Western Isles Research Articles

The importance of the informal food economy to food access and security: An examination of the Western Isles of Scotland

In many countries the informal food economy (IFE) plays an essential role in ensuring food access and security. In addition, IFEs can improve choice, have a positive impact upon diet as well as generate household income and employment. While studies have primarily focused upon the role of IFEs in developing economies, their importance within more developed rural markets warrants further attention. This paper draws upon key learnings from the existing literature and examines how IFEs operate within a developed, rural economy. Framed within a social economy framework, it examines the role and function of IFEs across the Western Isles of Scotland. Despite being part of an advanced market economy, food access and security in this region has previously been identified as problematic for particular consumer groups and communities. The research identifies that due to the continued expansion of the formal retail sector and the growth of on-line delivery, food access has become less of an issue for many island residents. This is not to suggest that IFEs are inconsequential. Apart from their role in strengthening social and community linkages, for certain segments of the island population they continue to play a key role in providing food access. The research also identified an increasing reliance upon a small number of national retail chains. This suggests, that in future, food security in remote and rural communities could become increasingly vulnerable to market externalities.

Association of ectoparasite Lepeophtheirus salmonis counts on farmed Atlantic salmon and wild sea trout in Scotland.

Parasitic sea lice (Copepoda: Caligidae) colonising marine salmonid (Salmoniformes: Salmonidae) aquaculture production facilities have been implicated as a possible pressure on wild salmon and sea trout populations. This investigation uses monitoring data from the mainland west coast and Western Isles of Scotland to estimate the association of the abundance of adult female Lepeophtheirus salmonis (Krøyer) colonising farmed Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. with the occurrence of juvenile and mobile L. salmonis on wild sea trout, anadromous S. trutta L. The associations were evaluated using generalised linear mixed models incorporating farmed adult female salmon louse abundances which are temporally lagged relative to dependent wild trout values. The pattern of lags, which is consistent with time for L. salmonis development between egg and infective stage, was evaluated using model deviances. A significant positive association is identified between adult female L. salmonis abundance on farms and juvenile L. salmonis on wild trout. This association is consistent with a causal relationship in which increases in the number of L. salmonis copepodids originating from lice colonising farmed Atlantic salmon cause an increase of L. salmonis abundance on wild sea trout.

Singing and the Dùsgaidhean: The Impact of Religious Awakenings on Musical Creativity in the Outer Hebrides

The evangelical revivals (known in English as ‘awakenings’ and in Gaelic as na dùsgaidhean) of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had an immediate impact upon singing and music-making in Presbyterian communities in the Western Isles as well as a significant long-term effect on both traditional and sacred musical practice and performance. Awakenings often led converts to re-evaluate their participation in traditional music-making and singing and compelled many to give up their secular music practices upon conversion. Even so, music-making itself was not discouraged, and these religious revivals created an environment which encouraged converts to replace their secular repertoire with spiritual songs and hymns, and to embrace the singing and new composition of spiritual songs to express their newly experienced Christian faith. This article examines the impact of religious revivals on music-making in the Outer Hebrides – particularly Lewis – and the significant musical shifts, including the composition of new repertoire, which took place within communities as a result.

Reproductive isolation in a three-way contact zone.

Contact zones between divergent forms within a species provide insight into the role of gene flow in adaptation and speciation. Previous work has focused on contact zones involving only two divergent forms, but in nature, many more than two populations may overlap simultaneously and experience gene flow. Patterns of introgression in wild populations are, therefore, likely much more complicated than is often assumed. We begin to address this gap in current knowledge by investigating patterns of divergence and introgression across a complex natural contact zone. We use phenotypic and genomic data to confirm the existence of a three-way contact zone among divergent freshwater resident, saltwater resident and saltwater migratory three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) on the island of North Uist, Scottish Western Isles. We find evidence for hybridization, mostly between saltwater resident and saltwater migratory forms. Despite hybridization, genomic analyses reveal pairwise islands of divergence between all forms that are maintained across the contact zone. Genomic cline analyses also provide evidence for selection and/or hybrid incompatibilities in divergent regions. Divergent genomic regions occur across multiple chromosomes and involve many known adaptive loci and several chromosomal inversions. We also identify distinct immune gene expression profiles between forms, but no evidence for transgressive expression in hybrids. Our results suggest that reproductive isolation is maintained in this three-way contact zone, despite some hybridization, and that reduced recombination in chromosomal inversions may play an important role in maintaining this isolation.

