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Abstract

Women's involvement in the Crofters' War of 1881 to 1886 is an area of Gàidhealtachd history which remains largely unaddressed in academic history. Involvement in this conflict was ans is a defining feature of the community identity, and thus the deficit of women's representation has a persistent alienating effect. For this reason, this project endeavours to re-insert women into the historical narrative and explore the extent to which they were free to exercise independent agency in the conflict. As part of this, it examines three forms of protest, rent strike, deforcement and testifying, to show both how women were involved in and barred from participating.

To do this, it utilises ideas from gender, cultural and social history, as well as literary studies as appropriate. It also uses a documentary approach to examine a wide range of primary and archival sources. The position of Sgitheanach women is understood through Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's theory of subaltern, due to their oppression both by the patriarchal society in which they existed and the framework of power, which was inherently colonial in nature, inflicted on the Gàidhealtachd by landowners and those who managed their estates.

The project demonstrates how women's participation in resistance was diverse and nuanced. It showa how they defied the Victorian ideal of separate, gendered spheres through the repurposing of their traditioal roles in ways which gave them access to the socio-political realms, and how, when all else failed, they used force and violence to compel local and central government to address their discontent.

Course: Victorian Gothic - MA - P2927FTD

Date Deposited: 2022-08-15

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis13993.html