National identity and the politics of memory: remembering Bruce and ...

Environment and Planning /) 1997. volume 29, pages 175 194

National identity and the politics of memory: remembering Bruce and Wallace in symbolic space Tim Edcnsor Cultural Studies, Staffordshire University, College Road, Stoke on Trent ST4 2XW, England; e-mail: ARTTE(rrcrmaiI.staffs.ac.uk Received 17 March 1996; in revised form 30 September 1996

Abstract. In this paper, I examine the different and competing practices through which symbolic places, and the events andfiguresthey commemorate, are woven into national memories. By exploring the scmiotic, commercial, expert, narrative, and bodily practices of remembrance that centre upon Bannockburn and the Wallace Monument, in Stirling, Scotland, I highlight the complex ways in which forms of remembrance are currently proliferating and fragmenting. I then move on to discuss how the common themes in these shifting politics of social remembering have been echoed in popular responses to the Hollywood film Bravelwart, which celebrates Wallace. I conclude by looking at how these practices of remembrance indicate the contemporary unstable and contested condition of national identity. Introduction "Tourist sites are an appropriate place for locating the broad debate over self and society... Tourism is a metaphor for our struggle to make sense of our self and world within a highly differentiated culture ... it directs us to sites where people are at work making meaning, situating themselves in relation to public spectacle and making a biography that provides some coherency between self and world." Neumann (1988, page 22) Attempts to fix national memory and identity, to "map history onto territory", are integral to the ideological rhetoric of nationalism (Boyarin, 1994, page 16). The idea of the nation as "imagined community" (Anderson, 1983) presupposes a demarcated space which incorporates particularly symbolic landscapes and sites. Revealing the "uniqueness of the nation's moral geography" (Smith, 1991, page 16), these 'sacred centres' are the repository of common memories, myths, and traditions and the sites for a range of collective and individual performances of ritual and pilgrimage. In Europe, with the rise of romantic nationalism in the 19th century, "national landscape ideologies" (Short, 1991) emerged, and statues of key historical figures and epic national monuments were situated at locations around which public life was organised. Johnson (1995, page 63) has argued that the power of these structures lies in their status as "points of physical and ideological orientation" and together they constitute materialised "circuits of memory". In this paper, I focus on the ways in which symbolic sites are centres for the social and political organisation of national memory. I argue that a study of social remembering can illuminate contemporary processes of place-production and the construction of identities. By looking at the production and consumption of memory at Bannockburn Heritage Centre and the Wallace Monument in Stirling, I will show how a sense of place and Scottish national identity are subject to contestation. Remembering is not merely a psychological function of a particular part of the brain, but is socially constructed, communicated, and institutionalised and thus is never static or monolithic. In a contingent and continuous process "the past is endlessly constructed in and through the present" (Urry, 1995a, page 4). As Samuel argues, memory is not "merely a passive receptacle or storage system, an image bank of the

176

Tim Edensor

past", but is "historically conditioned, changing colour and shape according to the emergencies of the moment, that so far from being handed down in the timeless form of 'tradition' it is progressively altered from generation to generation" (1995, pages ix-x). Memory is often communicated through the performance of different social activities in particular places and around certain artefacts (Middleton and Edwards, 1990). Such forms of commemoration are inevitably inscribed by power. In dominant narratives and practices, particular issues, features, and incidents become forgotten as selective discursive and performative formations evolve. Thus, elites are more able to memorialise their forebears and contemporaries, while subaltern figures become marginalised. Class, racialised, and gendered power works its way into mythic narratives and rituals, and is manifest in the landscape and in the form of monuments. Massey maintains that the identity of places is bound up with the histories that are narrated about them, "how those histories are told, and which history turns out to be dominant" (1995, page 186). However, contestation over the possession and interpretation of memories means that there are multifarious ways in which remembrance is practised in situ. Tourists collect photographs and videos to remember their visit; official accounts of sites are written and commemorative projects are undertaken by local and national elites; historical 'expert' stories contend with 'mythical' tales of place; rival politicians attempt to harness the affective and metaphorical value of symbolic sites to ideological debates; and such sites also become the location for dramaturgical reenactments or invented rituals. In the same way that myths are flexible discursive forms, symbolic places are 'condensation sites', replete with polysemic interpretations. Such sites "precis much more complicated stories and messages into a mnemonic or shorthand form" (Cohen, 1985, page 102). And these diverse readings are expressed through particular practices and depend upon distinct modes of transmission, varying from the narration of mythical stories, the erecting of memorials, the bodily organisation of groups during ceremonies of remembrance, political oration, and increasingly, through visual communication by photography, audiovisual displays, and film and television productions. This increasing diversity indicates how traditional and parochial memories are undermined by globalising forces. As Urry points out, "with the realisation of the increasing flows of images, ideas, information and people across borders, so the process of social remembering becomes even more disjointed, speeded up, hybridised and fractured" (1995a, page 18). The growth of the heritage industry has added further layers of meaning to symbolic sites. The symbolic characteristics of such places are precisely what constitute their commercial value as 'heritage sites'. The selling of information and, increasingly, 'experience' marks the commodification of memories and their externalisation from local processes of remembrance. This seems to exemplify the disembedding processes that Giddens (1991) refers to as integral to globalisation. The worldwide growth of the tourist industry and the global proliferation of tourist space are part of the economic drive to reorder space in new productive ways. Whereas previous constructions of place were dominated by local bourgeoisie in accordance with their own preferences and aesthetics, contemporary processes of blending culture and capital (regulating space, exercising aesthetic control, and producing historical narratives and images) are more disembedded from localities. Although "minute spatial differentiations" are exploited (Harvey, 1989, page 294) to sell "uniqueness of place" on the global market, there is also a tendency to produce a "recursive and serial monotony" (page 295) in terms of ambience, styles, and narratives in heritage centres, hotels, and

National identity and the politics of memory

177

retail outlets. Thus a "commercial and institutionalised'* tourist system standardises the experience of collecting cultural signiilers in a restricted period of time (Britton 1991, pages 454-455), These processes construct places not as "foci of attachment or concern" but as "bundles of social and economic opportunity" in a competitive market (Kcarns and Philo, 1993, page 12). In one sense, local particularities are exploited and commodificd for cosmopolitan consumers, "torn out of time and place to be repackaged for the world bazaar" (Robins, 1991, page 31). At this global scale, particular countries, regions, or places stand as metaphors for distinct attributes where, for instance, the exotic, the sexual* the romantic, or the classical may be experienced. However, I argue that there are ways of consuming places that cannot be wholly shaped by the commodification of spectacles. In this paper, I will show that the competing ways in which nationally significant sites are remembered highlights the complex ways in which national identity is continually renegotiated by individuals and groups. Scotland and the heritage industry In the global tourist market, Scotland has a distinct niche. Subject to a romantic tourist gaze since the early 18th century (McCrone et al, 1995, page 60), Scotland's rich iconography means that there is a repertoire of images with which to attract the foreign tourist. The selling of Scotland abroad tends to rely on stereotyped images such as kilted warriors, Highland scenery, and romantic castles, constructing "an enchanted fortress in a disenchanted world" (Rojek, 1993, page 181). Womack has commented that "all Scots wear tartan, are devoted to bagpipe music, and are moved by the spirit of clanship ... all these libels live on as items in the Scottish tourist package of the Twentieth century" (1989, page 25). These representations emerged in the 18th century as Scotland was gradually absorbed into the economy and polity of the United Kingdom. Serving as its 'other' realm, a rugged and 'sublime' Highland landscape; with its wild clansman garbed in tartan and kilt, Scotland was a romantic dreamscape tailored by and for metropolitan desire. Popular productions stimulated these fantasies: MacPherson's Ossian epic; the invention of tartan styles by the inventive Sobieski Stuarts (McCrone et al, 1995, page 51; Withers, 1992); the visit of George VI to Edinburgh and the vast pageant of Scottishness put on for his delectation (Withers, 1992, pages 152-153); and the romantic impressions of the Highlands produced by Landseer for Queen Victoria (Pringle, 1988). The military significance of tartan was reinforced by its appropriation as battledress for Scottish regiments. To this day, a large proportion of Scotland's premier tourist sites are military and, as Nairn laments, Scottish popular militarism is "far more strident than anything found in comparable levels of culture in England" (1977, page 165). As we will see, the discomfort of some Scots towards these representations, and their enthusiastic appropriation by others forms part of the complex politics of representing contemporary Scottish identity. Tourism is the fastest growing sector of the Scottish economy. In 1990 more than nine million tourists spent over £1.4 billion in Scotland, 5% of Scottish GDP. Although Central Region's share of the Scottish tourist market is a meagre 5%, Stirling Castle was the fourth most popular paid attraction in 1994 with 292000 visitors (Scottish Tourist Board, 1994). Bannockburn Heritage Centre attracted over 50000 paying visitors, besides the estimated 250 000 people who visit the monument area, which is free. The popularity of the Wallace Monument has increased dramatically with the release of the film Braveheart. In 1993, it attracted 55 000 paying visitors, but from September 1995, when the film was released, to December, the figures were 37000, making an annual total of 80 000. It is expected that 1996 will be a bumper season.

