Nackian narratives: storytelling and ideology within Scotland's traveller communities

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.