I am a writer, researcher, analyst, commentator, political critic and activist on issues of land, power, governance, democracy and money. Over the past 20 years I have undertaken a wide range of work on land tenure, landownership, land reform and, more recently community land rights, governance and the hegemonic dimensions of land relations.

I studied forestry at Aberdeen University and spent some time working as an environmental scientist before becoming self-employed in 1992. In 1996 I wrote and published Who Owns Scotland (Canongate) and in 1999, a short rant entitled Scotland: Land & Power (Luath). Since 2000 I have become more involved in hyper-empirical legal geography – examining the underlying legal and political dimensions of places and the citizen’s relation to them. One result of this was my work on common good and the place of property relations in the ongoing life of Scotland’s burghs.

My interest in establishing the facts on who owns Scotland continues with my whoownsscotland website and the easiest way to support my work is to subscribe to the site which progresses slowly due to the costs of research (Registers of Scotland fees), the time involved in examining titles and the modest number of subscribers.

In 2010, I wrote The Poor had no Lawyers (Birlinn) which covers much of the ground I have been exploring over the past 10 years. Currently I am engaged on research and activism on land rights, governance and subversive democracy. I am still hopeful of countering hegemonic landed power in all its guises.