178

Tim Edensor

As with many other urban centres in Scotland, Stirling has been hit hard by the decline in manufacturing industry. Urry (1995b, page 154) has shown how local strategies increasingly aim to attract capital, tourists, and incoming employees and entrepreneurs by reconstituting selective historical and geographical elements. Indeed, two recent economic proposals, The Stirling Initiative and Central 2000, have identified heritage as a key resource which can entice more tourists, tempt industries to locate in prestigious business parks, and prove attractive to the aspiring lifestyles of the skilled and managerial middle-classes. These local and national scenarios provide the context for my discussion of the politics of memory at Bannockburn Heritage Centre and the Wallace Monument. Integral to Stirling's tourist appeal and place image, the sites memorialise Scotland's greatest medieval heroes, Robert the Bruce and William Wallace. The myths of Bruce and Wallace are subsumed within the dominant version of Scottishness outlined above. Although both figures died in the early years of the 14th century and historical details are scanty, their mythical stature was created shortly after their demise. In the 1370s, Barbour commemorated Bruce in his epic, The Brus, and Wallace was celebrated in 'Blind' Harry's 15th-century poem The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace. Bruce is famous for his emulation of the indefatigable spider which he observed in a cave whilst hiding from the English, but both heroes are primarily celebrated in Scotland for their key victories over the English: Bruce at Bannockburn and Wallace at Stirling Bridge. By virtue of their bravery against the odds, both figures have been claimed as heirs to the Scottish military tradition and latterly have served as exemplary figures in the rejuvenated campaign for independence. Although the noble Bruce finally emerged triumphant, Wallace's common origins mean he is more popular despite his ultimate defeat, capture, and dismemberment by the English. In 1990 Ash proclaimed that the mythical power of the two figures had declined, yet also presciently observed that any rise in nationalist sentiment would make it "surprising if the figures of Bruce and Wallace are not invoked once more" (1990, page 92). As the success of Braveheart testifies, this is exactly what has happened. The politics of memory at the Wallace Monument and Bannockburn Heritage Centre As a particular type of tourist practice, remembering is particularly profitable for analysing the production of meaning at the nationally symbolic sites of the Wallace Monument and Bannockburn Heritage Centre. In the following sections, I will examine different forms of remembering that are played out at the sites. First, I will investigate how memory is materialised upon the landscape through the erection of monumental forms according to particular semiotic conventions. Second, I discuss the commodification of memory and, third, follow this with an examination of the expert and official versions through which the legends of Bruce and Wallace are communicated. Fourth, I focus on the incorporative rituals of bodily remembrance which are played out at Bannockburn and, fifth, I look at the contesting nationalist narratives which utilise the mythical significance of the two sites. Memoryscapes and monuments Memoryscapes comprise the organisation of specific objects in space, resulting from often successive projects which attempt to materialise memory by assembling iconographic forms. Social remembering is organised around places and objects built into the landscape, "archaeological metaphors" which provide stages for organising a relationship with the past (Lowenthal, 1985, page xxiii; see also Radley, 1990). Following different semiotic conventions, memorials articulate sacred, emotional, or cosmological meanings. Although their intended purpose can be read from inscriptions and

National identity and the politics of memory

179

deciphered from their styles, memorials reflect the iconographic conventions of the era in which they were built. As Warner (1993) has shown in her discussion of classical allusions embodied in 19th-century French statuary, public familiarity with the rhetoric of such material statements can decline and they are interpreted according to contemporary visual understandings. I will now describe the memoryscapc of Stirling and two of its constituent features, Bannockburn Heritage Centre and the Wallace Monument, Describing Stirling as the "seed-box" of Scottish nationalism, Lannon avers that "to revive the history of Stirling is to revive the history of Scotland11 (1983, page 56). Positioned at the meeting of Highland and Lowlands, the historical identity of the town is dominated by the 'Stirling Triangle*; the Castle, Bannockburn, and the Wallace Monument. Lannon describes how the 19th-century romantic 'myth-conscious' movement, which culminated in the raising of the flagstaff at Bannockburn and the Wallace Monument, "resulted in Stirling becoming a place of pilgrimage for all those who cherish the notion of Scottish independence" (page 51). These "stone images", Lannon evocatively declares, are "installed like bits of organic furniture in a spiritual home" (page 54). Bruce and Wallace are not only celebrated at the two heritage sites, but are also present as statues, three of each figure, in the town. Rather than having any single focus, Bannockburn Heritage Centre is an agglomeration of memorials collectively fortifying its symbolic import: a rotunda, cairn, flagstaff, and statue of Bruce. Almost as if the significance of the site needs to be continually reasserted, these forms have been erected at different times: the flagstaff in 1889, the rotunda and cairn in 1957, and the statue on the 650th anniversary of the battle in 1964. Because the site is now bereft of any tangible evidence of the great battle, this collection of structures serves as a series of focal points, which organise 'place-ballets' and direct the tourist gaze. The huge flagpole marks the site from a distance. Atop the mast flutters the saltire and at the apex, a large tin axe. The humble cairn is inscribed with part of the Declaration of Arbroath. This seems the most sacred part of the site, and many visitors are visibly moved and stand still for several minutes, apparently in reverie. It is also the point around which the ceremonies described below are enacted and wreaths are laid. McArthur suggests that cairn-building is an everyday Scottish activity and therefore, as a simple artistic form, the cairn cannot be affiliated to any "politico-religious affiliation" (1994, page 116) but is a simple statement of remembrance. The rotunda is a circular concrete wall that encloses the flagpole, cairn, and site of the borestone (see below). Besides protecting the site from an anarchic appearance, it seems to demarcate a spiritual space by encircling the supposed site of Bruce's camp, and embracing the visitor. It also screens off the much-maligned council estate which is often alleged to tarnish the sanctity of the battlefield. The tourist gaze is guided by the leaving of two gaps in the rotunda. At these points, the thick girders which circle the top of the structure are embellished with pictures of the battle, detailing the English retreat into the Bannock Burn and the charge of the Scottish 'small folk' to join in the massacre. These portrayals of an ancient landscape, mirroring the real landscape framed below, stimulate an imaginary reenaction of the battle. This fantasy of battle blurs the contemporary and ancient landscape, constructing Stirling as a fanciful memoryscape, a stage upon which the rout of the English is envisaged anew. The statue of Bruce lies outside the rotunda and serves as a separate point of homage. This powerful work, heir to a different tradition of flgural memorialisation, impressively combines classic monumentality with realism to affirm, even glorify, the moral conviction and physical might of the warrior-king. The face is copied from Bruce's death mask and this represents the only quasi-authentic feature at the site.

