Navigating Modernity: Strategies to protect local language, indigenous knowledge, and cultural biodiversity

• Department: Language Sciences Institute
• Supervisors:
  • Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin (Lead Supervisor)
  • Mr Iain Caimbeul
  • Dr Gordon Cameron
• Project specific enquiries: conchur.ogiollagain@uhi.ac.uk 

Previous applicants need not apply. 

Since the post-World War One period, the Gaelic-speaking communities of Scotland’s Western Isles underwent rapid structural changes, transforming their sociocultural and socioeconomic dynamics. Continued population drift and demographic change as economically-active cohorts pursued employment and higher living standards in urban areas, alongside the gradual mechanisation of traditional work patterns, added to a profound transformation in the collective’s social capital and sociolinguistic vitality. These structural shocks were magnified by a loosening of local control and weakening social capital bonds such that indigenous island populations became increasingly dependent on institutions and policy decisions largely removed from the realities of island life. The growing reliance on external institutions and support systems became linked to notions of modernity whereby traditional ways of island life were replaced, resulting in the weakening of cultural heritage and traditions, including language.  

 

Today’s communities currently lack the sociolinguistic capacity to regenerate themselves. Key socioeconomic sectors, such as crofting and fishing, traditionally domains in which Gaelic language and culture thrived, face multiple challenges (see table below on Gaelic skills and the main language used by respondents working in the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Sector, 2022 Census).   

 

Critical biocultural heritage, encoded in the practices and knowledge of Gaelic-speaking participants in these sectors, is being eroded through further language shift and the predominance of English in the social and operational activities of these sectors.  

 

Gaelic Skills/Gaelic as Main Language: Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Sector in the Western Isles 

Gaelic Skills	Gaelic Speakers	Other Gaelic Skills		No Gaelic Skills		Total
Number	447	123		340		910
As % of Total	49%	14%		37%		100%
Main Language		Gaelic	English	Polish	Other	Total
Number		67	797	4	41	910
As % of Total		7.4%	87.6%	0.4%	4.5%	100%

Source: National Records of Scotland – 2022 Census 

 

 

The social collective within community networks has been replaced with a greater emphasis on ‘individualism’, with the consequential loss of community agency and relative shift of control from community-orientated support factors to external policy decision-makers and institutions resulting in the rapid erosion of linguistic vitality. Since devolution, more power and control has been drawn to political power centres, both nationally and regionally.  

 

The key question arising is whether a real-world future exists for indigenous languages, their respective traditional cultures and associated biodiversity knowledge in societies increasingly based on ‘individual modernity’. If such a future exists, what strategies can be employed to enable indigenous language groups to maintain their respective languages and cultures? 

 

The gradual shift in local power and control structures to external actors impacts traditional community norms and rules that have managed and sustained local and traditional natural resource management systems. Central to such change is the challenge to the management of common property (such as marine and terrestrial resources). Some discourses conflate common property with free access systems, which, without regulation, are vulnerable to overexploitation and degradation. The hypothesis developed through Hardin’s ‘Tragedy of the commons’ has been used to justify privatisation and commodification of land and resource systems over recent decades. 

 

Contrary to Hardin’s hypothesis, most common-pool resources such as crofting land management are not subject to free access regimes; they are subject to complex regulatory systems, often relying on non-formal institutions and customs, which is particularly true of crofting and access to inshore fishing grounds.   

 

Grazings committees managed by local crofters control the use and access to such ‘commons’ which are aligned to separate crofting townships. Similarly, local fishing rights within inshore waters may be regulated based on ‘tradition’ in that certain areas are fished by individuals and catches kept to specific limits. Such resource management systems remain threatened by over-exploitation but persist as an important part of local natural resource knowledge, and in regional biocultural heritage which is often encoded in Gaelic. 

