Liberty and individuality: the colony asylum in Scotland and England

This paper analyses the buildings, spaces and interiors of Bangour Village public asylum for the insane, near Edinburgh, and compares these with an English asylum, Whalley, near Preston, of similar early-twentieth-century date. The village asylum, which developed from a European tradition of rendering the poor productive through ‘colonisation’, was more enthusiastically and completely adopted in Scotland than in England, perhaps due to differences in asylum culture within the two jurisdictions. ‘Liberty’ and ‘individuality’, in particular, were highly valued within Scottish asylum discourses, arguably shaping material provision for the insane poor from the scale of the buildings to the quality of the furnishings. The English example shows, by contrast, a greater concern with security and hygiene. These two differing interpretations show a degree of flexibility within the internationalized asylum model which is seldom recognized in the literature.

Community Experiences of Sectarianism

We present here our findings from the qualitative study commissioned by the Scottish Government (Justice Analytical Services) to provide an understanding of the nature of sectarianism in a range of communities across Scotland, including those where it may be most visibly prevalent. The team of academics commissioned to carry out this research were drawn from the disciplines of law, music, social geography, cultural studies, and communication and media studies. The study was commissioned on 14 March 2014, to conclude in spring 2015.