180

Tim Edensor

The erection of this statue reemphasises the importance of Bruce to the victory and suggests that the earlier monuments failed to impart the significance of the site, or were insufficiently dramatic for the 1960s. The gothic Wallace Monument is sited on the wooded Abbey Craig overlooking the site of the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Looking towards the town from the south, like the castle it is framed in relief by the highland backdrop. Its aesthetics far more clearly reflect the romantic strains of 19th-century nationalism and with its commanding location and more ornate design, it effectively spectacularises memory. Moreover, whereas there is no 'authentic' symbol of the Battle of Bannockburn, displayed on the second floor of the monument is the main attraction for the many nationalists who visit the site: the famous broadsword used by Wallace. Neither Bannockburn nor the Wallace Monument were originally designed to resonate with a separatist nationalism but, rather, were held to memorialise the qualities that Scotland had brought to the Union. Bruce and Wallace were thus imagined as embodying the military attributes of imperial adventurers. The 'Hall of Heroes', on the third floor of the Wallace Monument, constitutes a powerful commemorative inscription of Scottish qualities according to these unionist conventions. Here are arrayed the busts of Scottish men: Bruce, Robert Burns, Buchanan (poet and protestant campaigner), John Knox, Allan Ramsey (artist), Robert Tannahill (poet), Adam Smith, James Watt, Walter Scott, William Murdoch (engineer and inventor), David Brewster (inventor of the kaleidoscope), Thomas Carlyle, Hugh Miller (geologist), Dr Chalmers (founder of the Free Church of Scotland), David Livingstone, and W E Gladstone. Most of these figures were contemporaries of the monument and supported and served imperial ends through their endeavours in the key areas of literature, painting, scientific invention, protestantism, statesmanship, economics, and exploration. Bruce and Wallace have been hijacked to suggest ancestry and lend their romantic tincture to the commemoration of eminent Scottish Victorians. A comprehensive analysis of the celebrated attributes of this collection of worthies cannot be attempted here but the focus on specific masculinist qualities and fields of achievement highlights the 19th-century embrace of nationalist sentiments by a unionist, imperial politics of remembrance. However, attempts to inscribe meaning upon the built environment are open to renewed interpretation. The contested significance of the heroes and the suitability of their iconic value was emphasised in a recent political battle over the use of an image of Bruce in the local council's logo. Heated political debate about the construction of a 'suitable' placeimage surfaced over the proposal by Stirling Council to change their logo, which was dominated by an image of a mounted Bruce. The leader of the controlling Conservative group opined that such an icon "No longer conveys the values of the council. A knight on horseback does not give the impression of an open accessible council that cares about its customers" {Stirling News 1992). The proposal was strongly challenged by local Labour Party and Scottish National Party (SNP) members who criticised the 'commercial absurdity' of the plan and questioned the political motivation of the controlling group. One SNP member exclaimed "Not content with stealing our oil and plotting to steal our water, they now want to ditch our history as well. The Stirling Tories clearly feel uncomfortable with the symbol of Scottish liberty staring at them from every council document. The real reason of course is that King Robert the Bruce is a symbol of bravery, persistence and freedom—a symbol of Scotland" {Reporting Scotland BBC Radio Scotland, 18 August 1992).

National identity and the politics of memory

181

Commodlficd memories Heritage centres are organised to attract tourists, As key nodes in travel itineraries, they are foci around which the mnemonic devices of travel narratives and photography arc structured. This strategy for collecting memories is part of the common sense understanding of what tourism is for. Tourist journeys are marked out as extraordinary periods in which experiences, knowledge, and commodities are gathered along with memories. These practices of remembering are acts of recording which provide resources to sustain continuity in personal life, constituting the 'work' of tourism. One can look forward to the likelihood that the mundane will end, and look back, recollecting out-of-thc-ordinary times to reenchant the quotidian. This construction of personal tourist narratives is served by the provision of commodificd memories. As part of the recent massive repackaging of the past (the widespread commodification of clothes, artefacts, styles, and food from bygone times; films and television programmes recycling nostalgic images of the past; and the mania for antiques of recent vintage), the heritage industry capitalises on the burgeoning nexus between consumption and leisure. At tourist sites, memory is increasingly organised according to this commodification for their symbolic appeal is highly marketable. As Crang contends "heritage and its organisation of tradition are the fixings of a history" which limit the interpretative and performative scope of tourists (1994, pages 341-342). The commodification of memory is part of the process whereby the social production of memory becomes externalised, situated, and staged outside the local community. Package tours are structured around the consumption of regularised narratives and rehearsed routes (Game, 1991, page 153; Weightman, 1987), and in their attempt to manufacture an 'experience' for visitors, heritage centres contain a battery of techniques to produce 'infotainment': guided tours, information boards, interpretative cassettes, audiovisual presentations, and themed simulacra attempt to capture the 'feel' of a historical period, evoking events and characters. The souvenirs, postcards, and booklets that testify to the experience and provide potted histories can be purchased in adjoining shops. Thus commodification depends both on services and on items. Both Bannockburn Heritage Centre and the Wallace Monument contain the informational forms mentioned above and have extensive gift shops. To an extent, this commodification spectacularises the old and the local. Auge distinguishes between commodified "non-places" and "anthropological" places, which are replete with local remembering practices (1995, page 101). The commodification of memory is also evident in the intensified mediatisation of popular symbols, myths, and icons. These elements of popular remembrance are apt to be commodified by the film and television industries which exploit the popularity of mythic heroes. It is tempting to conclude pessimistically that these regimes of hyperreal presentation, whether as part of the tourist industry or in the media, demolish meaning and a sense of identity through their production of apparently depthless images. However, such a view presumes a depthless interpretation by consumers. As I will discuss, despite the disembedding processes driven by commodifying imperative, a nuanced account of the ways in which such regularised representations are utilised and interpreted shows how diverse practices escape such confinement. Official and expert remembering Another take on the externalisation of memory focuses on the discourses of officialdom and expertise to define and fix stories of remembrance. Different from, but perhaps imbricated with, commercial power, 'official' attempts to decide which events, figures,

