Paper short abstract:

Harris Tweed, a trademark-protected textile, can only be produced in the Outer Hebrides. Considering the industry's place in imaginaries of 'island life' and 'island futures', I discuss how local understandings of resourcefulness can reframe possible connections between anthropology and geography.

Paper long abstract:

Trademark-protected since 1910 and covered by its own Act of Parliament since 1993, Harris Tweed can only be hand-woven at islanders' homes in the Outer Hebrides, an archipelago located off the western coast of Scotland. Despite this localized production, the luxury cloth is exported to over 50 countries, contributing in important ways to local livelihoods in a region threatened by depopulation and described as economically fragile. From its early beginnings as a cottage industry until today, arguments supporting the legal protection of Harris Tweed have emphasized its place in islanders' livelihoods, and its historical significance to the islands' socio-economic and cultural life.

Considering the role played by ideas of 'island life' in popular depictions of the Harris Tweed industry and the archipelago, as well as people's actual experiences of working and living in the Outer Hebrides, in this paper I discuss how local understandings of 'island life' in this region can suggest productive links between anthropology and geography. Drawing on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Outer Hebrides, where I focused on the work, workers and workplaces where Harris Tweed is produced, I discuss how notions of resourcefulness and experiences of belonging in this region both highlight the centrality of 'island life' in local discourses, and invite a more nuanced and critical understanding of the expression itself. Considering particular local histories, contemporary experiences and imaginaries of 'island life', and recent political discussions on 'island futures', I explore how these examples suggest possible directions for socio-cultural research.