Two things inspired me this morning to contemplate a blog post that isn't just a random collection of links I've been clinging onto until they finally make firefox crash.  Firstly, there is a new issue of Anthropological Forum [paywall] out.  The theme is 'Creations: Imagination and Innovation'.  Oooh!  And, secondly, Messrs Mouse and Holdsworth have been delving into the contentious territory of Harvest (not to be confused with 1972's finest), which delights me 'cos I study tradition and that, y'know. 

I did at first think that I could have written two separate posts, full of lovely, well thought out words and timely analysis.  Then I regained my senses with a nice cup of tea.  So, being an intrepid sort who is still actually living out of a backpack (please send your unwated chests of drawers c/o the St James op shop), I thought instead that I'd go for the time-honoured anthropological technique of cramming it all into a jar, shaking it up a bit, and hoping the end result doesn't make me look like I've been hanging with the shamans a bit much.

(Yes, yes, two paragraphs already without a sensible thought.)

So, Anth Forum.  (And as a side note, Jeannette Mageo's Samoa/historical anthro article [paywall] this issue is really rather good.)  Joel Robbins has a lovely afterword about anthropological approaches to imagination and creativity [paywall].  He suggests that though we tend to think of imagination as mental freedom it is actually culturally bound.  But he doesn't wave culture about as the scholarly trump card; he goes on to argue that "[if] such culturally defined freedom is the best kind of freedom human beings can hope for, then anthropologists ought to take it seriously as a kind of freedom and appreciate the possibilities it affords and the issues it raises".  Then he does a little hop from imagination to innovation, where he talks about the relationship of innovation to tradition with a nice reminder that innovations are constantly being incorporated into traditions. 

Now Anth Forum lingers in Australasia, so our serving of imagination and innovation is served with lashings of traditional anthropological stomping ground.  But Robbins' afterword is begging, screaming, and throwing a right tantrum to be taken off to visit Britain.  It wants to do a proper traditional tour; catch a bit of rake making, maybe buy a spoon or two.  So why not bring a bit of cheese for Mouse and have a swing of the thurible while it's there? 

Harvest is actually rather old.  To get functionalist about it, suddenly having a heap of food (but having had to work like mad to get it) is a pretty good excuse for a party.  But it was olded up a bit more and sanctified as a tradition by the Victorians, who were really rather good at that sport (see also: Christmas).  So, the C of E have a service for it.  This is part of Mouse's 'plaint: as he squeaks "it now has virtually no meaning in the modern world".  (I have to stomp my foot a little here since technically the nineteenth century was modernity.  And, partly because of that, I am a firm believer that we are still really Victorians.)  Mouse is also a metropolitan, and not a fieldmouse, so he wonders quite how relevant Harvest is in the inner-city ... and outside it too, since rurality is not what it used to be (if it ever was).  He's keen on updating the tradition.  Kelvin has come out in sympathy, though he reports his efforts to Bring Back Lammas haven't gone exactly down a treat. 

I reckon it's pretty interesting, looking at these imaginings of Harvest, that Mouse wants to overhaul the tradition with some updated, urban ideas (and even with a possible whiff of the dread Americanisation), whereas Kelvin's plunging back to Lammas (sometimes we find new things in the old, as ++Rowan has also written).  There's more here too in whether innovating traditions should happen incrementally (this is already happening with Harvest donations) or whether there's a point where we turf it and start again (which is essentially what the Victorians did with the Harvest that we're talking about in the first place).  Aaaand ... these urban responses do seem to contrast with Geoffrey Walker's 2002 research in rural Somerset [paywall], where he found that the demand from parishioners for these sorts of services was actually on the up: imaginings bound up in cultural ideas about the rural and urban, perhaps?  So much stuff to make an anthropologist of Britain oooh and aaah!

So what do I think about Harvest?  Well, I'm a sucker for a bit of rural tradition.  But I do reserve a special hatred for Lark Rise to Candleford. 

My research is very loosely about the revival of tradition.  Not that, when I'm in full high-falutin' academic mode, I call it that ... anthropologists have to beware of dipping a toe into tradition, where crocodiles bite and eels are slippery.  Dorothy Noyes at the Cultural Property blog is made of sterner stuff than I am, and she's in fine form with this 1.0 go at explaining how traditional culture works. (h/t Savage Minds.) 

Though as an anthropologist of Britain I do wince a little at the notion of 'traditonal culture'.  Partly because we're not that far away from the not-so-good old days when we donned pith helmets, downed quinine, and definitely did not study the British (about 1995); but also because I wonder under what circumstances old blighty gets a look in as a traditional culture itself.  (Not that post-devolution, post-Writing Culture and post-modern I would write about Britain as culturally singular.  I can stick brackets and plurals on things with all the enthusiasm of a conference call for papers.)

