The role of moral values in contemporary common property enactment

Abstract

Contemporary rural change in Western Europe presents numerous challenges for historical common property institutions, not least because it suggests changes to the magnitude and diversity of values attached to common land by both rights-holders and wider society. In the case of crofting common grazings in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, such shifting values have generated tensions between different claimants by disturbing previously taken-for-granted assumptions regarding what and whom rural land is for. The discursive mechanisms through which property is enacted have altered so that the boundaries of exclusion and inclusion are not necessarily aligned with the rights as legally constructed. Eight in-depth case studies were used to explore the processes of common property enactment through which claims are sustained, negotiated or contested. It is argued that successfully asserting a moral claim to one's legal right is of prime importance in contemporary common property enactment, given the weakening of regulation enforcement and the difficulty of aligning use and management to the values and interests of an increasingly diverse group of shareholders. Twelve key axes of moral authority are frequently invoked to legitimate or undermine common grazings rights claims, concerning deontological, teleological, and identity-related aspects.

Keywords:

• common land
• crofting
• moral values
• property rights
• rural change

Notes

1. Since the focus of the study was the enactment of the common property rights associated with crofting land, investigation was not made of the other main rights holders and users of the land: the landowner and the public.