Bleeding History: Attitudes toward Heritage and Tourism in Orkney

ABSTRACT

This article explores Indigenous ideas about history, heritage, and the tourist industry in the Orkney Islands. Orkney lies just off the northern coast of Scotland, and like many peripheral areas of Europe, tourism is rapidly becoming the dominant economic force. Using data collected during ethnographic fieldwork in Orkney, this article explores people's attitudes toward history, heritage, and tourism in Orkney, drawing comparisons to other parts of Britain and Ireland, as well as examples of small-island tourism in other parts of the world, to highlight the unique aspects of Orcadian ideas on heritage and tourism. There is a tension between the internal use of Orkney's heritage for cultural identity and its use in the tourist industry. This article explores these tensions.

Key words:

• heritage
• heritage tourism
• Orkney
• Scotland
• cultural identity
• ethnography