ABSTRACT

The first full-length ethnographic study of its kind, Highland Homecomings examines the role of place, ancestry and territorial attachment in the context of a modern age characterized by mobility and rootlessness.

With an interdisciplinary approach, speaking to current themes in anthropology, archaeology, history, historical geography, cultural studies, migration studies, tourism studies, Scottish studies, Paul Basu explores the journeys made to the Scottish Highlands and Islands to undertake genealogical research and seek out ancestral sites.

Using an innovative methodological approach, Basu tracks journeys between imagined homelands and physical landscapes and argues that through these genealogical journeys, individuals are able to construct meaningful self-narratives from the ambiguities of their diasporic migrant histories, and recover their sense of home and self-identity.

This is a significant contribution to popular and academic Scottish studies literature, particularly appealing to popular and academic audiences in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Scotland

chapter 1|24 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|12 pages

An itinerant anthropology

chapter 4|29 pages

Imagineering home

chapter 5|28 pages

Home spaces, homepages, homelands

chapter 6|27 pages

Clanlands

chapter 7|10 pages

Sites of memory, sources of identity

chapter 8|28 pages

Homecomings

chapter 10|12 pages

Heuristic journeys