Ethnographic study of Scottish Gaelic language revitalisation and nature conservation in the Western Isles

Abstract

This thesis is an investigation of the tensions and confluences between the revitalisation of Scottish Gaelic and the conservation of nature in Uist, a region within the Western Isles. The islands are home to internationally important biodiversity as well as the densest population of Scottish Gaelic speakers remaining in the world. The thesis considers the question of how it comes to be that the conservation of nature and the revitalisation of Gaelic do not often work together effectively. Based on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Uist, the study draws on participant observation and interviews with a wide variety of island residents, including fishers, crofters, artists, government employees, land managers, conservationists, and others, as well as social media and documentary analysis. The thesis itself juxtaposes problems of language politics and resource management under six classic anthropological themes which provide a framework for analysis: community, nature, writing, classifying, indigeneity, and prediction. Each of these themes creates a discursive space in which the worldbuilding practices of a variety of actors can be considered in relation to Gaelic and nature, while engaging with debates in environmental and linguistic anthropology. I argue that the mismatch between Gaelic and nature conservation has two major causes: the first is in the core concepts of environmental governance – nature and community – which have their roots in oppressive structures which have been damaging to island lifeways and do not match with islander experiences. The second is that nature conservation draws on epistemological traditions which exclude minority languages and other ways of knowing. Finally, the thesis demonstrates the ways in which similar discourses are utilised in both Gaelic and Nature conservation and considers their relative efficacy: it is argued that a politics of hopelessness ironically offers an example of a discursive symbiosis between the two.