The community is the culture: festivity, community identity and ethnicity at the Antigonish Highland Games

Columbus Doyle, Erin (2005) The community is the culture: festivity, community identity and ethnicity at the Antigonish Highland Games. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This thesis is an ethnography of the Antigonish Highland Games which have existed since 1863, hosted by the Highland Society in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. An historical perspective contextualizing the province's Scottish immigrations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the phenomenon of Highland Games in general introduces this study. Using the 1999 Games as a performance text, this event is proven a festival as elucidated by Falassi, Stoeltje, Abrahams and Bauman. The Games act as an authentic vehicle to express the community's identity. This identity is: co-operative in spirit ensuring the Games' successful presentation each year, resilient to the annual influx of tourists, and inextricably tied to the area's ethnic past by displaying participants' connection to their Scottish ancestors and history. Authentic expression of ethnicity is an integral part of Antigonish's identity. Antigonish's current ethnicity is read through Stern and Cicala's concept of creative ethnicity which contrasts with invented traditions as discussed by McKay, Trevor-Roper, Hobsbawm and Ranger.

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