This community contains the ePrints and eTheses produced by the Faculty's staff and students. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2671 2026-10-17T00:18:21Z 2026-10-17T00:18:21Z Nakonechna, Irina http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38401 2026-10-16T15:19:26Z 2026-03-01T00:00:00Z

Title: ‘The living flag of Andrew scattered all across the Earth’: Scottish Identity and Diasporic Literature, post-1960 Author(s): Nakonechna, Irina Abstract: The following thesis considers the ways in which diasporic engagement with, and vision of, Scotland – as distant homeland, ambivalent inheritance, or cultural archive – is mobilised in order to legitimise or interrogate settler belonging. Adopting a conceptual, case study methodology to address four nations – Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina – with organisations of political, commercial, and cultural authority founded on Scots institutional models and intellectual traditions, this analysis addresses the intersections between diasporic cultural practice and settler structures of power. Locating diasporic literary production within the post-1960 period of global reassessments of belonging and tradition, and the contemporaneous rise of cultural nationalism initiatives across differing geopolitical contexts, this study charts the ways diasporic authors of Scottish descent confronted, engaged with, or appropriated aspects of their Scottish heritage as a means of garnering narrative and political authority. The post-1960 era sees Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina engaged in variegated processes of state-formation and (re)articulation of national culture. Such synthetic nationalisms on behalf of settler states, meanwhile, were occurring alongside the development and internationalisation of Indigenous rights movements and sovereignty claims, which continued to challenge settler legitimacy, and contest what may constitute a ‘national’ story. This project illustrates how Scotland’s cultural capital is deployed, resisted, or reconfigured by contemporary settler authors as they respond to and participate in the shifting geopolitical landscape of the period – amid growing reassessment of colonial histories of conquest – and the concurrent state-sanctioned initiatives of nation-building. By addressing the cultural nationalism projects of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina, this thesis demonstrates how Scotland’s exported systems of cultural authority continued to operate in the post-1960 period, as its cultural histories become strategically coopted by settler societies for the reforging of diasporic and national identities, in light of contemporary pressures. The tracing of the Scottish ‘cultural thread’ across diverse geopolitical settler contexts reveals both the extent to which diasporic literatures interconnect via aspects of shared mythopoetics and intellectual frameworks, as well as the global reach and evolution of Scotland’s cultural influence and its role in the legacies of empire.

2026-03-01T00:00:00Z McBrearty, Richard http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38399 2026-10-16T09:29:13Z 2026-02-06T00:00:00Z

Title: The development of organised football in Scotland: 1824-1875 Author(s): McBrearty, Richard Abstract: In the present day, organised forms of football can easily be found in communities throughout Scotland. For the rugby and association codes, visitor attractions at Hampden Park and Murrayfield Stadium help to tell the story of how the modern versions of each sport were developed in Scotland, from the early international matches of the 1870s into the billion pound industry of the twenty-first century. What is less well known, is the history of organised football in Scotland decades before the arrival of the two dominant codes. Many of the early football histories within the United Kingdom considered football in the early part of the nineteenth century to be an unruly ‘mob’ game which was increasingly censured and inevitably died out. Such accounts argue that these wild and outmoded games were ‘civilised’ decades later, by the elite schools and universities who provided rules and regulations. However, whilst the elite institutions had an important role to play, there were wider influences on the development of organised football throughout the nineteenth century. This thesis discusses the existence of older organised football traditions which predated the modern codes. The research also sheds light on the process of transition, particularly for the association game, which saw football teams and football players connected to traditional games adapt to the newer and more structured form of the sport. A study of football club members during the late 1860s and early 1870s forms part of the process. An examination of the development of football clubs, commencing with the oldest documented club of 1824 and concluding with several mapping projects up to 1875, provide an unprecedented insight into the organisation and development of football in Scotland during a crucial period which witnessed the end of the traditional era of football and the beginning of the modern age.

2026-02-06T00:00:00Z Brown Swan, Coree Anderson, Paul http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38397 2026-10-15T00:02:19Z 2026-10-05T00:00:00Z

Title: Political responses to a second Scottish independence referendum: Deferral, denial and delegitimisation Author(s): Brown Swan, Coree; Anderson, Paul Abstract: This paper examines how the UK state has responded to Scottish demands for a second independence referendum, treating those demands as constitutional contestation and asking whether the state has converted that contestation into deliberative engagement or managed it through deferral, denial, and delegitimisation. Drawing on a longitudinal analysis of ministerial discourse between 2016 and 2026, the paper traces how successive UK Governments – Conservative and Labour – have justified their consistent refusal to sanction a second referendum. It identifies three overlapping phases: conditional deferral under Theresa May, in which the question was postponed around Brexit; assertive denial under Johnson, Truss and Sunak, in which crisis conditions were instrumentalised and the 2022 Supreme Court ruling used to normalise refusal; and managed delegitimisation under Starmer, in which a softer tone masked an effort to render independence constitutionally illegitimate. The UK state has deployed a consistent repertoire – democratic finality, crisis conditions, mandate contestation – to close off rather than structure debate. The paper concludes that while these strategies have prevented a second referendum, they have not resolved the underlying tension, raising fundamental questions about deliberation and democratic legitimacy in multinational states.

2026-10-05T00:00:00Z Toth, Gyorgy http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38396 2026-10-15T00:01:59Z 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The Akwesasne Notes: A Catalyst of Cold War Native American Transnational Protest Author(s): Toth, Gyorgy Abstract: Launched by the longhouse faction of the Mohawk of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy in 1969 after Native American activists reasserted their transnational passage rights by blockading the International Bridge connecting the U.S. state of New York and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the Akwesasne Notes soon became one of the Native North American papers with the largest circulation and served as the flagship periodical of the American Indian radical sovereignty movement through the end of the Cold War. Through a close-reading of content, multi-sited archival research, and mapping out of the biographies of key activists, this study goes beyond establishing that the Notes was transnational in its geography, politics of production, and coverage, and will investigate whether the newspaper developed from an organ into a catalyst for Cold War Native transnational protest. Using a framework from Performance Studies, the article argues that, in its coverage, Akwesasne Notes both recorded and provided scripts for protest performances that challenged and articulated alternatives to the current Native American/First Nations status and rights. Thereby and through its circulation across and beyond settler colonial borders, the Notes helped catalyse transnational alliances for American Indian sovereignty that over time spanned the Western hemisphere, reached across the Atlantic, and entered the United Nations.

2026-01-01T00:00:00Z