A Lingering Taste in my Mouth

This autoethnographic work seeks to explore food anthropologically and interrogate the power relations imbued in ideas of spice. Through the embodied experience of having a meal at Maisha, an “Authentic Indian & Seafood Restaurant”, this work centres the ways in which senses, particularly taste, create cultural meanings. Crucially, through a consideration of the author’s positionality and St Andrews as a field site, this work analyses the role of globalisation, consumption, and colonialism in creating cultural meanings of food and spice

Encountering the Market: Marketization in Higher Education and Hierarchy among Non-Academic Staff at the University of St Andrews

Non-academic, or Professional Services, staff comprise 46% of the University of St Andrews’ employees. Despite this, as a second-year student, I felt that my engagement with this significant portion of the University’s staff was limited. Thus, I sought to discover what insights would emerge from ethnographic encounters with them. With interlocutors\u27 repeated references to students as ‘customers’ and the University as a ‘business,’ the project\u27s focus soon became the marketization of UK higher education. This paper contributes to “critical anthropology of the neoliberal university” (Gusterson 2017) from the perspective of understudied non-academic university staff. It situates interviews and participant observation with non-academic staff at the University of St Andrews in the context of the increasingly marketized UK university. It proposes that due to marketization, a hierarchy of valuation arises across types of University staff based on their proximity to the student-customer, then concludes with reflections on how students might leverage their ‘consumer’ status to effect change in higher education.&nbsp

“From the Marrow Men to the Moderates: Scottish Theology 1700–1800” by Donald Macleod

Review ofDonald Macleod, From the Marrow Men to the Moderates: Scottish Theology 1700–1800 (Fearn: Christian Focus, 2023), pp. xv + 355, ISBN 978-1527110489. £24.9

‘I asked the songthrush about the soul …’: Pat Bennett in conversation with Pádraig Ó Tuama

In a wide-ranging conversation Pat Bennett and Pádraig Ó Tuama look at how imaginative, non-dogmatic approaches to the sacred text – similar to how we engage with poetry or art – can open up deeper, more embodied, and more surprising encounters with the divine. Ó Tuama advocates reading the Bible not as a singular message to decode, but as a multifaceted, ‘wild’, participatory narrative that invites questions and emotional response. The text here does not only speak to us, but also reads our lives in return. Some may find this openness to multiple meanings unsettling, seeking a more definitive interpretive framework, yet Ó Tuama and Bennett offer an invitation to rediscover a deep, creative, curious attentiveness to the text as a pathway for encountering God anew in both Scripture and daily life

Fresh Words Multiply: Latrinalia in a St Andrews Public Restroom

The pristine exterior of St Andrews includes a distinct lack of any form of visual chaos, be that posters, street art or graffiti. The phenomenon of latrinalia in the female bathrooms of Aikman’s Bar and Bistro therefore offers a unique insight into the subjectivities of students at the University of St Andrews. Rather than focusing on the content of each individual inscription, as has been typical within previous studies of latrinalia, this ethnography examines the experiences of five female students at the University of St Andrews and their individual responses to the practice of latrinalia in Aikman’s female toilets. The study found that these students characterised the space as vulnerable, connected and impermanent, creating a sense of solidarity amongst bathroom users. These findings provide a complex and diverse insight into the internal experiences of a selection of the student population and encourage further study of possibilities for self-expression within the town

To restore a light unto the nations: Israel, Palestine, Scotland and the charter of the land

This paper extends but retains its original form as a verbal delivery to a conference, ‘Land, Nature, Justice’, convened by the solidarity group ‘Highland-Palestine’, at which the author shared a platform with the Palestinian natural historian, Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh of Bethlehem University. It compares the historical loss of biodiversity and culture (including linguistic) in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland with biblical prophetic exposition from the Holy Land. It treasures how, ranging from Gaelic bardic laments of the Highland Clearances to modern Scottish land reform, a biblically-inspired indigenous liberation theology has widened the aperture of imagination and strengthened political legitimacy. And it asks whether, in discipleship to the Jewish ethos of tikkun olam, the same theology might minister as ‘a light to the nations’ in such as Gaza too

On why we need to be trauma-informed in churches: An auto-ethnographical reflection on submission language

Laura Gilmour considers the word ‘submission’ through the lens of the trauma of domestic abuse in the context of undergoing a ministerial recognition process. Using quilting art as embodied theological reflection, Gilmour’s piece contrasts surface self-presentation with deeper, hidden realities within the self, revealing how submission and survival are interwoven in the experience of the one who has lived through domestic violence. Her work highlights the power of deliberately slow, creative practices in the remaking of one’s self – especially for those whose voices have been silenced

Outside the Bubble: The Experience of Commuting Students at The University of St. Andrews

The act of commuting and the subsequent effect it has on the quality of experience any one student will have at The University of St. Andrews is determined by many factors. It necessitates disconnect from the academic and social environment, contextualised based on the all-encompassing social integration that the small town allows. From my own experience as a commuting student living in Dundee, I became aware of and interested in the impact of commuting. Through grounded experience and conversation with fellow commuters, I explore the impact and consequences of conditions surrounding transport, space, time, personal wellbeing, and academic success to highlighting the good and the bad of what commuting means for the some of the students at St. Andrews.&nbsp