182

Tim Edensor

and sites are important and which narratives are appropriate or authentic, exert a strong influence over the ascription of collective identities. McCrone's examination of the production of heritage in Scotland highlights the role played by middle-class members of the major heritage bodies in organising meaning around conservative notions and thereby accumulating cultural capital (McCrone et al, 1995). The framing of exhibitions and narrating of histories evince the power to shape remembrance. Yet too many critiques of the heritage industry tend to present the dominant heritage bodies as monoliths when, in fact, they may be internally divided over the politics of representation and remembrance (Hewison, 1987; Wright, 1985). At Bannockburn Heritage Centre, contestation between two distinct discourses typifies the displays. The centre comprises a retail area, an exhibition entitled "The Kingdom of the Scots", and an audiovisual room. The exhibition commences with Bruce's victory and ends with the union of the Scottish and English crowns, that is, it marks the end of Scottish national independence. This provocative interpretation seems insensitive, and is a bone of contention to many Scots. Why, they wonder, could the story not be brought up to the present day, or, if it has to finish in the past, why choose the union as the point to end the story? The exhibition was designed in 1982, against the wishes of most of the employees of the National Trust for Scotland who expressed a contrary preference for a theme based around the life and times of Bruce. However, the management of the Trust overruled these wishes on the grounds that this would be too 'bloodthirsty' and 'militaristic'. However, a nationalist celebratory interpretation is reclaimed in the audiovisual presentation of the story of the battle which echoes to patriotic emotion and heroism. The combination of visceral images, evocative sound effects and music, and a gravitasinflected commentary, climaxes with an emotive rendering of the Declaration of Arbroath, through which Bruce and his lords proclaimed their independence from England. As a staged experience in communal remembering, this has stimulated numerous patriotic sentiments which are expressed in the visitors book outside the audiovisual chamber, such as "Our day will come", "Time we did it again", "Blood stirring", and "Whit say ye noo, Rab?" These contesting versions of the battle demonstrate that there is no simple and monolithic reproduction of a dominant ideology through the production of 'official' knowledge. In the case here, the presentation of heritage has had to accommodate versions within the official body which are antagonistic to each other. Likewise, at the Wallace Monument, the story related by a simulacra of Wallace inside a small 13th-century battle tent on the first floor of the monument resonates with nationalist sentiments. Dialogues are constructed with five of Wallace's contemporaries, including Bruce and the English King, with the visitor situated as an intimate witness to the testaments and reflections of the characters. There is no attempt to give all sides of the story. Wallace has the final word in each of the dialogues. Often allied to official versions of remembrance are the discourses of historical and archaeological expertise. Charged with the responsibility for determining what is legitimately memorable—which myths stand up to scrutiny, which artefacts are genuine, which historical events are decisive—the experts judge between 'truth' and 'falsehood', distinguishing between 'myth' and 'history'. Whereas myths are merely vernacular fictional accounts, history emerges out of an objective scientific approach (Wright, 1985, page 143). Nora asserts that traditional mnemonic habits in "real environments of memory" are characterised by the "ritual repetition of a timeless practice in a primordial identification of act and meaning". This has been replaced by the modern discipline of 'history', which, according to Nora, "is how our hopelessly forgetful societies,

National identity and the politics of memory

183

propelled by change, organise the past" (1989, page 8), Memory, he argues, "takes root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures, images and objects; history binds itself strictly to temporal continuities, to progressions and the relations between things" (page 9). The discipline of history materialises memory in its obsession with collecting "testimonies, documents, images, speeches'1 to reinforce collective memory and identity. Such accounts and historical 'evidence' can erase and discredit symbolic texts and artefacts, now expertly revealed as inaulhcntic. This is notably exemplified at Bannockburn. The 'borcstone*, the rock where according to legend Bruce rested his sword the night before the battle, was formerly the chief attraction at Bannockburn. This symbolic form materialised memory and was the subject of scholarly treatises. Its importance is captured in the following passage: "Of all monumental stones in Scotland, the pre-eminence in significance must be accorded to the borcstone. It may be questioned in the wide world whether there is a stone so important to Scotchmen [for it is] the one natural memorial of the battle of Scots* independence and par excellence, it marks the differentiation of the Britain to the North from the Britain to the South of the Cheviots" (Allan, 1904, pages 4-5). The borcstonc was an almost sacred Scottish symbol yet today cannot be seen at the site. Instead, a couple of fragments are placed in a glass case in the heritage centre. The 'discursive'- power of 'experts' has denied the authenticity of the borestone. In suggesting that the borestone could not have been situated on the site in the 14th century, its symbolic power to communicate Scottishncss has been expunged and it can no longer serve as a focal point for remembrance. Still featuring prominently in the guidebook of 1973, the borestone as a symbolic romantic object has been erased as a mythical symbol by the quest for scientific accuracy. In Nora's terms, 'history' has prevailed over'myth'. Bauman has described how the intellectual knowledge and expertise claimed by modern professional and autonomous legislators endowed them with the power to define, classify, and arbitrate. Through the application of rigorous scientific method, it was imagined that intellectuals could objectively discern universal truths and invalidate 'parochial' and 'localised' practices and beliefs (Bauman, 1987, page 4). However, Bauman contrasts this with the interpretative approach taken by postmodern intellectuals who highlight different systems of knowledge without necessarily arbitrating between them. Rather than the factual, it might be argued that dramatic, visceral, emotional, and visual regimes of representation have decentred the dry judgments of historical authority, and constructed a different form of memorable event. The shift towards the manufacture of an 'experience' in the presentation of the past produces a form of remembrance that depends less on legislative authority and more on an authenticity of feeling, of sensual experience. The audiovisual exhibition at Bannockburn and the dramatic confrontation with the simulacra of Wallace at the Wallace Monument, seem more concerned with the emotive and dramatic significance of the events and heroes they remember. Corner and Harvey claim that, "the ideas, experience and desires (of tourists) have eroded ... the traditional-deferential versions of the past which so dominated history teaching and museum culture" (1991, page 73). It might, however, be argued that powerful visual dramas organise the tourist experience more thoroughly than narrative accounts. Bodily remembrance and ritual I will now diverge from commodified, official, and expert attempts to remember by considering the practices engaged in by visitors to the sites. In this section, I focus on the rituals of remembrance that take place at Bannockburn on the anniversary of the battle.

184

Tim Edensor

Connerton has usefully developed the idea that memory can be either inscriptive or incorporating. The inscriptive discursive and representational processes of remembering are, according to Connerton, less powerful than incorporating rituals which are impressed upon the body so as to form part of 'social habit memory'. He argues that groups transmit and sustain their memories by mapping them onto symbolic and familiar spaces through ritual performance (1989, page 37). Unlike the interpretative scope for innovation in myths and written histories, rituals lack scope for improvisation. Participants are obliged to observe stylised and repetitive actions, which are regulated by calendrical, verbal, and gestural codes. This regular ritualistic practice inscribes habit-memory upon the participants' bodies, a process which Connerton asserts provides "insurance against the process of cumulative questioning entailed in all discursive practices" (1989, page 102). Connerton's theory seems particularly apt to the ceremony enacted at Bannockburn on the morning of the anniversary of the battle by the militarist-religious group, the Knights Templars. The Templars were described to me as "the oldest military order in the world". Despite their supposed association with the site from the time of the battle (McKerracher, 1991) when they allegedly assisted Bruce against the English forces, the actual ceremony was only instituted in the mid-1980s. The mystico-religious qualities of the rituals, hallowed objects, and arcane scripts of the Templars seem to account for much of their contemporary charm for members. Together with the ancient lineage and tradition of the order, this magic combines with a political commitment to the restoration of Scottish self-determination, and is strengthened by the association with the myth of Bannockburn. Disciplined ritual is important in conveying the grandeur of the history of the Templars and the worthiness of the present-day participants. The aims of the annual ceremony, with its white robes, swords, and officiating priest, are to testify to the Templars' role in the battle, and "renew and refresh our commitment to the Nation of Scotland as Scottish Knights Templar as reiterated annually in the statement of the oath of fealty". Specific positions, roles, and speeches are adhered to: the silent slow march towards the rotunda in double column; the breaking into left and right formations; the arrangement of a circle with each participant's position predetermined; the wreath-laying; the prayers; the baring and bowing of heads during the minute's silence. This invented tradition inscribes the site and the participants' bodies with a remembered relationship. The Knights' incorporative mnemonic performance claims the status of an ancient rite and exploits the mythical and national significance of Bannockburn. On the afternoon of the same day, several thousand SNP supporters gather in Stirling and march over a mile to the heritage site where they lay wreaths and hold a political rally. The event annually reasserts the national(ist) significance of Bannockburn as site and historical event, and there is a degree of discipline in the march to the site. Once there, there is a formal laying of a wreath at the cairn. This sober moment captures a stylised form of remembrance which specifies the relationship between performers and site, as a place of Scottish pilgrimage. After the wreath-laying, however, the affair becomes more celebratory and carnivalesque and the site is transformed into a playground. Political colleagues affirm their allegiance to the cause, friends meet up, there is eating and drinking, adults lounge on the grass while children play, and political merchandise is sold. Then the speeches begin. In this instance, Connerton's notion of remembrance is too restrictive. The communal atmosphere of the event, and the permeation of cultural and political symbols: tartan garb, flags and banners, slogans, and pipe bands, are variable elements that lack continuity and a regular form. His insistence on the ordered discipline

