Nackian narratives: storytelling and ideology within Scotland's traveller communities
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Date
14/06/2022Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
14/06/2025Author
Fell, Robert
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Abstract
This thesis examines the storytelling traditions of one of Scotland’s most iconic yet
underrepresented ethnic minorities, known to officialdom and the wider population as
‘Travellers’. The originality of the thesis comes from the deployment of interdisciplinary
methodologies that are rarely utilised within the field of ethnology. Usually, ethnological
scholarship consists of descriptions and taxonomies, with little or no attention being paid to
the analysis and interpretation of the material itself (Dundes 1980: vii). This lack of
interpretation is especially conspicuous when it comes to the traditions of Scotland’s
Traveller communities. Here, concepts drawn from folkloristics, narratology, onomastics and
literary criticism are brought to bear on the Travellers’ rich oral storytelling traditions to
present plausible explanations of their meanings. Niles asserts that Traveller storytelling has a
masterful ability to ‘communicate values and beliefs’ (1999: 165) and Braid identifies one of
its functions as the negotiation of difference with outsiders (2002: 46). Expanding on these
insights, I view the diverse storytelling traditions within a framework that foregrounds social
discourse and lived experience. To do this, I draw upon a large corpus of archival material
that is currently underutilised in the literature on Traveller communities. Contemporary
fieldwork results are also incorporated, enriching my archival analyses and giving voice to
the most recent generations of Scotland’s Travellers. I demonstrate the sophistication of their
storytelling traditions, arguing that careful analysis of the stories is crucial to our
understanding of the Travellers’ unique cultural identities and worldviews. I show that
Traveller storytelling traditions function as complex expressions of the communities’
ideological constitution. I reveal how the stories examined display a distinctive aesthetic that
gives Traveller versions of well-known international tales nuanced, culturally significant
meanings. These meanings function to ventriloquise group identities and problematise
dominant sedentarist ideologies. Tensions between conflicting ideological imperatives are
brought into sharp focus, demonstrating how valuable understandings of complex social
relationships are woven into Travellers’ cultural expressions. I contend that ‘Nackian
narrative’ – a term linked to Travellers’ self-definition outside of official designations – be
acknowledged as a distinctive folk idiom within the wider Scottish and European folkloric
traditions. What Clark refers to as ‘invisible lives’ (2001: 16) are thereby made conspicuous
through the stories and oral histories illuminated by this thesis.