Over the summer I began to question my own cultural identity in light of the Scottish referendum. Previous to this I had never thought of myself as a migrant or a minority but would I if there had been a winning yes vote?
Am I Scottish or English? Could I still be British in a Yes-world?
In 1992, I was born in Chester, England the place where my mother spent the majority of her childhood growing up with her Irish father and Welsh mother. Four years later we moved to Edinburgh, Scotland where I spent the next 10 years growing up. My father was born in a fishing village in the North East of Scotland and didn’t move from this area until he left the family home. This is where my granny and all of my cousins live today. In 2006, I moved with my family back to Chester where I finished secondary education until moving to London for university in 2011.
There were a number of things that were different when I moved to England at the age of 14. My new English friends had never heard of a ceilidh and they definitely didn’t do Scottish country dancing in P.E. I had to explain that we had ceilidhs where we take part in traditional dances in groups or partners instead of school discos and that we enjoyed it! In England haggis was not on the school lunch menu – not even on the 25th January – Burns night. And Burns poetry was not learnt every year in English class.
I had no idea about the Tudors, only that there was some guy called Henry that made his own church and had loads of wives. Having been taught Scottish history at school I could have told you a bit about Robert the Bruce, William Wallace and the Battle of Bannockburn but I had no idea about English history apart from when it clashed with the Scots.
At a school cathedral service in England we had to sing the national anthem, God Save the Queen, I had no idea of the lyrics and only a vague recognition of the tune. Flower of Scotland, however, I knew my heart.
When asked where I come from I say “Edinburgh, but my parents live in Chester now” – I’ve never felt an affinity to Chester its just a place that I have lived but I feel at home in Edinburgh. For most of my life I have thought of myself as Scottish but the more time I spend living in England I am beginning to think of myself more as British. I feel quite at home in London too now.
This summer on the 18th September the Scottish population voted in a referendum for Scottish Independence. I have never wanted to vote for something more in my life, but having lived south of the border for a number of years and having no address to call home north of the border I could not vote. Did this already make me not-Scottish?
If I had a vote I would have voted no based on a number of social, economic and political reasons. But regardless of all the thought-out reasons, I think I would have voted no with my heart. Does this mean I feel more British? Or is it because I feel I am a Scot living in England and I’d like to keep the union so I can be both?
The polls were so close all the way through the lead up to 18th September. I kept updated daily. I have to say I have never been so involved with a news story before this.
What if there had been a Yes-vote? The speculation over this sparked a personal discourse about national and cultural identity. Could I have had dual citizenship? What would this mean for my cultural identity?
With this all in mind I began to look at bicultural identity and hybrid cultures. The more I read the more questions I started to ask. How do we define ourselves? How does globalisation affect hybrid identities? Should we embrace global culture or preserve local culture? Can we do both? Is a cultural homogenisation happening? What is not a hybrid – everything and nothing? When and how will hybridity end – if it does? In order to conceptualise hybridism do we need to accept the existence of once “pure” culture? How would you classify “pure” and “hybrid” cultures?
In his book Cultural Hybrids, Peter Burke outlines five areas of interest that arise from cultural hybridity: varieties of objects; varieties of terminologies; varieties of situation; varieties of responses, varieties of outcomes. The section I found to be of particular interest was the varieties of objects. This section had three sub-sections: hybrid objects (architecture, fine arts, literary genres, translations); hybrid practices (religion, music, language, sports, festivals, cuisine, governance); hybrid individuals or groups (children, parents, converted).
This section made me consider material culture of hybrid cultures. I want to look at how a non-ritual object can be used in a ritual-context in another culture. Are hybrid objects created by hybrid culture? Can hybrid objects create new culture?
Through my work I want to uncover and examine issues of cultural identity through inspection of objects that people use in daily practice. I intend to explore the material culture of bicultural identities. I want to investigate the emergence of hybrid objects from cultural interaction.
