One key aspect, especially with the romance novels, is that they are not intended for a domestic audience. Academic historiography here has moved far beyond this sort of thing, but fiction has not caught up, especially the fiction produced in N America.
I do wonder if there are issues that might be defined as a "diaspora mentality"? I note that several novelists in the tartanised subgenre make much in their introductions of "being of Highland descent", or words to that effect (as if that renders the need for proper research unnecessary!). It seems to me that for people in N America (and indeed, no doubt also in Australasia) who claim Scots ancestry, what prevails is a highly inauthentic notion of "Scottishness" (for which read "Highlandness", since they seem to work under the assumption that that is the only Scots identity), based on Walter Scott and such modern dross as Braveheart. They get hung up on the notion of "authentic Scottishness=Highlandness=Jacobitism", with the result that non-Highland Scots, or non-Jacobite (Highland or not) are made invisible or are depicted as "not true Scots", "anglicised", "traitors", & c. It's over-simplistic on every level, politically, religiously, & c.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-12-12 04:36 pm (UTC)I do wonder if there are issues that might be defined as a "diaspora mentality"? I note that several novelists in the tartanised subgenre make much in their introductions of "being of Highland descent", or words to that effect (as if that renders the need for proper research unnecessary!). It seems to me that for people in N America (and indeed, no doubt also in Australasia) who claim Scots ancestry, what prevails is a highly inauthentic notion of "Scottishness" (for which read "Highlandness", since they seem to work under the assumption that that is the only Scots identity), based on Walter Scott and such modern dross as Braveheart. They get hung up on the notion of "authentic Scottishness=Highlandness=Jacobitism", with the result that non-Highland Scots, or non-Jacobite (Highland or not) are made invisible or are depicted as "not true Scots", "anglicised", "traitors", & c. It's over-simplistic on every level, politically, religiously, & c.