Collective moods in Western Isles structures of being

AbstractThis paper develops a relational framework to interpret ethnographic data on the way residents of a community‐owned estate in the Western Isles of Scotland evaluated and contributed to collective quality of life. The analysis compares conversations with community development professionals and crofters to identify social and cultural structures influencing their contrasting interpretations of locally valued qualities of social attachment, belonging, and community. The framework integrates perspectives from phenomenological anthropology with Heidegger's theory of Being‐in‐the‐world to describe how structures of care, temporality, mood, and discourse influenced the dynamics of sociocultural diversity, interpretations of social relationships, and collective efforts to compose favorable conditions for co‐existence in a small population.

‘Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations’

The study of chapel-sites in any part of north and west Britain and Ireland is not easy. Contemporary documentary references are rare, and archaeological work has traditionally been site-specific, with interpretations often contested. In Lewis, the northernmost island of the Outer Hebrides, or Western Isles, of Scotland, this situation is magnified due to an almost complete lack of any surviving historical documents relating to the island prior to the 17th century, and of any archaeological work other than ad hoc rescue work. As the first extensive survey of chapel-sites to be undertaken in Lewis, the completion and publication of the Lewis Coastal Chapel-sites Survey is therefore a crucially important starting point in the analysis of these understudied sites. The survey identified 37 known chapel-sites on the Lewis mainland and outlying islands, and thus testifies to a vibrant landscape of Christian belief from the early medieval period onwards. Since being published (Barrowman 2020) it has provided a baseline, to which this paper adds an overview and brief discussion of site distribution, building form, landscape setting, potential dating, relation of sites to place-names and local traditions, and the setting of chapel buildings within the local identity and culture of medieval Lewis. In common with the Hebrides as a whole, most chapel buildings in Lewis, where discernible, are single-chambered with a doorway in the south wall and a window in the east gable wall, and most have approximated length–breadth ratios of 1:1.5 or 1:1.6. The exceptions to this are the small chapels on the outlying islands of North Rona and the Flannans, and on one mainland site in Lewis situated on a high headland. Visible from the busy routeways around Lewis, associated with early place-names, it is suggested that these sites, while potentially early, were not secluded and remote from the world. The evidence within the suite of sites for Viking Age or Late Norse chapels is also explored, particularly those bicameral chapels built directly into mounds or areas of earlier material. Finally, the place of chapel-sites in the Lordship and beyond is discussed, with particular emphasis on local identity and tradition in the district of Ness at the north end of Lewis.

Online art therapy pilot in the Western Isles of Scotland: a feasibility and acceptability study of a novel service in a rural community.

