Whose Land is it Anyway? Empowerment and community of place

27 September – 1 October, 2010

Alastair McIntosh, Iain MacKinnon, Sulemana Abudulai

Increasing urbanisation over the centuries has weakened our understanding of the link between people and the land on which we all depend for food, shelter and other basic needs.

This course will address important and complex challenges in combining land, human and Earth rights, as well as the fun and inspirational ways communities can live, work and learn together. It will help you in taking the next step in your relationship with the land, and within the rich community of Earth as a whole.

Course details

Now more and more communities are demanding the right to have their own land, whether it be urban groups wanting to grow food or have a green recreational space, or traditional societies reclaiming rights to land they have lived on for generations. The process of gaining community ownership or control of land involves working within a legal framework which has not in the past been friendly to community rights, and also can present that group with a whole new set of responsibilities and challenges. This course will address both aspects of the process.

Our relationship to the land is a fundamental part of what it means to be a community of place. But in many parts of the world, people’s ability to relate directly to their place has been broken by colonialism, landlordism, or other forms of domination. Alastair McIntosh will share from his experience of land reform on the Isle of Eigg, which contributed to Scotland’s Land Reform Act and 2% of the land now coming under community ownership. With him, Iain MacKinnon will share from his work in Scotland and Ireland on land and indigenous identity. Together they will explore why our relationship with the land is also about our relationship within ourselves and in community with one another, and how this is fundamentally a spiritual question. They will discuss the necessity to recognise and process conflict in the course of community empowerment and how, in their experience, that empowerment can be encouraged and nourished.

Sulemana Abudulai has been involved with issues of land tenure and land use all of his life, working in his own community in northern Ghana and with a range of organisations such as the African Biodiversity Network. He also researches and writes on land economy and resource use. At the heart of the ecological governance systems of traditional cultures in Africa lies the understanding that human norms and practices are derived from the land from where they are born. By following the laws of the Earth – Earth Jurisprudence – indigenous communities have evolved over centuries in mutually enhancing relationships with their land. Abdulai’s work is dedicated to reviving this knowledge and practices, which embrace intergenerational equity, living with ecological integrity, the recognition of ecosystem rights and more. It is these relationships, bound in oral customary lores, that form the basis for living with ecological integrity. Abdulai is keen to promote learning between the North and South as he believes there are complementary lessons to be learnt.

This course is intended for: Individuals or groups interested in, studying or actively advocating for land, human and/or Earth rights. Those interested in taking their existing learnings on Earth Jurisprudence to the next level.

Teachers

Alastair McIntosh is the author of books including Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power (2001), Love and Revolution: Collected Poetry (2006), Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition (2008) and the Schumacher Briefing, Rekindling Community (2008). He is Visiting Professor of Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde and a Fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology.

Iain MacKinnon is from the Isle of Skye in north-west Scotland and is currently working towards a PhD at Ulster University exploring community practices in the indigenous way of life of the Highlands of Scotland. His activism includes community development work in both Scotland and Ireland. He is also a piper and a singer.

Sulemana Abudulai is the son of a chief from northern Ghana and was brought up in the African tradition. He later left his homeland to study in the UK. He was a member of the International Grants Team at Comic Relief since 2000 and has been involved in grant making across Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has a Masters degree in Rural and Regional Resources Planning from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge. He is also a Research Associate at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cambridge and is on the board of trustees of various NGOs in the UK and Africa.

This course is run in association with Landscope and the Gaia Foundation.

Course Fees

£750
All course fees include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.

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Schumacher College is part of the Dartington Hall Trust, a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and as a charity (company no. 1485560, charity no. 279756). Registered office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EL, UK.