Co-authored by Francesca Sobande and layla-roxanne hill, Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland shines a light on Black Scottish history, including the legacy of Black media, arts, activism, and creativity in Scotland.

In Black Oot Here, the authors combine their love of photography and visual culture with their intention to create work that aids the archiving of Black Scottish history. The result of this creative approach is a book that covers themes and topics such as Black Scottish activism, media, digital culture, and arts – some of which is brought to life by the vivid photography of Najma Hussein Abukar. While the book is based on more than four years of research by Sobande and hill, it is also inspired and informed by the work of many other people, including the 1995 account of June Evans on “African/Caribbeans in Scotland: a socio-geographical study”.

Having lived in parts of Scotland such as Dundee, Dunoon, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, in Black Oot Here, Sobande and hill reflect on some of their own experiences, while foregrounding a range of intergenerational research interviews, survey responses, and their analysis of media and archived material such as press clippings and ephemera related to Black Scottish history from the 1980s to the present day.

They offer an in-depth discussion exploring some of Black people’s experiences of the creative and cultural industries, including how these are impacted by inequalities and the unequal distribution of resources and opportunities across different parts of Scotland. Throughout this book, there is critical consideration of questions to do with the relationship between notions of nationhood, Scottishness, and Britishness, such as when discussing the different implications of the expressions “Black Scottish” and “Black in Scotland”.

Paying attention to some of the many ways that Black people in Scotland have collectively paved paths, Sobande and hill push against the idea that Black Scottish history is a history that belongs to a single authority or institution. Overall, Black Oot Here is both a detailed scholarly account of, and clear-eyed ode to, modern Black Scottish history and the longer Black Scottish history that it is part of.

Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland can be purchased from Bloomsbury (as a paperback or hardback). The following 30% discount code can be used at the checkout: BOHFSLRH22