What does it mean to be Black in Scotland today?
How are notions of nationhood, Scottishness, and Britishness implicated in this? Why is it important to archive and understand Black Scottish history?
Reflecting on the past to make sense of the present, Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022) explores the history and contemporary lives of Black people in Scotland. Based on intergenerational interviews, survey responses, photography, and analysis of media and archived material, Sobande and hill offer a unique snapshot of Black Scottish history and recent 21st century realities.
Overall, Black Oot Here focuses on a wide range of experiences of education, work, activism, media, creativity, public life, and politics, to present a vital account of Black lives in Scotland, while carefully considering the future that may lie ahead.
Read more about Black Oot Here in this feature in The Skinny and in this review in Bella Caledonia: https://www.theskinny.co.uk/intersections/features/here-and-now https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2023/06/28/review-black-oot-here-black-lives-in-scotland/
Order the book at: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/black-oot-here-9781913441340
The following 30% discount code can be used at the checkout: BOHFSLRH22
About the authors
Francesca Sobande is a writer and reader in digital media studies at Cardiff University, Wales. She is the author of The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Consuming Crisis: Commodifying Care and COVID-19 (SAGE, 2022), and Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture (University of California Press, 2024). She is also co-author with layla-roxanne hill of Look, Don’t Touch: Reflections on the Freedom to Feel (404 Ink, 2025).
layla-roxanne hill is a writer, curator and organiser, living in Scotland. Her work focuses on anti-colonial cultural contributions, and the way our conditions move us to act. She is also active in the trade union movement, holding elected positions within the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Scottish TUC (STUC). She is also co-author with Francesca Sobande of Look, Don’t Touch: Reflections on the Freedom to Feel (404 Ink, 2025)