Scottish land reform and indigenous peoples' rights: self-determination and historical reversibility

This article highlights the dominance of the trope of historical inevitability which - whether in its neoliberal, liberal or Marxist forms - seeks to claim that there is no alternative to globalising capitalism and state power. In contrast, the article argues that by analysing historical processes of appropriation and resistance, and by analysing parallels between ongoing struggles for self-determination in the global north and south, anthropological practice can refuse to contribute to a paralysing cultural relativism or coercive colonialism, but can instead reassert the existence of multiple alternatives, and multiple strategies for maintaining them.