‘Community’ in Community Land

I have been living in Scotland for nearly two years now, and I have never been a member of any community. By community, I refer to a geographic community or community of place, which is the dominant notion of community in the community land movement, discourse, and policy in Scotland. In the past two years, my postcode has changed five times, having had to involuntarily move house each of the five times within Glasgow. From the City Centre to the North-East and East End and now the West End, I have lived across the breadth of Glasgow. And, I have come to love Glasgow, as a city, and Scotland, as a country, even without a home in it. I was enfranchised in the Scottish Parliament election despite being an immigrant, and, as a student of politics and policy, I have admired the political language in Scotland that foregrounds social cohesion. However, despite feeling an emotional connection to the country and contributing to its economy and society, I am not a formal member of any local community. It is a strange simultaneity of inclusion and exclusion.

The sense of belonging and community in Scotland feels an economic privilege enjoyed by those with financial stability and a permanent or near-permanent, and liveable home. Are communities of place, therefore, communities of the propertied (those with home ownership) and those with secure residential tenancies? In a country with heightened class divide and homelessness, both apparent and hidden, the community landownership discourse, despite being inclusive, in principle, seems to, in practice, exclude those with low income and temporary accommodation. The lack of security of a liveable home deprives many of a voice in shaping their neighbourhoods and being active members, contributors, and decision-makers in their local communities.

At a two-day conference organised by Community Landownership Academic Network on 16 and 17 June 2026, Atenchong Talleh Nkoubou, professor at Royal Agricultural University, spoke of examining the identity of community landowners in Scotland. It felt like a call for introspection by communities. Although the history of community landownership in Scotland has been about displaced communities reclaiming land, what is the contemporary nature and form of community land? Communities seem to be formed and run out of a coterie, with no conscious initiative or effort to expand or diversify membership.

When Heather Yearwood from Community Land Scotland presented the additional barriers Black and minoritised groups face in community landownership, it highlighted how policy mechanisms favour well-connected communities. It also implied a starker reality that current communities are homogenous, begging a fundamental question: why are communities being formed based on ethnicity and race? Josh Doble of Community Land Scotland pointed out how communities in Scotland do not encounter existential threats unlike communities in the Global South, which routinely face violence and displacement. Relatedly, another subject that requires attention in discussions on how communities are formed is immigration. Do immigrants, irrespective of whether they have indefinite or time-limited permission to stay in the country, have an equal place in Scottish communities? Without commonplace discussions—conducted with dignity and nuance—on immigration, brushing the subject under the carpet allows for hate, prejudice, and misinformation to spread.

Annie Tindley, professor at Newcastle University, brought forward the need to shed the cultural baggage of feudalism and democratise community land. But to what extent are we willing to radicalise community land? It might help to steer discussions towards scrutinising the composition and level of inclusivity of ‘community’ in the concept of community land. While the history of the community landownership movement has been radical in dismantling the status quo, the way the movement has been shaping up at present resembles preservation of the status quo. Is the community land discourse furthering voices of those who already have a station and by that, is the neoliberal regime being furthered?

Poorvi Kulkarni

MRes Public Policy Research, University of Glasgow (2025)