Circulation and Differentiation of Scottish Games and Sports

Abstract

The circulation and differentiation of the Scottish games and sports through time and space offers a fine example to study the mobility, adaptation and reconstruction of traditional rituals and festivals in general. On the one hand, traditional games such as folk-football or 'handba' remain closely connected with their original spaces and still take place at special times in the traditional Scot- tish calendar. On the other hand, the athletic sports and competitions known as the Highland Games have followed the Scottish diaspora in the British Com- monwealth and have eventually spread all around the world. While the former address only a limited audience in the original communities, the latter have become famous and address a massive audience worldwide. While folk-football and 'handba' have remained strictly local, the Highland Games have become globalised sports. There is a paradox here, because the globalisation of the High- land Games contradicts the primitive image usually associated with the Scottish Highlands. In this article, I present some data collected both in Scotland and in the United States of America in order to show the changes in the ways that the traditional Scottish games and sports are performed in their original context and abroad. I especially try to show how the Scottish identity is disconnected from any spatial references in the new context of a global circulation of ritual patterns.