 

The hypothesis for the research tests whether the traditional structure of Gaelic society and the continued use and vitality of Gaelic as (a) a community language and (b) as the carrier of indigenous knowledge within the crofting and fishing economic sectors is directly correlated with the level of social and institutional support for the language, taking cognisance of community agency in the management of local governance of linguistic and natural assets and resources.  

 

Research questions extending from the primary hypothesis may explore: 

• peripheral communities and language survival within majority systems where top-down metropolitan policies and primarily emblematic appropriation engagement occur in relation to indigenous languages, cultures and the protection of biodiversity assets  

• how strategies developed within the context of community agency and governance inform academia, and how Government policy interventions shape community governance in managing and addressing the challenges of protecting sociolinguistic and biodiversity assets within and across indigenous cultures and localities 

• the strength of evidence identifying social capital within the Gaelic-speaking collective as a factor in supporting the protection and transmission of indigenous knowledge and the Gaelic language. 

 

Why UHI?

Our distinctive partnership of locally based independent colleges and research institutions is rooted in communities, but with national and international reach and significance. Our results from the UK-wide 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF) confirm our strong position in the research landscape of the UK, with nearly three quarters of the research publications we submitted for assessment deemed to be world leading or internationally excellent. Read more about REF here. 

Our impact ratings (a measure of our reach and influence in business and our communities) also show how strong our research influence is, and our research degree students are a core part of this.  

You will be part of this growing community, guided by subject experts, building knowledge and skills, in a supportive and collaborative research environment. 

Eligibility Criteria

New applicants should normally have, or expect to have by 30 September 2025: 

• A postgraduate master's degree from a degree-awarding body recognised by the UK government, or equivalent, or 

• A first or upper second-class honours degree from a degree awarding body recognised by the UK government, or equivalent, or 

• Other qualifications or experience that affords sufficient evidence of an applicant’s ability to work at the academic level associated with doctoral study. 

• If English is not your first language, and you do not have a prior UK degree, you will need IELTS (Academic) score of 6.5 minimum, with a minimum 6.0 in each component, or equivalent. This must have been gained no more than two years prior to the proposed project start date. For more information see Entry requirements and visa advice - English language requirements (uhi.ac.uk) 

Please also note: 

• Current UHI research degree students are not eligible to apply.  

• Awards are for full-time study only. 

• You will be expected to live within a reasonable travel time of the project’s campus location; distance learning study cannot be supported for this award. 

How to apply

It is the applicant’s responsibility to submit the required documents in a single file, ensuring they are submitted electronically by email to gradresearch@uhi.ac.uk 

Application documents:  

• UHI PhD studentship application form, part 1 UHI Studentship Application PART 1

• Copies of all official qualification certificates and transcripts. If your official certificates/transcripts are not in English, they must be accompanied by a fully certified translation provided by a professional translator/translation company.  

• If English is not your native language, and you have not gained a prior UK degree, an English language test certificate (IELTS or equivalent with overall score of 6.5 and no element below 6.0) gained within the two years prior to the planned start date. 

• If you are not a UK national, a copy of the photo page of your passport, also include any pages which indicate a right of abode in the UK.  

• References - please ask your referee to complete the Reference Form; these are not required with the application but will be required for shortlisted applicants and must be provided by the applicant before their interview. References should be from professional or academic contacts and cannot be from family members or friends.  At least one reference should be from someone who knows you from your most recent academic qualification. UHI Studentship PGR Reference Form

Please note: 

• Incomplete applications and/or applications received after the deadline cannot be considered.  

• If references are not available by the time of application deadline, these can be sent through separately, however applicants are responsible for ensuring these are submitted to gradresearch@uhi.ac.uk by the above deadline, or as soon as possible thereafter. 

• If you are selected for an award, you will be required to start in October 2025; the award cannot be held over to another academic year. 

Contact Details

Completed applications and administrative queries - gradresearch@uhi.ac.uk  

If you have an academic query, please contact the Lead Supervisor of your chosen project – see contact details in ‘available projects’.