'Decommonising the Mind':Historical impacts of British imperialism on indigenous tenure systems and self-understanding in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland

Common pool resource theory appears to assume that external authorities are responsible for initiating attempts to ‘decommonise’ common property regimes. An unusual decommonisation proposal put forward in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the 1960s questions this assumption; in this instance the decommonisation proposal was initiated by rightsholders in the common property regime. The proposal would have enabled rightsholders to purchase their arable fields, thus privatising them and removing them from the hybrid tenure system called crofting. A critical historical and contemporary survey of the political contexts surrounding this proposal discloses that the particular hybridity of the ‘crofting commons’ is a result of a historical process of ‘domestic colonization’ within Britain, and that this tenure system exists within a deeply-sedimented structure of domination whose normative assumptions may have influenced the decision of the rightsholders to propose decommonisation in the first place

Recognising and reconstituting Gàidheil ethnicity

This article analyses some claims made about the Gàidheal identity in Scotland, with particular reflection on a distinct ‘sociolinguistic turn’ within Gàidhlig studies and related research over the last two decades. Through critical analysis of a major sociological survey on the structuring of various markers in framing Gàidheal identity, a normative basis is provided to then assess other identity classifications made by some academics whose work is focussed on the single identity-marker of the Gàidhlig language. It is argued that identity claims predicated on the specific nature of the Gàidhlig sociolinguistic turn fail to capture the complex reality and living histories of actual Gàidheal identities (and claims on those identities), in particular, the socio-cultural importance of place-based practices and understandings. Recent proposals for a Gàidheal ethnolinguistic assembly may enable modes of articulation and recognition to develop which better capture those realities, as well as supporting societal and linguistic regeneration among the indigenous group

Plantation Slavery and Land Ownership in the West Highlands and Islands: Legacies and Lessons

No abstract available

The Molecular Basis of Texture in Mashed Potato

Mash production often involves thermal pre-treatments (pre-cooks) that are designed to increase the physical strength and restrict cell separation of cooked potatoes prior to mashing. This improves the mash quality. During pre-cooking, the control of starch swelling pressures during cooking and/or the activation of pectin methylesterase (PME) prior to cooking can occur. The aim of this thesis was to examine changes in texture of cooked potatoes caused by these pre-cook treatments prior to mashing. Cooking was carried out in laboratory conditions. During steam cooking (one-stage cooking) the potatoes quickly reached 60-6