Art therapy, despite being an evidence-based, safe and acceptable intervention, is not widely available to clients in Scotland. Online delivery has the potential to expand the reach and accessibility, but special considerations need to be given to designing successful online art therapy services, due to the unique emphasis on the role of an image and artmaking alongside the therapeutic relationship. A pilot online art therapy service was developed and delivered in the Western Isles of Scotland to individual adult clients wishing to increase their psychological wellbeing. This research aimed to assess feasibility and acceptability of the novel service, identify enablers and challenges in setting up and delivering the service, explore participants' expectations and experiences of art therapy and identify any impacts of the service. Mixed-method evaluation incorporated questionnaires, focus groups, interviews and Audio Image Recordings (AIRs). Findings were grouped into themes across several key areas: service setup, research procedures, intervention design and impacts and insights. Recommendations were developed for the first three areas and the last section presents indications of change and gives voice to client experience primarily. Online art therapy was described by clients as a judgement-free zone which allowed freedom to experiment, express, feel and immerse themselves in the creative flow. Other benefits included readiness to accept emotions, increased understanding of self and others and being able to see things from a new perspective. Clients recognised the unique nature of art therapy in relation to other psychological treatments and valued the freedom of expression it offered, including the non-verbal. This project demonstrated that online art therapy is not only a feasible an acceptable intervention, but potentially also a powerfully impactful one, capable of instilling a positive change in a surprisingly short period of time. Exploring ways to expand current and introduce new art therapy services is highly recommended. Refinement of an intervention design, tools and research procedures is recommended through further feasibility studies of a larger scale.

Identity construction and collusion in documentary of the Gaelic-speaking community: A filmmaker’s perspective

If Gaelic has been symbolically appropriated to represent Scotland, then it follows that we need to look more closely at the part played by documentary film both of and from the Scottish Hebrides, in furthering the dissemination of what is an idealised and contested identity. As documentary is a negotiated contract between the producer and those they ‘represent’, the discussion needs to consider whether the representation of a Hebridean identity, and by extension a mythical Scottish identity, is constructed by the filmmaker, and if so, how filmic constraints and practices inform this representation. Within this framework is an acknowledgement of the extent to which Hebridean identity has been mediated by books, photographs and films for the past 300 years. This article will deliver the findings of a research project undertaken in the in the Outer Hebrides (also known as the Western Isles and Lewis & Harris). The research investigates the extent to which interviewees themselves collude with documentary makers in presenting a view of the Gael that reflects the Gaelic-speaker’s own self-assigned role as guardian of the land and traditions. As this research marries practice with research, it will present it in a semi-autobiographical style.

Extreme weather, school logbooks and social vulnerability: The Outer Hebrides, Scotland, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

This paper demonstrates the value of school logbooks, an unusual and hitherto underused archival source, to the field of the historical geographies of weather and climate. It examines logbooks for schools across the Outer Hebrides, or Western Isles, off the west coast of mainland Scotland, ranging from the late nineteenth century until the early twentieth century. The weather had numerous and varied impacts on everyday life on the islands and was frequently recorded in school logbooks. The paper shows that islanders were especially vulnerable to extreme weather events – typically strong winds, heavy rain, storms and snow – which affected children's school attendance, health and well-being. It is argued that vulnerability to extreme weather reflected the wider social vulnerability of the islands' crofting communities.

Getting to the root of the problem: new evidence for the use of plant root foods in Mesolithic hunter-gatherer subsistence in Europe

This paper presents new evidence for the harvesting of edible plant roots and tubers at Northton, a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer site on Harris, in the Western Isles of Scotland, in the north-west corner of Europe. The excavations uncovered abundant root tuber remains of Ficaria verna Huds. (lesser celandine), an excellent high energy and carbohydrate-rich food source, and produced the first evidence for the use of tubers of Lathyrus linifolius (Reichard) Bässler (bitter-vetch) at a hunter-gatherer site in Europe. Here we report on the analysis of the charred root and tuber remains and other charred plant macrofossils from the site and consider the significance of these results within the wider context of European hunter-gatherer subsistence. The wide range of root and tuber taxa recovered from European hunter-gatherer sites and the importance of appropriate sampling on hunter-gatherer sites are highlighted.

