ABSTRACT

This chapter reflects on how members of the traditional arts community responded to the new political context of Scotland’s 2014 referendum campaign for independence. Using ‘performance’ as a relational framework, it offers some observations on the various ways and contexts in and through which traditional music was mobilised, in the months leading up to the vote, as a social force for the performance of cultural politics, identities, values, aspirations and a shared vision of ‘a progressive, culturally independent and confident Scottish nation.’ In this case, resources of the past were used not to construct an idealised present but to prefigure an achievable future. The chapter argues that, within the context of the campaign, musical events were more than celebratory politics; they were social moments of profound transformation and the creation of community, transforming the traditional arts community’s sense both of what politics is capable and of music’s agency within such a highly charged political context.