Taking Up (Green) Space: How people of colour are embracing Scotland's outdoors

Under foot, pine needles sink into soil. Greenery sprouts here and there. It’s a grey sky today, the light reaching through the thick branches with ease. The trunk of a tree is cool upon the palm. It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, and there is only birdsong.

As reported by RENEW Biodiversity, approximately 60% of people of colour in the UK spend time in nature less than twice a month; for white people, it’s only approximately 30%. Although either figure is troubling, the disparity between the two is alarming. Underlining this, RENEW lists three types of barriers faced by people of colour when attempting to spend time in nature: structural, experiential, and cultural. Whether inaccessible due to costs and distance or alienating due to microaggressions and racial harassment, green spaces are often built by white communities, for white communities. Nature can be decolonised; but it, like any decolonisation, is no mean feat. 

In recent months, this disparity has felt ever pressing due to far-right race riots. Amid travel warnings and a few too many funny looks, leaving the house became more difficult than usual. Location sharing-on; route mapped by group chat updates; home before dark. Palestine flags still hung from windows and ‘Refugees are welcome here’ stickers still clung to traffic lights; but, at the same time, the red and blue of Union Jacks became all-too sudden and fresh.

Despite such difficulties, a number of people of colour-led, Scotland-based organisations are turning to the outdoors – embracing it, as it embraces them too. And so, finding joy in nature becomes a means of community building, self-affirmation, and political resistance. 

At the height of 2020’s COVID lockdown, Woodlands Community began online anti-racism reflection sessions, following the murder of George Floyd. They met weekly – reading, discussing, questioning. As the outdoors began to open up once again, the group envisioned a community resource from which people could access and borrow anti-racist books. With a background in bookselling and curation, Sapna Agarwal was asked to lead the project. There was a little money – but not a lot – and the era had its own demands. “COVID necessitated more outdoor activity,” says Agarwal. Rather than opting for a mobile library, Millenium Park in the heart of Woodlands was chosen as a base. What began as an indoors and online endeavour found itself outdoors and in-person, with the help of a little social distancing. 

“From April to October, we’re outdoors. We have the little community meeting room up back, but we massively prefer to be outdoors,” Agarwal says. Windy spells have seen the team turn their hand to a makeshift gazebo, with only a few hopeful pieces of string. “If there's a very heavy conversation that someone wants to have when we're indoors, they'll be seeking a little corner, or it'll be a bit harder to have those conversations if there's hardly anyone else there. Whereas when you're outdoors, you can just take a little step away from the table,” says Agarwal. Out in the open, open conversations are possible. “It's so strange that there's no physical barrier, but in a way there's loads more privacy.”

Rhubaba, an Edinburgh-based artist-run organisation, also found some much needed peace of mind in nature. During a research residency at Cove Park, the committee found the space to breathe and create; they felt communities of colour in Scotland would really benefit from this. Without traffic and light pollution and sirens, the committee were able to lean into the natural rhythms of their bodies. “The thing to do seems to be to go sit in a basement and do funding applications – that would be the smart thing to do,” says Rhubaba committee member, Jj Fadaka. “But actually, to follow our bodies’ natural rhythms and go back to nature gave us so much more creativity and motivation than sitting in an office.”

Through the residency at Cove Park, Rhubaba realised they’d like to take matters outwith the city via Dòigh Nàdair, their current artistic development residency which seeks to reunite people of colour with the natural environment. With demands for communities of colour to work hard, harder, prove our worth and excel, cities can seem the only space in which to achieve these capitalistic ideals. “You're only allowed to focus on one thing – which is working,” says Fadaka. Nature is de-prioritised (ironically) for survival. 

“How can you be truly creative if you're on edge all the time?” says Rhubaba committee member, Neha Apsara. Propranolol in hand and jaw tensed as we run errands, we’re well accustomed to anxiety. Time outdoors allows us to step out of the cycle, if only for a few moments. But, of course, nature isn’t devoid of its own stresses. “A lot of things in nature can be brutal. You don’t know what’s going to happen; you need to be okay with the uncomfortable as well.” Creativity can be found in those moments of vulnerability.