The evolutionary relationship between bere barley and other types of cultivated barley

We used genotyping-by-sequencing to investigate the evolutionary history of bere, the oldest barley variety still cultivated in Britain and possibly in all of Europe. With a panel of 203 wild and 401 cultivated barley accessions, including 35 samples identified as bere, we obtained filtered datasets comprising up to 1,946,469 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The beres formed two genetically-distinct groups, the larger of which included beres from Orkney and the Scottish Western Isles, as well as varieties not identified as bere from the Faroe Islands. This group of beres was distinct from other British barleys, but had a close genetic affiliation with Scandinavian accessions. Although the data were partly compatible with the traditional view that bere was introduced to Scotland by the Vikings during the eighth century AD, the evidence as whole suggested that the bere and Scandinavian barleys are sister groups descended from a more distant common progenitor, possibly dating to the Bronze Age when hulled barleys first become common in northern Europe. More recently, there has been gene flow from these beres into Polish barleys, possibly following export of grain to the Baltic region during periods when Orkney was under Norwegian or Danish rule. A second, smaller group of beres, which included a traditional Welsh variety, was genetically distinct from the main group and probably represents a more recent introduction of barley from central Europe. Our results emphasize the uniqueness of bere barley and its importance as a heritage crop and a potential source of germplasm for breeding programmes.

Common species contribute little to spatial patterns of functional diversity across scales in coastal grasslands

Abstract Spatial patterns of functional diversity are important in understanding community assembly as well as spatial variation in ecosystem functioning, yet the contribution of different species to these patterns remains unclear, making it difficult to generalise. Several studies have previously used a sequential addition approach to determine the subsets of species that contribute to the spatial distribution of species richness, frequently showing the importance of common species to richness patterns. This approach, however, has not been applied to functional diversity despite the central role of species traits in community ecology. Here we use a multiscale survey of plants from the Machair grassland system of the Western Isles of Scotland to ask the following questions: (i) Do functional diversity patterns correlate better with geographically common or geographically rare species?; (ii) Do their relative contributions vary with spatial scale?; and (iii) Do these patterns vary between functional diversity measures? We show that while species richness patterns correlate with geographically common species, common species contribute less than expected to spatial patterns of functional diversity at frequently used spatial monitoring scales. The relative contribution of species to overall biodiversity patterns, however, can vary with spatial scale. Synthesis. Surveying only common species may be inadequate for estimating spatial patterns of functional diversity, especially if using occurrence as opposed to percentage cover or abundance data, and spatial scale needs to be considered when designing surveys. Our approach highlights the species that may be adequate indicators of different dimensions of biodiversity and contributes to our understanding of the distribution of functional diversity in space.

Revisiting the Norse on the Western Isles from a Landscape Perspective

Historically the research on the relationship between the Norse and Pictish period population of the Western Isles has largely focused on place-name evidence, due to the prevalence of Old Norse place names over Pictish period ones and a scant archaeological record. Placename scholars, as well as archaeologists have traditionally split into two schools of interpretation: a ‘war school’ and a ‘peace school’. The war school argues that the archaeological and place-name material contains proof of a Norse genocide against the Pictish period inhabitants, while the peace school has advocated assimilation or acculturation. In the last few decades excavations and surveys have given a better understanding of the Norse presence on the islands. This article approaches the question of whether the Pictish period population survived, through an archaeological landscape analysis that incorporates settlement sites and uses place-name data. It argues that the landscape displays proof of a surviving Pictish period culture within a dominant Norse society, though this survival as probably asymmetrical and regional.

