Scottish Highland Games. Heritage, Invented Tradition and Identity Formation (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0, University of Passau, language: English, abstract: On 20th August 2017, the small village Wittental in the rural countryside of the Black Forest celebrated the tenth anniversary of hosting their traditional Highland games. According to a newspaper announcement the event was firstly introduced in 1999 and ever since has been organised by the local community every second year, offering sport competitions like the 'Heavies' as well as music, food and Scottish Whisky tasting. But why is an ancient Scottish tradition practised in the South of Germany? Is it an example of the Highland games being used by Scottish people to identify with their origins and Scotland? Or is it simply an invented marketing idea to promote a sport event of a remote Black Forest village aiming at attracting visitors through a well-known name?

This paper will concentrate on the Scottish Highland games in Scotland as well as in other parts of the world. Despite the fact that they are separated from their original background and could be seen as an invented tradition by the British, there is reason to classify them as heritage as well. Albeit their hybrid form between invented tradition and heritage, Scottish people all over the world hold on to the Scottish Highland games as they have the ability to create the basis for a common identity. To explain this, in the following the ideas of 'Heritage' and 'Invented Tradition' will shortly be introduced, a historic background of the event's development throughout the centuries will be given and all this information will be applied in an analysis of the Highland games.