The historiography of British land occupations has, in the main, concentrated on anti-enclosure p... more The historiography of British land occupations has, in the main, concentrated on anti-enclosure protests. In part this is because the Hobsbawmian land invasion has been largely confined to the north-west Highlands and Islands of Scotland, an area that has not always occupied a central place in our studies of rural resistance. And even when the region has come to occupy centre stage the interpretation of these events has often remained mired in older and now much-challenged paradigms. This paper thus begins by returning to the classic land invasion in the context of an exploration of events of protest in the Scottish Highlands but does not dwell long on the much-discussed formal seizure. Instead, the paper will use these and the question ‘when is an occupation not an occupation?’ as point of departure. At times landowners simply ignored the occupation and continued their own utilisation alongside the occupiers. Whilst small in number when compared to the mass of other protests these non-contested occupations tell us much about general processes of resistance evident in the post-1918 Highlands and of the essential fluidity and contingency of such events. Drawing strength from an older ideology and set of tenurial relations, and acting out a very particular set of protest performances that emerge from individual and localised micro-political contexts, the informal occupation of land alters both our understanding of Highland protest and the history of land invasions more generally. In their adaption of the form of the land occupation, crofters and cottars in the north west Highlands and Islands remind us that even the most privatised of shared spaces offer opportunities for subversion and resistance.
PowerPoint of paper presented to 2nd Association of Critical Heritage Studies conference; Canber... more PowerPoint of paper presented to 2nd Association of Critical Heritage Studies conference; Canberra, December 2014.
PowerPoint from paper presented to 2nd biannual conference of the Association of Critical Heritag... more PowerPoint from paper presented to 2nd biannual conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies Conference, Canberra, December 2014.
This paper explores a particular materialisation of the relationship between landscape, heritage ... more This paper explores a particular materialisation of the relationship between landscape, heritage and identity. Understood as heritage from below, the emphasis is on the role of non-elites in the constitutive processes of landscape and the place/space of the past in the present. The landscape at the heart of this study is that of the ruined blackhouse; an intrinsic part and mnemonic of crofting identity in the Scottish Highlands. These quotidian and mundane spaces are constituted by routine habits which, together with the material ‘left-behinds’ of a past way of life, comprise landmarks to place making from below and within. For members of the crofting community the blackhouse is understood and experienced as inheritance from the past and source of everyday affectual and sensual entanglements. This rural ruin is thus an intrinsic part of the crofting taskscape; the past drawn into the present as a form of cultural heritage from below.
The historiography of British land occupations has, in the main, concentrated on anti-enclosure p... more The historiography of British land occupations has, in the main, concentrated on anti-enclosure protests. In part this is because the Hobsbawmian land invasion has been largely confined to the north-west Highlands and Islands of Scotland, an area that has not always occupied a central place in our studies of rural resistance. And even when the region has come to occupy centre stage the interpretation of these events has often remained mired in older and now much-challenged paradigms. This paper thus begins by returning to the classic land invasion in the context of an exploration of events of protest in the Scottish Highlands but does not dwell long on the much-discussed formal seizure. Instead, the paper will use these and the question ‘when is an occupation not an occupation?’ as point of departure. At times landowners simply ignored the occupation and continued their own utilisation alongside the occupiers. Whilst small in number when compared to the mass of other protests these non-contested occupations tell us much about general processes of resistance evident in the post-1918 Highlands and of the essential fluidity and contingency of such events. Drawing strength from an older ideology and set of tenurial relations, and acting out a very particular set of protest performances that emerge from individual and localised micro-political contexts, the informal occupation of land alters both our understanding of Highland protest and the history of land invasions more generally. In their adaption of the form of the land occupation, crofters and cottars in the north west Highlands and Islands remind us that even the most privatised of shared spaces offer opportunities for subversion and resistance.
PowerPoint of paper presented to 2nd Association of Critical Heritage Studies conference; Canber... more PowerPoint of paper presented to 2nd Association of Critical Heritage Studies conference; Canberra, December 2014.
PowerPoint from paper presented to 2nd biannual conference of the Association of Critical Heritag... more PowerPoint from paper presented to 2nd biannual conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies Conference, Canberra, December 2014.
This paper explores a particular materialisation of the relationship between landscape, heritage ... more This paper explores a particular materialisation of the relationship between landscape, heritage and identity. Understood as heritage from below, the emphasis is on the role of non-elites in the constitutive processes of landscape and the place/space of the past in the present. The landscape at the heart of this study is that of the ruined blackhouse; an intrinsic part and mnemonic of crofting identity in the Scottish Highlands. These quotidian and mundane spaces are constituted by routine habits which, together with the material ‘left-behinds’ of a past way of life, comprise landmarks to place making from below and within. For members of the crofting community the blackhouse is understood and experienced as inheritance from the past and source of everyday affectual and sensual entanglements. This rural ruin is thus an intrinsic part of the crofting taskscape; the past drawn into the present as a form of cultural heritage from below.
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