ABSTRACT
The previous chapter focused on North Sea oil and Scottish Highland culture, but this chapter moves further north to examine the relationship between oil and memory through literature and media culture in the Shetland Islands (also referred to as the Shetland Isles or Shetland). Outlying as it may seem, Shetland has existed in the North Sea oil and gas industry since the 1970s. This subarctic archipelago, blending Scottish and Nordic history and culture but part of the United Kingdom, has resisted various phases of colonisation over the last several hundred years. Although slight in population, Shetland contains a productive and responsive literary history to oppression and occupation. Over the last 40 years, writers and poets have specifically responded to the oil and gas industry, showing both the benefits and difficulties of living in the centre of the North Sea oil boom. This chapter aims to link place-based poetry, film, and Web-based media in Shetland’s petroculture through a discussion about Roseanne Watt’s filmpoem Sullom (2014).
