Identifying Scotland - Context and Collaboration
As one element in RCAHMS' celebration of our first hundred years a series of four research workshops was held in 2007-8. The RCAHMS Centenary Workshops explored important aspects of Scottish culture and society where RCAHMS can contribute significantly to the public understanding of national cultural identity in collaboration with a wide range of institutions across Scotland.
The workshops were designed to encourage collaborative investigation into a research proposition in an early stage of its development. Funding from the Royal Society of Edinburgh supported a range of seminars or workshops, which advanced the exploration of the topics in the course of 2007-2008. RCAHMS was extremely pleased to be one of the first recipients of this new award and the outcomes of the workshops have informed discussion of its future policies in survey and collecting.
All the workshops concerned important aspects of Scottish culture and society, where research could contribute significantly to the public understanding of national cultural identity and the cultivation of a more informed cultural awareness in Scotland. The subjects were selected for their wide-ranging interest to students and non-specialist audiences, as well as their current relevance to the perception of Scottish culture.
Abstracts of the papers and a summary of the discussions have been posted on the workshop website, along with a web log, open to all who wished to participate in discussion, which was set up following each workshop.
The invited participants, who included students and young researchers, were drawn from a wide range of Higher Education and Cultural Institutions throughout Scotland, with others coming from England, Wales and elsewhere in Europe. The potential research benefits that might arise from the interaction of these bodies in the context of place, landscape and material culture were explored, and outcomes are likely to be proposals for further research on aspects of the subjects of the Workshops.
