The publication of An Introduction to Scottish Ethnology sees the completion of the fourteen-volume Scottish Life and Society series, originally conceived by the eminent ethnologist Professor Alexander Fenton. The series explores the many elements in Scottish history, language and culture which have shaped the identity of Scotland and Scots at local, regional and national level, placing these in an international context. Each of the thirteen volumes already published focuses on a particular theme or institution within Scottish society. This introduction provides an overview of the discipline of ethnology as it has developed in Scotland and more widely, the sources and methods for its study, and practical guidance on the means by which it can be examined within its constituent genres, based on the experience of those currently working with ethnological materials. Theory and practice are presented in an accessible fashion, making it an ideal companion for the student, the scholar and the interested amateur alike.

SCOTTISH CROFTERS: A HISTORICAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF A CELTIC VILLAGE focuses on Geall, a community in the Scottish Outer Hebrides. With an understanding gained from an intimate, long-term relationship with Scotland, things Scottish, and the people of the community, the author describes Geall as a human community and places it in the wider cultural, historical, economic, and sociopolitical contexts of maintaining relationships to Scotland, England and Europe. The book emphasizes the way symbols are used to interpret elements of the culture such as economy, power, mental illness, and religion by exploring the significant symbols associated with the state, the mechanisms for integrating community and state, and how people define leaders and social role.

The language of contemporary cultural theory shows remarkable similarities with the patterns of thought which characterised Victorian racial theory. Far from being marked by a separation from the racialised thinking of the past, Colonial Desire shows we are operating in complicity with historical ways of viewing 'the other', both sexually and racially. Colonial Desire is a controversial and bracing study of the history of Englishness and 'culture'. Robert Young argues that the theories advanced today about post-colonialism and ethnicity are disturbingly close to the colonial discourse of the nineteenth century. 'Englishness', Young argues, has been less fixed and stable than uncertain, fissured with difference and a desire for otherness.