Myth and Materiality in a Woman's World

The place of women in Shetland society is unique. In this isolated island group off the north of Scotland, women dominated the family, economy and the cultural imagination for 200 years. Here, women were numerically preponderant and economically vital. They maintained families and communities because men were absent. In their minds they constructed an identity of themselves as 'liberated' long before organised feminism was invented. This book examines how in the nineteenth century Shetland became a female place. Despite an appearance of outward masculinity, where contemporary identity still draws on the exploits of the Norseman, this land of fishermen and seafarers concealed a feminine way of life and culture, a place where traditional gender roles were reversed. It examines the opportunities and life experiences of women in a place where more of them worked and fewer got married than anywhere else in the British Isles. And it is about the relationship between myth-making and historical materiality and the ways in which the people of this most northern archipelago of the British Isles have imagined their past. Reconstructing this 'woman's world' from fragments of cultural experience captured in written and oral sources, the author recreates and explores Shetland using its inhabitants' material experience and personal testimony. This book will appeal to scholars in the fields of social and cultural history, social anthropology, gender and women's studies.

ISBN 0719065933   Pages 268 ISBN13 9780719065934 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 345 Publisher Manchester University Press   Published in Manchester Imprint Manchester University Press   Series title Gender in History Format Paperback   Height (mm) 216 Publication date 01 Jun 2010   Width (mm) 140 DEWEY 941.1081   Spine width (mm) 15 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate

		List of Figures, Table and Plates
		Preface and Acknowledgements
		Glossary and Note on Shetland Dialect
		Map of Shetland
1		Pasts, peoples, selves		1
		Arrivals		1
		Otherness		2
		Belonging		6
		Understanding		11
		Interpreting		15
2		Stories		24
		Narrative		24
		Sagas		31
		Old wives' tales		34
		Performance		38
		Conclusions		47
3		Place		53
		Women in the landscape		53
		Life and work		58
		Surplus women		65
		Conclusions		80
4		Work		84
		Producing		84
		Crofting		89
		Knitting		98
		Gutting		111
		Conclusions		116
5		Culture		122
		Collectivity		123
		Solidarity		125
		Trust		130
		Vulnerability		133
		Sociability		140
		More...

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Version	Price	Published	Edition
Hardback	£49.99	2005
Electronic Book	£49.99	2008