Reading Braveheart: Representing and Contesting Scottish Identity

This article has emerged out of my interest in the production of Stirling as a symbolic heritage centre and particularly the centrality of the figures of Wallace and Bruce in the town's place-image, and in nationalist iconography. By focusing on tourist practices and narratives at Bannockburn Heritage Centre and the Wallace Monument, I have described elsewhere the diverse ways in which the figures have been claimed by different political projects to exemplify this or that Scottish quality (Edensor 1997). In some ways, the symbolic use of these two heroes can serve as a barometer in assessing attitudes to dominant representations of Scottishness and the tensions inherent in contestations over Scottish identity. This symbolic importance of Wallace has been given a giant boost by the international and domestic success of the Hollywood blockbuster,