National identity and the politics of memory

185

necessary for the effective transmission of memories neglects the contingent individual and group processes by which people perform memory at symbolic sites, At Bannoekburn, improvisational and undisciplined celebrations veer towards the carnivalesque. This looser and more sensual form of incorporative remembrance is mixed with pleasure and transgression, but remains effective because of the solidifying of political and social bonds and the pleasure of the occasion. The rally's recent chequered history signifies some of the tensions within Scottish nationalism. Instituted in the 1950s, the rally grew and in the 1970s attracted over 5000 participants, Since then, numbers have dropped to around 1500. At the SNP's 1982 Conference, a proposal was made that the rally ought to be discontinued because its resurrection of ancient ghosts was not commensurate with a 'modern' party image. In 1990 the official rally was held in Edinburgh instead, but some party members held an unofficial rally at Bannockburn anyway and there were many complaints about the change of venue. In 1994 a coinciding by-election also prevented the rally from taking place. Despite this, the Bannockburn rally remains a major event in the SNP's calendar and the party's leaders continue to attend. This tension reveals the uneasiness of some nationalists with the easily caricatured tartan romanticism and the institutionalised remembrance of ancient military success which they believe undermines the progressive European image the party is attempting to transmit. Whilst the affective importance of the rally persists, the leadership must go with the grain. As a regular participant declared, the celebration of remembrance at Bannockburn cannot be understood in purely strategic terms: "Many have left the nationalists because they aren't comfortable with a purely political organisation. Cultural identity is important too. We like to celebrate where we come from. The rally always creates a tremendous feeling of solidarity and people renew acquaintances. Afterwards, everyone's dying to get back and fight for nationalism." Narrative commemoration Telling stories is an ontological condition of social life and central to identity formation. And in constructing narratives, we can "discern the meaning of any single event only in temporal and spatial relation to other events" (Somers, 1994, page 616). Improvisation is circumscribed by the limited repertoire of emplotted stories, "distinctive projections, expectations and memories", which inhere in different narrative traditions (Somers, 1994, page 614) and yet storytelling is the most contingent process of remembering. I have pointed out that dominant histories and myths are written and performed to inscribe the ideologies and identities of the powerful. Attempts to fix 'official' versions of history pervade popular forms of storytelling in the media and school textbooks. Yet the "rhetorical organisation of remembering and forgetting", what stories are told and how they are shaped, highlights how such narratives contingently juggle with historical Tacts'and myths (Middleton and Edwards, 1990, page 9). As flexible discursive forms, myths enable wide scope for interpretation, being ideologically "chameleon" (Samuel and Thompson, 1990 page 3) and are appropriated to provide antecedence and continuity to political objectives (Tilly, 1994, page 247). The selection and recombining of elements of the same myth and its emplotment within a larger narrative mean that conflicting parties can purvey contrasting ideological messages by using the rallying power of particularly symbolic episodes and places. Thus, the legends of Bruce and Wallace are constantly reworked to reconstruct memories and subjectivities and continue to be summoned to serve a range of competing claims. One species of grand narrative which sews together exemplary myths, political objectives, and collective identities is the nationalist narrative; indeed, common myths

186

Tim Edensor

and historical memories are a fundamental feature of national identities (Smith, 1991, page 14). National(ist) narratives resonate with particular imaginative complexes concerning the demonisation of enemies, amazing feats of heroism, and collective purpose, and, most typically, suggest continuity between past and present. They naturalise the national spatiopolitical entity by suggesting its primordiality, and provide exemplary feats, characters, and collectivities that can be summoned in appeals to future national achievement or self-determination. Bruce and Wallace personify the ancient national pedigree of Scotland and are commonly invoked by diverse classes and party-followers, especially through the performance of Burn's "Scots Wha Hae", Barbour's extract "Freedom", from The Brus, and the Declaration of Arbroath. These popular texts are not only reproduced in the heritage literature on Bannockburn Heritage Centre and the Wallace Monument but are performed at the sites. Today at Bannockburn, many visitors narrate in situ, often in groups, where one member, typically a father or grandfather, briefly relates the story of the battle, remembering Bruce in remarks such as: "Aye an' we're still battlin' on yet, son." "Does it no' make ye proud to be Scottish, eh?" "There's a wonderful man, makes ye feel proud." "No' much has changed. We could do wi' him now." Here, the transmission of memory through narration is thus characteristically undertaken by particular (gendered, generationally specific) national subjects who incorporate their experience and interpretation of the site within the dominant nationalist narrative. However, whereas contemporary narratives about Bannockburn tend to be contained within a framework of nationalist independence, as I have inferred in my examination of the semiotics of the Wallace Monument, this has not always been the predominant narrative. During the era of Romantic nationalism at the end of the 19th century, "British national and imperial identity chimed quite nicely with a strand of Scottish national identity, reinforced by protestantism, Unionism and militarism" (Nairn, 1977, page 209). Although there was a strong patriotic impulse in remembering Bruce and Wallace, this did not contradict the celebration of Britishness. At the ceremony to lay the foundation stone of the Wallace Monument in 1861, at the siting of the flagstaff at Bannockburn in 1889, and again during the commemoration of the sextenary of the battle in 1914, the two heroes were eulogised as proto-British figures. At the inauguration of the campaign to erect the Wallace Monument, the Earl of Elgin declared "if the Scottish people have been able to form an intimate union [with the English] without sacrificing one jot of their neutral independence and liberty—these great results are due to the glorious struggle which was commenced on the plain of Stirling and consummated on that of Bannockburn" (Morton, 1993, page 215). These sentiments were also roundly expressed in contemporary guidebooks and volumes about the battle. Exemplifying this dominant narrative, the Rev. D Smith asked the question "did Bannockburn put back the hands of the clock and delay this happy union for several centuries?" No, he answers, for "Bannockburn saved the self-respect of the Scottish people, and prepared the way for that union with her stronger neighbour which is free from any taint of bitterness, and into which she carried all that is best in her national character ... the victory of the Scots has been a blessing to both countries" (Smith, 1903, page 14). This pro-British 'state-led' narrative of Scottish subordination to the union has been usurped by a 'state-seeking' narrative which pursues national self-determination

