Consensus, Clines, and Edges in Celtic Cultures.

Using data from four localities in peripheral areas of the British Isles, this article explores a conception of culture that emphasizes continuous variation, or clines, rather than boundaries. These localities are sites for the performance of cultural practices, many of which may be shared across socially constructed boundaries such as those of nation, ethnic group, and class. Consensus analysis provides a tool for exploring areas of greater or lesser sharing of cultural models indicated by responses to 21 brief narratives of everyday cultural practices. Informants were asked to judge on a 5-point scale whether the practices were characteristic of their location. With a high consensus in each site about typical practices, it was possible to compare the culturally correct profiles of responses between each of the sites, revealing incremental changes, or clines, from site to site. Edges, or the conjunction of clines, might be mapped using consensus analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]