Reconciling moral and legal collective entitlement: Implications for community-based land reform

This paper discusses the drawing and contesting of social boundaries in the enactment of collective land rights, and the implications for land reform policies based around the notion of ‘community’ entitlement. Drawing on recent research in the crofting areas of Scotland, the paper explores the tensions arising when legal collective rights—or proposed changes to them—do not coincide with perceived moral claims to land. Examining the enactment of existing collective rights demonstrates how contested moral assumptions underpinning crofting identities, discourses and land use practices qualify and disqualify individuals as members of an imagined ‘crofting community’, and shape de facto access to and control over land-based resources. Some of the key policy implications of these findings are discussed with particular reference to Scottish land reform.