
Myth and Materiality in a Woman's World
Shetland 1800-2000
Lynn Abrams(Author)
Manchester University Press
Published on 1. June 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-7190-6593-4 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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 northern archipelago 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. -- .
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 northern archipelago 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. -- .
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
382 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7190-6593-4 (9780719065934)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
07/2013
1st Edition
Manchester University Press
€24.49
Available for download
Person
Lynn Abrams is Professor of Gender History at the University of Glasgow -- .
Content
List of figures, tables and plates
Preface and acknowledgements
Glossary and note on Shetland dialect
Map of Shetland
1. Pasts, peoples and selves
2. Stories
3. Place
4. Work
5. Culture
6. Sexualities
7. Power
8. Reflections
Bibliography
Index -- .
Preface and acknowledgements
Glossary and note on Shetland dialect
Map of Shetland
1. Pasts, peoples and selves
2. Stories
3. Place
4. Work
5. Culture
6. Sexualities
7. Power
8. Reflections
Bibliography
Index -- .