Scottish Gaelic revitalisation: Progress and aspiration

This review considers the revitalisation programme for Scottish Gaelic (referred to simply as ‘Gaelic’ [ɡalik] by its speakers) which has gathered pace since the 1980s. Gaelic is a minority Celtic language with approximately 58,000 speakers in Scotland (Scottish Government 2015) and 1,500 speakers in Canada (Statistique Canada 2016). Gaelic in Scotland developed from the Old Irish spoken by people moving back and forwards between Ireland and Scotland in the 4th-5th centuries and eventually became the language spoken across almost all of Scotland in the high medieval era (11th-12th centuries). Since this time, language shift has been taking place in Scotland and locations where the majority of the population speak Gaelic are now confined to north and west Highland areas such as the Western Isles (Outer Hebrides). Frequent waves of migration from Scotland have led to diasporic populations of Gaelic speakers including the substantial settlements in Nova Scotia, Canada, where many Gaelic speakers emigrated in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The texts reviewed here document the process of language shift but especially focus on revitalisation efforts undertaken in order to increase speaker numbers and also increase the contexts and usage of Gaelic. As both works demonstrate, the revitalisation programme has its origins in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but really gained momentum in the 1980s with the advent of increased Gaelic broadcasting, education in Gaelic, and the subsequent Gaelic Language Act in 2005, which gave Gaelic in Scotland equal legal status to English. Each work takes quite a different approach to considering these issues: McLeod (2020) is a historical and legal analysis of language policy from 1872 to 2020 and McEwan-Fujita (2020) collects the outcome of several linguistic anthropological studies conducted with different Gaelic-speaking groups and organisations. Together, these works provided different angles and levels of analysis of the Gaelic revitalisation programme and offer substantial inspiration for future work. As well as giving a detailed picture of the Gaelic context, these works will be useful for those working in other minority language contexts, linguistic anthropology, and language policy.

A Consensus Curriculum – One Model

This paper reports on the development of a curriculum for a Shortened Midwifery Programme. In order to develop consensus around the Shortened Midwifery Programme, a technique similar to a Delphi study was used to determine the priority topics for key Stakeholders1 investing in a future midwifery curriculum at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI). Using both face-to-face development days with contributions via online conferencing UHI, NHS Highland, Western Isles, Shetland and Orkney built a curriculum in three stages allowing the creation of a consensus curriculum in just over four months. The first cohort commenced the Programme in January 2019 and completed in August 2020, adding midwives directly to the workforce of the region supporting the development of the UHI Programme.

Emergence of Lyme Disease on Treeless Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom.

Lyme disease is usually associated with forested habitats but has recently emerged on treeless islands in the Western Isles of Scotland. The environmental and human components of Lyme disease risk in open habitats remain unknown. We quantified the environmental hazard and risk factors for human tick bite exposure among treeless islands with low and high Lyme disease incidence in the Western Isles. We found a higher prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato–infected ticks on high-incidence than on low-incidence islands (6.4% vs. 0.7%); we also found that residents of high-incidence islands reported increased tick bite exposure. Most tick bites (72.7%) occurred <1 km from the home, including many in home gardens. Residents of high Lyme disease incidence islands reported increasing problems with ticks; many suggested changing deer distribution as a potential driver. We highlight the benefits of an integrated approach in understanding the factors that contribute to Lyme disease emergence.

Courtship behavior, nesting microhabitat, and assortative mating in sympatric stickleback species pairs.

The maintenance of reproductive isolation in the face of gene flow is a particularly contentious topic, but differences in reproductive behavior may provide the key to explaining this phenomenon. However, we do not yet fully understand how behavior contributes to maintaining species boundaries. How important are behavioral differences during reproduction? To what extent does assortative mating maintain reproductive isolation in recently diverged populations and how important are “magic traits”? Assortative mating can arise as a by‐product of accumulated differences between divergent populations as well as an adaptive response to contact between those populations, but this is often overlooked. Here we address these questions using recently described species pairs of three‐spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), from two separate locations and a phenotypically intermediate allopatric population on the island of North Uist, Scottish Western Isles. We identified stark differences in the preferred nesting substrate and courtship behavior of species pair males. We showed that all males selectively court females of their own ecotype and all females prefer males of the same ecotype, regardless of whether they are from species pairs or allopatric populations. We also showed that mate choice does not appear to be driven by body size differences (a potential “magic trait”). By explicitly comparing the strength of these mating preferences between species pairs and single‐ecotype locations, we were able to show that present levels of assortative mating due to direct mate choice are likely a by‐product of other adaptations between ecotypes, and not subject to obvious selection in species pairs. Our results suggest that ecological divergence in mating characteristics, particularly nesting microhabitat may be more important than direct mate choice in maintaining reproductive isolation in stickleback species pairs.