In everyday life, people of colour are ever watched; in nature, there are few judgmental eyes. Such sentiments are interwoven into Dòigh Nàdair; the residents, Katucha Bento and Shona Inatimi, are not expected to display anything. Unlike our whitewashed arts landscape, nature asks little of us – Rhubaba’s programme reflects exactly that.

For Woodlands Community Anti-Racism Library, seeing and being seen, however, is crucial. “It’s visibility. It's not like we're having these difficult conversations behind a closed door,” says Agarwal. “We're out in the open.” With a play park, basketball court, and a handful of benches, it’s a space designed with community in mind. The library has leaned into this warmth, offering snacks to passersbys. “When there [are] tensions in the country, or you're hearing about things in the news, to maintain that physical presence [allows] people to come and feel supported.”

A similar visibility is often lacking in traditional outdoors activities; however, Black Scottish Adventurers co-founder Joshua Adeyemi is keen to change this. “If you don't see people like you doing something, sometimes it can be a hindrance [...] You might feel out of place. I've been through it, I’ve felt it, I know it first hand,” says Adeyemi. The group coordinates trips to the Scottish outdoors – hiking, swimming, cycling – while also promoting wellbeing and sustainability. With Scotland’s Land Reform Act, we can roam freely; for Adeyemi, this is a responsibility to be enjoyed. “This belongs to you, as well as everyone else, as long as you look after it.”

From carpooling to post-walk-barbecues, each trip is structured to facilitate connection between members. “Connection in the outdoors is very, very organic. It’s not the kind of connection you make sitting over a coffee table,” says Adeyemi. Many of Black Scottish Adventurers’ members are first generation immigrants; as such, the group is keen to connect them with each other as well as the Scottish wilderness. Although named Black Scottish Adventurers, the group is open to everyone, no matter their racial or ethnic background. “We named it that [...] because there’s nothing specific for that group. Other Black people can know that they are welcome here – which is very, very important.”

Much like Black Scottish Adventurers, Rhubaba isn’t an organisation solely for PoCs. However, in recent years, their programming has actively centred communities of colour; afterall, white communities are centred just about everywhere else. At a recent Dòigh Nàdair workshop, attendees shared their experiences of being in nature. “People in the group were saying that they've been on hikes or nature trips with white people, and they felt really uncomfortable. They felt very othered, or they felt they were getting judged for not knowing or understanding as much as their white counterparts would about being in the outdoors,” says Apsara. When facing such mistreatment when venturing outdoors, the indoors seems a lot safer. 

For Black Scottish Adventurers, it’s crucial that their members are well-prepared. “A lot of people can go out in nature and do all sorts, but how do you do it safely?” says Adeyemi. The group supports their members with guidance on outdoor clothing and equipment. For those new to such adventuring, it’s easy to accidentally waste money on flimsy waterproofs or too-small boots. 

“In nature, lack of access doesn't come with lack of care,” says Fadaka. Not every river can be swam in; not every tree can be climbed. Unlike state-sponsored neglect, when nature does not welcome our presence, it’s not with hostility. In reality, there’s relief in this resistance, in allowing nature – and ourselves – to simply exist. “Maybe that hill is to be untouched.” 

With well-mudded boots and rosy cheeks, experiencing the outdoors in community with others also brings a much-needed fun. “Yes, there's an element of white people being able to educate themselves, but there's also this real privileging of joy and of mutual support and celebration,” says Agarwal. “There is space for people to come and bring their difficult stuff, but there's also a lot of laughter, a lot of playfulness.”

Between race riots and mass deportations, taking up space in the outdoors is a radical act in itself – Black Scottish Adventurers, Woodlands Community Anti-Racism Library, and Rhubaba are testament to that. For Apsara of Rhubaba, it’s simple: “They can't tell us where we can be. We will be where we will be.”

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Find out more @blackscottishadventurers, @rhubaba, and @woodlandscommunityglasgow on Instagram