“Whichever way I look I see a clouded horizon”: Compton Mackenzie SCIS Research Paper at MeCCSA 2019

MECCSA 2019, University of Stirling

 

Kathryn A. Burnett, University of the West of Scotland and Ray Burnett, Scottish Centre for Island Studies

“Whichever way I look I see a clouded horizon” wrote Mackenzie once of his uneasy relationship with the island of Herm, in the English Channel.  D.H. Lawrence’s tale (pub.1928) of the “the man who loved  islands” is reputed to be greatly informed by the complex affections and affectations of  – amongst many descriptors – writer, broadcaster, activist, and resolute islophile Compton Mackenzie.  The “topos of the island explores and creates bridges between the real and the imaginary” state Stephanides and Bassett (2008) but crucially also between “genres and disciplines ”. This paper deploys a retrospective lens through the post-war iconography of Whisky Galore (1949 Dir., Mackendrick), offering a pivoting multi-disciplinary perspective of Mackenzie ’s time in the Hebrides, as well as  his “island time” spent elsewhere. With reference to Mackenzie’s own memoirs – not least  of his time among the “aristocrats of democracy” – and his considerable published works, as well as media accounts and broadcast archive, off-shore socio-political questions will be asked of onshore cultural policy, and of continuing  dialogues of ‘remoteness’, ‘islandness’, independence and nationhood today.

 

Place apart: Scotland’s north as a cultural industry of margins

A new book chapter “Place apart: Scotland’s north as a cultural industry of margins” by Kathryn A. Burnett is published in the latest Relate North (2017) collection of essays edited by Timo  Jokela and Glen Coutts:  Relate North: University of Lapland Press present a new collection of essays.

The chapter explores themes of culture, community and communication of island arts and cultural representation enterprise with examples drawn from across Scotland’s islands and highland ‘north’ communities.

“This discussion explores artistic imagining of Scotland’s highlands and islands as a place both ‘north’ and ‘on the margin’.  Cultural representation of Scotland’s highlands and islands and processes of communicating these representations are subject to ongoing interrogation and debate. What and how remote communities, cultures and places are represented through art is undoubtedly informed by debates on survival, sustainability and responses to marginal status. The account presented here examines some of these themes from a Scottish perspective, including how art informs cultural production and creative economies in and of Scotland’s remote communities.”

To access the chapter via UWS research portal link here: http://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/place-apart(140d65a4-6e3a-4714-923f-60e5162a4cad).html

‘Hallaig’ film screening and talk, Isle of Skye, June 2011

On June 16th the Scottish Centre for Island Studies, University of the West of Scotland and Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the National Centre for Gaelic Language and Culture,  will host a three day event, Ainmeil Thar Cheudan – Renowned over Hundreds, honouring MacLean’s legacy.  As part of this celebration  the event offers a screening of  Somhairle MacGill-Eain: A Bhàrdachd agus A Shealladh, the 1986 BBC Alba Gaelic version (sub-titled) of Hallaig: the poetry and landscape of Sorley MacLean directed by Timothy Neat. The screening will feature a short talk  by the director Timothy Neat, introduced by Ray Burnett, Honorary Research Fellow, Scottish Centre for Island Studies, University of the West of Scotland.

The event is sponsored by Morrison Construction, Scottish Islands Writers Network, Creative Scotland and Scotland’s Islands.

Anyone interested in attending the event should visit the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig website www.smo.uhi.ac.uk  or telephone 01471 888000.

Ainmeil Thar Cheudan: A Centenary Celebration of Sorley MacLean (1911-2011)

Ainmeal Thar Cheudan

A Centenary Celebration of Sorley MacLean (1911-2011) Thursday 16 – Saturday 18 June 2011 Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Isle of Skye In commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Sorley MacLean (1911 – 1996) Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and the Scottish Centre for Island Studies, Faculty of Business and Creative Industries, University of the West of Scotland invite you to join in a celebration of his life, work and legacy. It is anticipated that this event will offer a range of academic and creative responses to Sorley’s cultural and political legacy with particular attention to his deep roots and referencing of island culture, history and experience. Furthermore, this proposed event will explore, with both established and more recently introduced scholars and artists, the significance and importance of Sorley MacLean within the wider context of the national culture of Scotland, the cultural terrain of the Highlands and Islands, and the cultural engagement of the 20th century Scottish left. The academic focus will be a two day event structured around a selection of papers and discussion panels, as well as performance and creative practice activity detailing both Sorley’s own work and his inspiration to others. In keeping with the internationalist perspectives that permeate Sorley’s own work, the event will be framed as an opportunity to offer an appreciation of what experiences and understanding of island life and culture, and of an island sense of place and dwelling, specifically but not exclusively in reference to Scotland, informed Sorley in his creative work and commentary. Online Booking: Access  event website at http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/A-Cholaiste/Naidheachdan/somhairle/index_en.html

SCIS research teaching linkages: SCIS research projects presented to UWS MA Creative Media Practice students, 17th March 2011

Ethnographic Approaches to Creative Media Practice Research

As part of the MA Creative Media Practice core module Research: Critical Development ( Module Co-ordinator Dr Kathryn A Burnett) both Kathryn Burnett and Kirsten MacLeod delivered to the year 2 students on this postgraduate course as part of a thematic week exploring ethnographic approaches to community media research and practice. Kathryn presented some examples from SCIS historical and archive projects informed by an ethnographic approach  in the island communities of  both the Outer Hebrides and  Tristan da Cunha .

Kirsten’s presentation featuring her work on community media with particular reference to the Govan Banner’s film. Kirsten spoke to the students about her background in Visual Anthropology and offered some insights on taking an ‘ethnographic’ position in relation to community media practice in both urban and rural/island settings.

