Notations of islandness: Scottish cultural work, enterprise, and “remote place” narratives

Rural and ‘remote’ island places are both literal and symbolic sites of cultural work. Furthermore, the textual nature of narratives and account are widely suggestive of island cultural workers – creatives and artists - as being ‘set apart’, ‘special’. This discussion is informed by a growing research focus on the emotional, embodied and material aspects of “island making” via contemporary creative forms and aesthetics but also notably a ‘remote’ entrepreneurial activity, on and off Scotland’s islands. The wider context of Scotland’s islands as sites of successful creative and cultural industry is well documented but not without debate and the complicities and signifiers of ‘specialness’ and creativity invite ongoing critique. In this regard our paper offers comment on Scotland’s island arts cultures, heritage and entrepreneurial economies as a cultural work landscape of both enhanced yet complicit ‘islandness’ and a case study informing of broader contextualising of “remote place” enterprise and related arts ecologies.