National identity and the polities of memory

187

(Tilly, 1994, page 251). What I want to focus on now, are the ways in which the myths surrounding Bruce are remembered by contemporary competing nationalists at the annual Bannockburn rally. Thus, Bannockburn remains emplotted within a nationalist narrative, but the contradictory and ambivalent aspects of the myth means that nationalists use it to emphasise different nationalist qualities and invoke contrasting objectives, highlighting how the master narrative of nationalist assertion is internally fragmented by different discourses and identifications. Different elements of the story of Bruce and the battle are highlighted to convey a range of messages as the significance of the myth shifts and is reinterpreted. At the 1992 rally, SNP leader Alex Salmond appealed to the exemplary victory of the battle to predict that the desires of the people* will win out: "Now, as during the Wars of Independence, it will be the power of the ordinary Scot which will prevail"(quotes taken from my notes), a curious reading of history because, as in most medieval battles, the decisive conflict was between mounted knights and nobles. Nevertheless, the myth is used to enchant the ideas of the mass of repressed Scots, both then and now, who will ultimately triumph, eliding the dramatically different historical conditions under which the 'masses' of *thcn' and *now' livc(d) and suggesting that Bruce represented the masses just as surely as the SNP represents the majority of 'ordinary' Scots. Party President Winnie Ewing made a more conventional appeal in affirming the time-honoured national(ist) sacrality of the site by emoting, "We are gathered here on a noble field. We are the servants of a noble cause: the restoration of liberty and dignity to the oldest nation in Europe". This sort of appeal, which stresses the continuity of the Scottish nation and the cyclical need to stand firm against (English) oppression, appeals to grievous historical wrongs as similar in form to contemporary injustice. At the 1995 rally, Roseanna Cunningham MP emphasised that the site is an apt spatial metaphor for the nation: "The state of Bannockburn field reflects the state of Scotland within the Union—-submerged, neglected and failing in its potential ... both Bannockburn and Scotland should be restored to their rightful state". At the same rally, Alex Salmond stressed the exemplary political and tactical accomplishments that led to victory rather than valour and physical courage: "One of the qualities of Bruce was his ability to evaluate his opponents. If Bruce was assessing the opposition today he'd be aware of their weakness". At the 1996 rally, he gave yet another interpretation that matched current SNP objectives in spelling out his vision of an inclusive independent Scotland: "The SNP have a positive and inclusive vision of Scotland which celebrates our nation in all its rich diversity. And nowhere is it more appropriate to renew and rededicate that vision than here at Bannockburn, on this anniversary of Scottish nationhood. A key lesson of Bannockburn is how the Bruce built an irresistable coalition which harnessed the diversity of all of Scotland and powered the nation of his day towards four centuries of freedom and independence." These contemporary appeals exemplify the flexibility of these myths. What is significant in these narrative reworkings of Bannockburn and the figure of Bruce is that although they retain their great national significance, rather than summoning up glorious victories and the heroism of the warrior, these politicians remember Bannockburn by striking contemporary allusions and metaphors that reposition the event and the site, shifting the larger narrative within which it is emplotted. The exalted position of Bannockburn in nationalist narratives remains but its magic is used to enchant a contemporary political discourse that stresses the need for tactics, uses the language of injustice and unfulfilled potential, and typifies the appeals to popular support of mass party politics. The language of heroism, cruel oppression and suffering, militarism, and revenge is conspicuously absent.

188

Tim Edensor

Contesting these strategic political discourses are Siol nan Gaidheal (Seed of the Gael or SNG). Previously an activist nationalist group with a military wing, they are now solely devoted to promoting and defending Scottish culture and are highly critical of what they consider the instrumental national politics of the SNP. The president of the group put it this way: "Scottish remedies based solely on politics offer zero appeal. Those political prophets who offer the Scottish people a future in terms of statistics and economic expediency can have no understanding of the glorious vista that is there to be explored [for] where there is no vision, the people will perish" (Strathern, 1991). Unlike some members of the SNP, rather than shying away from the potentially embarrassing connotations of tartan and military triumphalism, SNG are attempting to relegitimate these symbols of Scottishness as part of their project to restore 'spiritual health' and achieve a 'cultural renaissance'. According to one member, they aim to "preserve and revive real Scottish culture", organising 16th-century dance training and old bagpipe music that they argue is untainted with romantic versions, what he termed "weird singers in dinner jackets singing Anglified versions of Scottish songs". In this sense they seem to fit in with Hutchinson's (1992) definition of cultural nationalists as 'moral innovators' who want to regenerate national cultures. Bannockburn and the rally are of central importance to the group who remember it as the historical apex of Scottish self-determination and they position themselves as having a different relationship with the site and Scottishness from that of the SNP. Marching behind the main body of SNP members, they wear black T-shirts and kilts, and carry black saltires which signify the demise of Scottish independence. The T-shirts are emblazoned with the legend "so long as one hundred of us survive", an extract from the revered Declaration of Arbroath which exclaims that Scotland's freedom will be defended to the death, and thereby summons up the mythical qualities of physical courage and sacrifice that are deemed anachronistic by many nationalists. Amongst these nationalists, and between all political parties, the contemporary iconic value of the site is disputed. The selection of episodes and exemplary deeds and qualities from the Bannockburn myth and their emplotment in competing nationalist narratives attests to the flexible use of symbolic sites and stories in the politics of remembering. As Massey argues, these changing and conflicting views of the past are in fact, "competing histories of the present, wielded as arguments over what should be the future" (1995, page 185). I will now further emphasise the contested and problematic significance of these nationalist narratives by examining the responses to Braveheart. Braveheart These ways of remembering Bruce and Wallace have been given a recent twist with the release of the Hollywood blockbuster, Braveheart, directed by and starring Mel Gibson, which portrays Wallace's struggles with the English and his subsequent death. The image factory of Hollywood has recast the myth, partly in accordance with its requirements of action sequences, characterisation, and narrative, to appeal to an international audience. This appears to confirm the aforementioned processes that disembed social memory from place. It seems that the motion picture industry scours the globe in search of mythological narratives and heroes to reenchant thematic narratives which can be refurbished and sold back to their country of origin as part of the international market. Morley and Robins argue that "the 'memory banks' of our time are in some part built out of the material supplied by the television and film industries" (1995, page 90). According to German 'independent' filmmaker Edgar Reitz, Hollywood has "taken narrative possession of our past" (quoted in Morley and Robins, 1995, page 93). As far

National identity ami the politics of memory

189

as representations of Scotland in film are concerned, there has been a heated debate about which images and narratives constitute appropriate representations. McArthur (1982) rails against dominant representations which, he argues, constitute a hegemonic system that interpellates Scots with a sense of their own inferiority and suffocate attempts to produce alternative representations. Like Nairn, he deplores the familiar kitsch and •regressive1 tropes of kailyard, Clydesidism, and Highland tartanry which "slip into the national imaginary as familiar identities, and into the international image markets as tradeable symbolic goods'* (Caughic, 1990, page 14). Yet this account misses the contradiction and ambivalence in and across the discourses and the knowing selfmockery and the interpretative licence towards these Scottish myths. For the purposes of this account, however, it is difficult to disregard the nexus between popular representations on these 'international image markets* and the heritage industry, Media reconstructions of the past in popular forms such as costume dramas (Corner and Harvey, 1991, page 49) capitalise on the desire to see the 'other* in the foreign country of the past. Indeed, Wollcn has described film and television as a "kaleidoscope for armchair tourists" (1991, page 191). Appadurai (1990, page 299) observes how images and narratives, often fantastic and acsthcticiscd, are incorporated in global "mediascapes" which transmit notions of difference and stimulate the "desire for acquisition and movement". More specifically, as narratives of the 'other', they provoke the movement of tourists, These increasingly visual modes of remembering are instantiated in the audiovisual productions, film shows, simulacra, and dramaturgical reenactments that are found at heritage sites such as the two I discuss here. In many cases, memory is articulated less through gazing upon authentic artefacts and more through immersion in the excitement of the staged experience. Tourist marketing campaigns are increasingly organised around 'heritage films' and mythic fantasies. Thus familiar filmic landscapes, people, and romantic tales mesh with the selling of place and history. The Loch Lomond, Trossachs and Stirling Tourist Board estimate that the success of Brave/wart could bring in an extra £16 million in tourist revenue in 1996. In recognition of this economic potential, the government has given £100000 to the tourist board to advertise abroad. The board have produced an advertisement which reads, "Where the Highlands met the Lowlands, step into the echoes of Rob Roy, Robert the Bruce and William Wallace—Braveheart Country". In addition, they have designed an advert for international transmission in cinemas before the showing of Braveheart. Combining scenes from the film with aerial views of the Wallace Monument and local scenery,.the advert ends with the exhortation to "experience the very heart of Scotland: Stirling is Braveheart Country''. I have spoken of the diverse ways in which Wallace and Bruce are remembered at the heritage sites which commemorate them. The reconstitution of the Wallace myth at an international level has restaged questions of Scottish identity and how it ought to be represented. With the boost to tourism Braveheart has provided, and the ways in which the figure of Wallace has barnstormed back into various political discourses, the sites of Bannockburn and especially the Wallace Monument have become recharged with symbolic significance. The SNP was quick to exploit the metaphorical themes of the film. Alex Salmond claimed that "the message is relevant today in that it is the Scots who are fighting for their independence the same way they are at the moment" (Glasgow Herald 1995). To capitalise on the emotional charge of the film, the SNP distributed leaflets outside cinemas in Scotland with the slogan: TODAY IT'S NOT JUST BRAVEHEARTS WHO CHOOSE INDEPENDENCE—IT'S ALSO WISEHEADS—AND THEY USE THE BALLOT BOX.

