News
Scotland’s Land book series
Investigating Scotland’s land issues – past, present and future
Invitations are open for proposals for a new and innovative book series from Edinburgh University Press, supported financially by the Centre for Scotland’s Land Futures.
The ‘Scotland’s Land’ series presents the latest scholarly work to academic and public readers on Scotland’s land issues. Predominantly focusing on the history of Scotland’s economic, political, social and cultural relationships to land, landscape, country houses, and landed estates it also brings in cutting edge, interdisciplinary approaches to explore new methodologies and perspectives around this contentious but stimulating issue.
Supported by funding from the Centre for Scotland’s Land Futures, this series brings together and publishes the best work on land issues across a wide range of disciplines for a diverse set of audiences. As such, the scope of the series must necessarily be relatively broad, not least because of the way in which ‘land’ acts as an umbrella term for a wide range of social, economic, historical and cultural markers. As an interdisciplinary series, the scope of the disciplines represented is also broad, and encompasses a wide range of approaches. These include history, law, economics and economic history, philosophy, environment/landscape studies, and human/cultural geography. The core geographical focus is Scotland, but some transnational perspectives will be welcomed (principally British and Irish). We look forward to seeing the first publications, which are due out in 2018.
Proposals and queries should be sent in the first instance to the series editor, Dr Annie Tindley, Newcastle University, Annie.Tindley@newcastle.ac.uk.
CLSF-funded Project
The Monument Game by Laura Donkers
The Centre for Scotland’s Land Futures are pleased to announce that we are providing match-funding for the production of playing cards, for use in conference workshops organised under the banner of ‘The Stuff of Research’. These workshops will be held in Glasgow (June 2017), St Andrews (Nov 2017), and Quebec City (2018). Created by Laura Donkers – a PhD student at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee – the workshops will be organised around the playing of The Monument Game: a deep map that investigates aspects of the bio-cultural heredity of the Outer Hebrides through the riddle of how a Monkey Puzzle Tree came to be planted on a small island in Loch an Eilean, Askernish, South Uist. By playing the game, participants will be challenged to evaluate historical actions and their effects on contemporary life. We look forward to hearing how participants get on, and what debates the game helps to create!
The Monument Game being played at the ‘True North’ Conference at Timespan Museum, Helmsdale, 2016
Laura Donkers is an environmental artist living in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland and Doctoral candidate at University of Dundee. Her work is framed by the interconnectedness of art, ecology, site, politics and direct engagement in socially based agrarian knowledge. She explores the ‘act of dwelling’ intensively through a creative research praxis that both reflects on lived experience and promotes change through direct connection with lived places.
First World War Centenary Study Day 
‘Researching the Impact of the First World War on the Highlands and Islands’, Friday 10 March, 2017, Highland Archive Centre, Inverness
Dr Iain Robertson, one of the Centre’s Co-Directors, recently helped to organise and run a public event about researching the impact of the First World War on the Highlands and Islands. Iain also gave a talk during the day about ‘Land Legacies: the enduring impact of the First World War on Highland land issue’.
The event itself proved a great success, with just under 100 people attending the talks and workshops. The conference received good media coverage, including a section on BBC Alba’s An Lá (where, according to the ever-modest Iain, ‘I spouted on about the legacy of post-WW1 land invasions!).
More details about the day, including the full programme of speakers and workshops, can be found at:
https://www.highlifehighland.com/highland-archive-centre/first-world-war-centenary-study-day/