Community landownership: Means and outcomes – experiences of community acquisition processes in Scotland
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| Title: | Community landownership: Means and outcomes – experiences of community acquisition processes in Scotland |
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| Authors: | McKee, Annie, Glass, Jayne, Lawrence, Anna, McMorran, Robert |
| Source: | Postcapitalist Countrysides. :143-166 |
| Subject Terms: | collective action, community, land ownership, commons, Scotland, empowerment |
| Description: | A remarkable programme of land reform through community ownership is unfolding in Scotland. Engaging with themes of experimentation, transformation and direct democracy, an increasing number of land and asset-owning community groups are enacting postcapitalist alternatives to traditional models of private landownership in both rural and urban areas. Although globally the definitions of community property are diverse, Scotland is unusual in creating new forms of property ownership by a community: private ownership that usually refers to legal ownership of title by a company or charitable organisation with a constitutional type tightly defined by Scottish law. This is unlike the ownership of land by municipal organisations and the more traditional commons, both of which are widely found in continental Europe.The land reform movement in Scotland began with grassroots action driven by insecurity and disempowerment and has been enacted and justified by Scottish Government policy on the grounds of fairness, public good and sustainable development. Community organisations in both rural and urban Scotland have legal rights to buy land and other property (largely buildings, but including assets such as piers, slipways, and river fishing rights), as well as financial support via the Scottish Land Fund. Through a desire to reinvent and reinvigorate ownership of land and assets away from prevailing top-down and elite models, the outcomes of communities taking ownership of land or assets may be considered an important component of a shift towards ‘postcapitalist commons’. However, this raises important questions, both in relation to the process of acquiring land and assets (for example, fairness, legitimacy, conflict), and how the different routes to ownership affect participants’ experiences of collective action and empowerment.With these points in mind, this chapter explores the lived experiences of people in communities in Scotland that have sought community ownership, to gain deeper understanding of the barriers and opportunities for a future with postcapitalist alternatives to traditional private landownership models. The findings are based on commissioned research that assessed both the effectiveness of community ownership mechanisms and the potential to improve and simplify these mechanisms to enable the expansion of community ownership in Scotland. Through qualitative interviews and workshops with both rural and urban people, this research provides a fresh perspective on the experiences of communities seeking routes to empowerment and collective action through property ownership. |
| File Description: | |
| Access URL: | https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-552548 https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800087675 |
| Database: | SwePub |
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