190

Tim Edensor

The release of Braveheart fuelled an intense debate within the Scottish media about its significance and the heroic figure remembered in the film. For weeks, the columns, editorials, and letter pages of national newspapers were filled with arguments. Some commentators celebrated the reinvigoration of the myth, enthusing over the "heroic nature of at least one part of our past and a new enthusiasm for the future of our nation" (Russell, 1995). Others more knowingly accepted that the film provided Scots with "a powerful creation myth which will surely help focus our national sense of identity" (Pendriegh, 1995). Some argued that it brought out an awareness of wider historical themes from which Scots could learn; for instance, the need for collective action and the importance of remaining vigilant about those "parcel of rogues" who might sell out their compatriots (see Riddoch, 1995). However, many pundits viewed the film with disquiet and echoed Nairn's and McArthur's warnings, arguing that such representations "encouraged Scotland's lack of knowledge about itself. Greedy for confirmation as a romantically wild nation, our gluttony for feeding on myth and heathery legend reaches worrying proportions when it affects the entire socio-political consciousness of a nation" (Gillan, 1995). Some worried about whether a modern nationalist movement should so triumphantly celebrate a medieval warrior (see Massie, 1995). Also under attack was the recursive and defensive nationalism which some believed the film espoused, particularly in the demonisation of the English (Gillan, 1995; MacAskill, 1995). Yet others condemned the cavalier approach to historical fact and the lack of authenticity (Miller, 1995). This small selection of responses to Braveheart highlights the conjuncture of the film's release with the upsurge of the vexed question of how Scottishness should be remembered. And the themes of these arguments echo those that surround the Wallace Monument and Bannockburn. In this sense, the film can be seen to have fed back into local political debates about national identity. Its diverse appropriation by a multitude of groups seems to rebuke suggestions that the commodification of myths reduces them to vapid icons. Conclusion By exploring the diverse practices of remembering that surround Bannockburn Heritage Centre and the Wallace Monument, I have shown that processes of social memory are proliferating and fragmenting. Like many other social practices, remembering is becoming increasingly disembedded. But despite the processes by which heritage is transformed into a commodity (as an 'experience' or segment of 'infotainment') and the continued power of 'experts' to ascertain what is historical fact and mythical fiction, social remembering is not becoming circumscribed. Indeed, the proliferation of images and narratives of the past provides resources which can be appropriated for a multiplicity of purposes that may differ from their original contexts. The embodied, visual and oral forms of remembrance, official, expert, and subaltern commemorations, and individual and group performances I have identified show the complexity of sensual, political, and social forms of remembering at particular sites. I have emphasised that symbolic sites such as Bannockburn and the Wallace Monument are subject to changing and competing claims as to their significance which involve various practices of social remembering. The politics of memory within the heritage industry is not monolithic but instead, is typified by competing opinions about what should be remembered and how. I have also shown how attempts to inscribe the meaning of remembrance upon the landscape cannot be fixed because the semiotic interpretation of icons changes over time. Symbolic sites are incorporated into political rhetoric and function as powerful metaphors, their affective and mythical status ensuring that they can be flexibly harnessed to a variety of causes. That the

National identity and the politics of memory

191

particular sites in this study are used to signify national attributes indicates that the poetics of remembering is integral to the politics of national identity. As Morley and Robins declare* 'Identity is a question of memory, and memories of 'home' in particular" (1995, page 91). The particular ways in which the two sites are woven into narratives of Scottish identity highlights the unstable and contested condition of national identity in the late 20th century. Visitors to tourist centres in Scotland usually confront what Nairn calls the "tartan monster1*, in the form of "a prodigious array of kitsch symbols, slogans, ornaments, banners, war-cries, knick-knacks" (1977, page 162). He argues that these historic symbols of Scottishncss have produced a "deformed and distorted" national identity which he lambasts as "cultural sub nationalism" (1977, page 156). McArthur concurs that such representations thwart attempts to construct a "progressive" Scottishncss and worries that Scotland is destined to continually fulfil its role as "the Romantic dream landscape par excellence" (1994, page 104). There have been numerous attempts to provide alternative representations of Scotland by artists, playwrights, filmmakers (see Caughie, 1990), historians (see for instance, Donnachic and Whatlcy, 1992), and local and subaltern groups. And although popular ways in which Scottishness is remembered and woven into narratives of belonging continue to be infused by tartan, military heroism, and romantic scenery, these representations are used in a multiplicity of ways by a range of nationalists, Tories, and tourists. Disembedding processes (in this case, the externalisation of memory through the heritage industry), place-marketing, and mediatisation have a profound impact on national and local identities. On the one hand, they remove aspects of the production of identity from the local stage and transform situated characters and events in transmitting them to a global audience. On the other hand, they provide reworked narratives and images which can reignite debates over identity and be repatriated. This has occurred at the symbolic sites I have examined and is especially evident with the release of Braveheart Thus, global economic restructuring processes produce not only material transformation but changes to the "spaces of identity" as well (Robins, 1991, page 24). Braveheart seems to exemplify Samuel's contention that "memory-keeping is a function increasingly assigned to the electronic media", a process which he also identifies as revealing the "artifice of representation" in documenting the past (1994, page 25). Yet although there have been complaints about the historical distortion in the film, it has also been grasped as a symbolic resource with which to anchor identity through a politicised remembrance (see Huyssen, 1995, page 7). Many respond to the destabilising of local personality by seeking solace in "centred, bounded and coherent identities" (Robins, 1991, page 41). National myths can be remembered to espouse inclusive identities: who belongs and who does not, and who is interpellated as national subjects. But although attempts to fix Scottishness are organised around established memories, sites, and myths, as we have seen, there are continual attempts to reinterpret their significance. Although many nationalists are unhappy with the recursive properties of the Bruce and Wallace myths, they endeavour to recast them in a progressive light. Precisely to escape inclusive notions of nationalism, the SNP symbolically included a Scots Asian prospective parliamentary candidate on the platform at the 1996 Bannockburn rally who announced "the importance of the site for all Scots" (The Scotsman 1996; italics added for emphasis). A particularly prominent conflict is between cultural and political Scottish nationalists (Hutchinson, 1992). The concern of political nationalists to formulate economic and constitutional policies requires a modern image that seems at odds with old myths, and cultural nationalists, such as Siol nan Gaidheal, are concerned