SCIS PhD student Kirsten MacLeod presents at !Documentary Now! 2011

¡Documentary Now!

A Conference on the Contemporary Contexts and Possibilities of the Documentary, University of Westminster,  January 2011

AVPhd Panel presentation by SCIS PhD student Kirsten MacLeod, “I film therefore I am: Process, Practice and Participation in Community based Filmmaking”.

Kirsten MacLeod (University of the West of Scotland)

This paper will explore examples of community-based media in Scotland, focusing on participation in the production process and the construction of identity and knowledge. Using a visual practice based methodology, the research focuses on fieldwork examples of community based, collaborative video production, in urban and rural areas of Scotland.
The paper is concerned with exploring community media as a transformative social process, a catalyst for new relationships, experience and knowledge about the world. It presents community documentary projects as a lens through which to explore issues of participation, representation, identity and knowledge within communities.
Taking a fluid approach to community as meaningful and symbolically constructed (Cohen), and to community media as covering a spectrum of media which serves, reflects or involves communities, geographically bounded, or of interest (Atton, Jankowski), this paper presents participation as part of an ongoing process of production, which lives on beyond the end product of the actual media itself, in the situated social experiences of its participants.
By examining the process of production, the research deconstructs the filmmaking process, exploring how people engage in filmmaking as participants, but also as members of the audience community. How meaningful is community media to communities who produce it, as a process and in the longer term once the end product is “out there”?
Through examples from Glasgow and islands on the West coast of Scotland, as well as broader trends in Scottish community media, the paper describes how community media channels the situated-ness of knowledge and identity.
The paper advocates a practice led methodology, where the research engages directly with the process of filming and draws reflexively and practically on the researcher and participants’ experiences.

‘The Furthest Hebrides’: Critical reach from contested shores: Kathryn Burnett and Ray Burnett deliver to IGU 2010 Conference, island of Ven, Sweden

Finding Their Place: Islands in Social Theory

The Island of Ven, Sweden, 27–30 August, 2010

ABSTRACTS PARALLEL PAPER SESSION B1: Identity, culture, tradition and knowledge

 

 

 ‘The Furthest Hebrides’ : Critical reach from contested shores

Kathryn A Burnett & Ray Burnett

University of the West of Scotland, UK

 

Scotland’s islands are paradoxically peripheral yet conceptually central to an

understanding of the layered complexity of issues relating to land and identity in

contemporary 21 st  century Scotland. Through a specific focus on Scotland’s

western isles, this paper traces the authoring of the layered constructions and

reconstructions of space and place that has produced a dense and variegated

palimpsest; the process of the ‘making’ of the Hebrides. It examines visual and

documentary representations to draw out some of the issues of ‘belonging’ and

ownership, appropriation and dissemination, in the context of the nationalidentitarian

functions of culture, that are embedded in the complimentary and

contradictory ‘ways of seeing’ the contested terrain of island cultural landscape(s).

Through a grounded multi-disciplinary approach to the issues raised and the

exemplars elaborated on, the paper opens up several overlapping and inter-related

issues of concentric and conflicting identities, delineation of the field of cultural

discourse, the inscription of meaning and value and the production of cultural

landscapes, and the deeper processes of complicity, self colonialism and

subalternity.

The paper concludes by advocating that a detailed study of how these processes

of ‘making’ are mediated at local (island), national (Scottish) and supra-national

(UK) level opens up new channels for further research in the intricate waters of

the cultural dynamics of authorship, ownership, ‘belonging’ and power in the

politics of land and identity.

SCIS @ CCA research event on Rockets Galore! (1957) and recent Gaelic documentaries relating to the Uist ‘Rocket Range’

Scottish Centre for Island Studies

Screening and Research Event

Venue: CCA, Sauchiehall Street Glasgow

Thursday 9^th September 2010

The Scottish Centre for Island Studies in association with the Small Islands Film Trust is hosting a small research focussed event of film screenings and related discussions on the 9^th September 2010 in the UWS space at the CCA, Glasgow. For full programme see  details under ‘Our Events’.

Geopolitics: Political Spaces – Cultural Spaces

Screening(s):        Trusadh Series Deserting Uist (2010) MacTV  and  Na Rocaidean (2008)    MNE TV

Two different documentaries providing accounts of the history and communities affected by the establishment of the ‘Rocket range’ – RA Hebrides on ‘Uist’ in 1957. Extracts will be shown from both.

Iconography and Identity: Place and Non-place

Screening: Rockets Galore! (1957) Dir: Michael Relph

For information contact Kathryn A Burnett (kathryn.burnett@uws.ac.uk) or Ray Burnett (ray.burnett@uws.ac.uk).

Am Politician (1998): behind the ‘mystical romance’ of Whisky Galore!

Scottish Centre for Island Studies

Screening and Research Event

Venue: CCA, Sauchiehall Street Glasgow

Thursday 9^th September 2010

The Scottish Centre for Island Studies in association with the Small Islands Film Trust is hosting a small research focussed event of film screenings and related discussions on the 9^th September 2010 in the UWS space at the CCA, Glasgow. For full programme see  details under ‘Our Events’.

Creative and Critical Practice: History, Media and Representation

Screening: Am Politician (1991) – 2 parts MNE TV

This two part documentary chronicles the real story behind the mystical romance surrounding the sinking of the SS Politician on February the 5th 1941 off the island of Eriskay in the Western Isles of Scotland. Part 1 tells the story of the sinking and salvage of the ship and part 2 focuses on the Jamaican currency on board.