On Blackness and Makars: What is a Black Scotland?

Abstract

The introduction establishes the critical and historical basis for the idea of a Black Scotland, beginning with a brief history of Black life in territorial Scotland and in the ‘Scottish Empire’, both crucial to a post-imperial national consciousness. The introduction also reads selected examples of Blackness in Scottish literature and criticism, including some of the ways Black history has been analysed in comparison to Scottish culture. It outlines critical definitions of racialisation and of Blackness specifically: its discursive character and its relationship to the literary imagination. Defining ‘devolutionary’ as a distinct phase in the political and cultural history of Scotland, the introduction also establishes the evolving critical field of Black literary studies as it has emerged in post-war Britain, up to the multicultural moment of New Labour, and situates Scotland within and against that historical trajectory.