192

Tim Edensor

with morally uplifting the nation by invoking historical and geographical elements that provide an identity rooted in the land and in the past. The memories of visitors to Bannockburn and the Wallace Monument are informed by images from films, by their experience and expectations as international tourists, as nationalist pilgrims, as celebrants in dramaturgical rituals or political rallies, as officials, as marketers or members of the heritage industry, or as locals. These variously scaled links, which produce different imagined geographies, illustrate Massey's notion of a "progressive sense of place" wherein sites are "constructed out of a particular constellation of relations articulated together at a particular locus" (1993, page 66). As "constantly shifting articulations of social relations", the contesting narratives and practices that surround places evince the continual struggle to define them (Massey, 1995, page 188). As she declares, people's association with a place, their routes through it, "their favourite haunts within it, the connections they make (physically, by phone or by post, or in memory and imagination)... vary enormously" (1993, page 65). The processes of social remembering at Bannockburn and the Wallace Monument attest to these diverse ways in which people are connected to places. References Allan J, 1904 The Borestone and the Field of Bannockburn (Stirling Journal, Stirling) Anderson B, 1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, London) Appadurai A, 1990, "Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy", in Global Culture Ed. M Featherstone (Sage, London) pp 295 - 310 Ash M, 1990, "William Wallace and Robert the Bruce: the life and death of a national myth", in The Myths We Live By Eds R Samuel, P Thompson (Routledge, London) pp 83 - 94 Auge M, 1995 Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (Verso, London) Bauman Z, 1987 Legislators and Interpreters (Polity Press, Cambridge) Boyarin J (Ed.), 1994 Remapping Memory: The Politics of Time Space (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN) Britton S, 1991, "Tourism, capital, and place: towards a critical geography of tourism" Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 9 451 -478 Caughie J, 1990, "Representing Scotland: new questions for Scottish cinema", in From Limelight to Satellite Ed. E Dick (BFI Publishing, London) pp 13-30 Cohen A, 1985 The Symbolic Construction of Community (Tavistock, London) Connerton P, 1989 How Societies Remember (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) Corner J, Harvey S (Eds), 1991 Enterprise and Heritage (Routledge, London) Cosgrove D, Daniels S (Eds), 1988 The Iconography of Landscape (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) Crang M 1994, "On the heritage trail: maps of and journeys to Olde England" Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 12 341 - 355 Donnachie I, Whatley C (Eds), 1992 The Manufacture of Scottish History (Polygon, Edinburgh) Game A, 1991 Undoing the Social (Open University Press, Milton Keynes) Giddens A, 1991 Modernity and Self identity (Polity Press, Cambridge) Gillan A, 1995, "Brave hearts, forgetful of a troubled past, play the patriot game again" Scotland on Sunday 10 September, page 16 Glasgow Herald 1995, "SNP rides high on back of Braveheart", 2 October, page 1 Harvey D, 1989 The Condition of Postmodernity (Basil Blackwell, Oxford) Hewison R, 1987 The Heritage Industry (Methuen, London) Hutchinson J, 1992, "Moral innovators and the politics of regeneration: the distinctive role of cultural nationalists in nation-building" International Journal of Comparative Sociology 33(1-2) 101-117 Huyssen A, 1995 Twilight Memories (Routledge, London) Johnson N, 1995, "Cast in stone: monuments, geography and nationalism" Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 13 51 - 66 Kearns G, Philo C (Eds), 1993 Selling Places (Pergamon, Oxford) Lannon T, 1983 The Making of Modern Stirling (Forth Naturalist and Historian, Stirling) Lowenthal D, 1985 The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)

National identity and the politics of memory

193

McArthur C, 1982 Scotch Reels: Scotland in Cinema and Television (BFI Publishing, London) McArthur C, 1994. "Cullodcn: a pre-emptive .strike" Scottish Affairs 3(9) 97- 126 MacAskill E, 1995, "No Oscar for SNP over Bravchcart" The Scotsman 12 September, page 11 McCronc D, Morris A, Kicly R, 1995 Scotland The Brand (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh) McKerracher A, 1991, "Brace's secret weapon" Scots Magazine June Massey D, 1993, "Power-geometry and a progressive sense of place", in Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change Eds J Bird, B Curtis, T Putnam, G Robertson, LTickner (Routledge, London) pp 59 69 Massey D, 1995, "Places and their pasts" History Workshop Journal 39 182- 192 Massie A, 1995, "Pride, prejudice and the birth of a hero figure" Scotland on Sunday 3 September, page 12 Middleton D, Edwards D, 1990 Collective Remembering (Sage, London) Miller E, 1995, "Schoolroom howlers that make Braveheart a travesty" The Scotsman 7 September, page 13 Morley D, Robins K, 1995 Spaces of Identity (Routledge, London) Morton G, 1993 Unionist Nationalism: The Historical Construction of Scottish National Identity, Edinburgh 1830 -1860 PhD thesis, Department of History, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Nairn T, 1977 The Break-up of Britain (Verso, London) Neumann M, 1988, "Wandering through the museum: experience and identity in a spectator culture" Border/Lines pp 19-27 Nora P, 1989, "Between memory and history: les licux dc memoire" Representations Spring, 7-25 Pendreigh B, 1995, "Gibson turns Wallace into Mad Max" The Scotsman 4 September, page 8 Pringle T, 1988, "The privation of history: Landseer, Victoria and the Highland myth", in The Iconography of Landscape Eds D Cosgrove, S Daniels (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp'14*2-161 Radley A, 1990, "Artefacts, memory and a sense of the past", in Collective Remembering Eds D Middleton, D Edwards (Sage, London) pp 46-59 Riddoch L, 1995, "Getting to the heart of the matter" The Scotsman 4 September, page 13 Robins K, 1991, "Tradition and translation: national culture in its global context", in Enterprise and Heritage Eds J Corner, S Harvey (Routledge, London) pp 25-44 Rojek C 1993 Ways of Escape (Macmillan, London) Russell M, 1995, "Bravchcart points up positive nature of independence" The Scotsman 20 September, page 13 Samuel R, 1994 Theatres of Memory (Verso, London) Samuel R, Thompson P (Eds), 1990 The Myths We Live By (Routledge, London) Scottish Tourist Board, 1994 Visitor Attractions Survey Scottish Tourist Board, 23 Ravclston, Edinburgh EH4 3EU Short J, 1991 Imagined Country (Routledge, London) Smith A, 1991 National Identity (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx) Smith Rev. D, 1903 Battle of Bannockbum (James Hogg, Stirling) Somers M, 1994, "The narrative constitution of identity: a relational and network approach" Theory and Society 23 605-649 Stirling News 1992, "Bruce falls victim to corporate area", 20 August, page 1 Strathern M, 1991, "Presidential Address" Siol number 6/7, page 1, Siol nan Gaidheal, 35 Aller Place, Eliburn, Livingstone, West Lothian EH54 6RF The Scotsman 1996, "SNP claims growing support among Asians", 21 June Tilly C, 1994, "Afterword: political memories in space and time", in Remapping Memory: The Politics of Time Space Ed. J Boyarin (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN) pp 241-256 Urry J, 1995a, "How societies remember the past", departmental paper, Department of Sociology, University of Lancaster, Lancaster Urry J, 1995b Consuming Places (Routledge, London) Warner M, 1993 Monuments and Maidens (Verso, London) Weightman B, 1987, "Third world tour landscapes" Annals of Tourism Research 14 454 - 475 Withers C, 1992, "The creation of the Scottish Highlands", in The Manufacture of Scottish History Eds I Donnachie, C Whatley (Polygon, Edinburgh) pp 143 -156 Wollen T, 1991, "Over our shoulders: nostalgic screen fictions for the 1980s", in Enterprise and Heritage Eds J Corner, S Harvey (Routledge, London) pp 178 -193

194

Tim Edensor

Womack P, 1989 Improvement and Romance: Constructing the Myth of the Highlands (Macmillan, London) Wright P, 1985 On Living in an Old Country (Verso, London)

p

© 1997 a Pion publication printed in Great Britain