Dr Katharina Hunfeld awarded Spring Small Grant for research on community land buyout

Dr Katharina Hunfeld has been awarded a Spring Small Grant for her project For Land Held in Common: Sustainable Futures through Community Land Buyouts. The project critically reflects on the impact and political significance of Scottish projects of 'commoning' the land through community ownership models. These self-organised models, Dr Hunfeld argues, are important alternatives to both state and private property ownership that offer valuable lessons for ecologically troubled societies.

Specifically, Dr Hunfeld examines these community projects in terms of their rewilding initiatives, which involve varying degrees of human intervention to restore local ecological webs of being. Through fieldwork with five established community trusts, Dr Hunfeld asks:

• What makes community ownership models particularly conducive to ecological repair?
• Can community trusts be a feasible model for a greener future?

This project takes community land buyouts seriously as expanding the collective political imagination on how to politically tackle the paralysing spectres of disillusionment and climate anxiety.