theclearances.org: About theclearances.org

About theclearances.org

The Project

The website will tell some of the stories from the Highland Clearances, their aftermath and consequences. There is no shortage of literature on the subject but most of it concentrates on the what and the why. This site is more concerned with the who: whether one considers the Clearances ethnic cleansing or economic necessity or something in-between, the whole is made up of many different stories: most sad, some happy; of greed, of despair and, occasionally, of altruism. Some of them are not even narrative - a passenger record, 'died on board, aged 8'. One account cannot reconcile them. Form your own conclusions or reinforce prejudices you already hold but all the stories are important, to our past, our present and our future.

Funding

The information provided by the project is free and always will be. This leaves us with the problem of how to fund development and research. Please consider making a donation, joining one of the sponsorship schemes or buying something from the shop.

Sharing information

Even with substantial funding, the scope is too large for one small group. We want to share resources and collaborate with individuals, societies and institutions. If you have information which adds to the stories, please get in touch. We are actively working on tools to help in information sharing. The first example of this is an XML-based standard for passenger information, allowing the interchange of this data between different databases.

The Vision Thing

The home page begins with a quotation from John Berger's G 'Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one'. The same phrase is used also in Michael Ondaatje's 'In the Skin of a Lion and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. There are obvious similarities between the cleared and the characters of these two novels, immigrants and outsiders in a caste system. Like these novels, the Clearances have no main characters. To treat them as the Duke of Sutherland or Patrick Sellar and thousands of dispossessed trivialises and depersonalises and stills many voices which should be heard. We have tried to use first person accounts as much as possible.

Many voices telling different stories may sit uncomfortably with some museum directors. We are accustomed to museums and their 'truth telling' with Peter Walsh's memorable phrase 'the unassailable Voice'. If a digital archive, web-based or otherwise, is to be more than a Wunderkammer with html tags, we must admit more voices, answering the questions the audience poses rather than those the institution chooses to answer. By necessity in this project (there being a lack of early 19th century audio recordings) some of these voices will be fictional. This will raise some hackles particularly among those who say the need for this archive is to separate the myth of the Clearances from the reality. It is not clear that anyone can do this. It is even less clear, to me at least, why anyone should want to. The myths are as much a part of the history as any other account. There is only a danger when the myths are presented as the only possible story. This is usually called heritage.

In the The God of Small Things, there is the history house. 'With all the lamps lit. And ancestors whispering inside'. When it was surrounded by transplanted homes full of furniture and knick-knacks 'labelled with edifying placards', it became a hotel called 'Heritage'.

Help us build a history house.

Email info@theclearances.org