Weathering the storm: A qualitative study of social prescribing in urban and rural Scotland during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives:The non-clinical approach known as social prescribing aims to tackle multi-morbidity, reduce general practitioner (GP) workload and promote wellbeing by directing patients to community services. Usual in-person modes of delivery of social prescribing have been virtually impossible under social distancing rules. This study qualitatively examined and compared the responses of three social prescribing schemes in Scotland to the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods:We interviewed a theoretical sample of 23 stakeholders in urban and rural social prescribing schemes at the start of COVID-19 pandemic. Follow-up interviews with a representative sample were conducted around 10 months later. Interviewees included social prescribing coordinators (SPCs) GPs, managers, researchers and representatives of third sector organizations. Interview transcripts were analysed in stages and an inductive approach to coding was supported by NVivo.Results:Findings revealed a complex social prescribing landscape in Scotland with schemes funded, structured and delivering services in diverse ways. Across all schemes, working effectively during the pandemic and shifting to online delivery had been challenging and demanding; however, their priorities in response to the pandemic had differed. With GP time and services stretched to limits, GP practice-attached ‘Link Workers’ had taken on counselling and advocacy roles, sometimes for serious mental health cases. Community-based SPCs had mostly assumed a health education role, and those on the Western Isles of Scotland a digital support role. In both rural or urban areas, combatting loneliness and isolation – especially given social distancing – remained a pivotal aspect of the SPC role.Conclusion:This study highlights significant challenges and shifts in focus in social prescribing in response to the pandemic. The use of multiple digital technologies has assumed a central role in social prescribing, and this situation seems likely to remain. With statutory and non-statutory services stretched to their limits, there is a danger of SPCs assuming new tasks without adequate training or support.

Geospatial analysis of the urban and rural/remote distribution of dental services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

To address deficits in human resources for oral health data (HROH) in rural and remote areas in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by spatially profiling and modelling the distribution pattern of dental practices according to Health Boards. National Health Service (NHS) dental practices were located and mapped against population and rural-urban classifications of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, using Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. All data collected were at the smallest geographical statistical hierarchy level in each country, and population data were retrieved from the 2011 census. A total of 1,695 NHS dental practices were mapped against 27 Health Board regions. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, 18.3%, 18.7% and 7.7%, respectively, of the population living in the most remote areas resided within 2.5km of a dental practice. In each country, the Health Boards with the largest proportion of the population living more than 10km from a dental practice were the Western Isles (Scotland), Western Health and Social Care Trust (HSCT) (Northern Ireland) and Hywel Dda University Health Board (UHB) (Wales). In each country, the highest practice-to-population (PtP) ratios were found in Forth Valley (1:7,194) (Scotland), Southern HSCT (1:5,115) (Northern Ireland) and Hywel Dda UHB (Wales) (1:7,907). Dental services are distributed unequally between urban and rural areas. PtP ratios coupled with GIS analysis are important tools to improve HROH distribution.

Dun Ara

This short article explores the archaeology and fragmentary history of the site known as Dun Ara, in Mishnish, north Mull, in the light of increasing evidence of a Norse presence both generally in this part of the Inner Hebrides and more specifically this area of Mull. The focus is on the harbour and its appendages but it refers as well to the associated settlement and dun – or castle – perched above to the north. It is set in the context of recent work on early harbours and landing places in the Western Isles, some of which have been demonstrated to have had a Norse presence. Consideration is given to the ramifications of the tidal cycle and to what extent, if any, isostatic change and rising sea levels may affect the ‘picture’ as it is now observed. While reflecting that the evidence for a ‘Norse’ period at Dun Ara remains circumstantial, it suggests that the absence of conclusive proof does not preclude the likelihood.&#x0D; &#x0D; Canmore ID 11028&#x0D; Canmore ID 22069&#x0D; Canmore ID 22071