There's a stubborn old Antipodean narrative about Britain as an 'old country'.  It usually refers to castles and grand houses and changing the guard at Buckingham Palace (Christopher Robin went down with Alice).  But I wonder just how far we'd be willing to take it ... or rather, just how far British people themselves could go.  The reason that I wonder this is that the past has great potential political utility.  In fact, (this is my schtick, so, get used to it, dear reader.  Definitely singular.  Hi Tracey.) there is an almost-pin-pointable moment around the turn of the last century when the future gets the jump on the past in terms of being mobilised politically.  And yet the past never quite went away for this purpose, and my inkling is that it's on the up again.  So Britain might not be a traditional culture, but the idea of traditional culture in Britain is something to be run with politically, I reckon. 

With that some links:

Phil Daoust on how to pick wild mushrooms in Britain

The Indy on 'forgotten foods' ... the National Trust have got in on the 'nostalgic nosh' game. 

Robin Wood with a fantastic article on woodlands and woodworking.  And barn photos.  

Also, the HCA put up a stunning video on rake making on their facebook feed today.  The woodworking set up caused me ridiculous amounts of delight.  

Nottingham is the UK's least car-dependent city, according to a study of 19 of 'em (cities, not cars).  Steal cars from the rich and give public transport to the poor! 

In tradition news, the HCA report that Sheffield Council are actually taking steps to do something about metal trade skills.  Let's hope they take it further than just doing an audit and popping it in a filing cabinet.  

There's also a rather good Guardian forum going on how green it is to live in a canal boat.  Apparently size/space issues mean boat dwellers have to become more aware of their resource usage, but the big black mark against them is that they're apparently bloody freezing in winter and nigh impossible to insulate.  Sounds like a caravan in water, then.  

Charlie Peer, who I've just added to my RSS reader, has an article from a few weeks back now about Sarehold water mill at Brum, which was Tolkien's childhood home.  I'm a sucker for a bit of mill restoration.   

On to suckers of another sort ... Phil Woolas, not just a name to try and say 10 times really fast, but former immigration minister and the sort of all-round nice guy one would expect to go with the role, is in the muck for possibly pretending he'd had death threats to evidently try and win the racist vote in Oldham.  He denies it, of course. 

Speaking of the election, do enjoy this photograph of Jacqui Smith looking lonely in Redditch.  Official election artist (yes, it exists) Simon Roberts has an exhibition opening. 

Here is an article/takedown from Simon Jenkins about another former Labour politican who shan't be named but might have a big wodge of book out.  And wodges of money. 

The Real IRA, not to be confused with the IRA, are promising to target English banks.  However, seeing as they have a vast membership of about 100, best not take the marshmallows down to your nearest Barclay's just yet. 

The TUC actually do have a vast membership, and deputy general secretary Frances O'Grady wants a big campaign.  Which is a bit better than the last union idea about having someone dress up as Batman.    

Women biships and the CofE watchers will find literally hours of edification in Jonathan Clatworthy's history of conservative Anglo-Catholicism and the Church Catholic (or Catholick if you like it 1662). 

James Davidson's article in the LRB is ostensibly about Greek first names, but the first half is a rather delightful look at the past couple of centuries of naming in Britain.  I'm quite keen on "Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon". 

That was a long one ... some links aren't quite as freshly squeezed as I'd like, I've got a lot of catching up with RSS to do! 

Is a hedge anti-social?  Or do people become anti-social over hedges?  Leylandii is a popular hedge choice of recent years because it grows fast and dense.  Problem is, with something that grows like that, it takes a vast quantity of maintenance and know-how which belies the quick fix appeal.  And a hedge of epic proportions tends to induce neighbourhood rage of epic proportions.  Hideous hedgery apparently falls under the Anti-social Behaviour Act (though you can't get an ASBO for one, which I guess means they're not equivalent to high-decibel howsyerfather) according to Leo Hickman in the Guardian, noting a fresh outbreak of the 'gret leylandii war' in Plymouth.  These neighbourly is-sues are always interesting (at least, for this anthropologist) because they point to expectations and ideas around space and encroachment.  

On the quite-close-to-my-research-actually front, there's an interesting article from Paul Kingsnorth about scything (h/t Elizaphanian).  As well as an introduction to folks getting their scythe on, there is consideration of one of the central problems in the study of revived traditions: the absence of handing on.  To latin it up a moment, traditio is originally concerned with the handing on of the knowledges of the church, and 'tradition' has both noun and verb forms to describe both the thing being handed on and the act of doing so.  So the problem, particularly for folklore bods, is that if the thing and the act have become separated, can it still be considered tradition?  

And since this is getting a bit lengthy ... Chatwin. Diaries out.  Review.   

Simon Jenkins has been neglected on my RSS-tacular; a sad situation which I've rectified.  Here he is in fine form on the defence budget.  Plus, an article from last month: As Cameron gets radical, the left dozes on planet 1945.