation of this period through a survey of twelve independent local museums and two national museums. It argues that the Clearances have become a crucially defining landmark at a local but also national level. Yet the way the Clearances are represented in narratives differs significantly, showing the extent to which the meaning ascribed to the clearing process and its consequences is socially and historically conditioned. Whilst the symbolic and emotional resonance of the period as a traumatic rupture prevails, it has also come to articulate a political vision intrinsically linked with land reform in a devolved Scotland, and a transnational identity owing much to the imaginary of the Scottish diaspora.
KEYWORDS
Collective memory, diaspora, emigration, heritage, identity, land reform, museums, Scotland
People's use of history is inextricably linked with the selection of past events, dates, figures which become encapsulated in artefacts and stories - in carefully chosen interpretations of the past. In the public space, these may materialise in the shape of street names, memorials, commemorative ceremonies, monuments or museums which foreground a communal heritage, fostering feelings of belonging and shared identity. In the process, past and place are both ascribed meaning(s) largely conditioned by current concerns and priorities.
Heritage literature has emphasised the significance of contemporary concerns in heritage construction and use. In particular, studies have focused on present-day uses of the past in heritage as an eco- nomic and political resource, and have associated this process with dissonance - the past being multi-sold and multi-interpreted (Ashworth 1994; Graham et al. 2000; Ashworth and Graham 2005). '[Heritage] possesses a crucial socio-political function. Consequently, it is accompanied by an often bewildering array of identification and potential conflicts, not least when heritage places and objects are involved in issues of legitimization of power structures' (Graham et al. 2000: 17). Additionally, Smith's work (2006) has shown heritage to be an active cultural process, articulating identities and a sense of belonging (with the construction and negotiation this implies) or conversely capable of challenging received identities. She...