'M' aghan cri, coir, gradhach' -'My heifer beloved, kind and loving': Human-cattle interactions in the Scottish Gàidhealtachd c.1750-1960.

牛在苏格兰盖尔人社区中的重要作用生动地证明了它们在盖尔文化表达中的无处不在，以及它们在挤奶、放牧和季节性迁徙等方面建立起来的相互作用。然而，这些关键的人与动物之间的相互作用在很大程度上被“改善”和高地清除奖学金所忽视。这采用了一种自上而下的叙事方式，其中盖尔人的“传统”生活方式被庞大的商业养羊场和社区流离失所所消灭。在前景盖尔人的声音，我的研究将挑战这些主流范式，并创造一个新的视角，在苏格兰历史的这一关键时期，用人动物研究的想法，探索盖尔人和他们的牛之间的相互作用。

Cattle's vital role in Scottish Gaelic communities is vividly evidenced by their ubiquity in Gaelic cultural expression and well-established interactions such as milking, herding, and seasonal transhumance. However, these pivotal human-animal interactions are largely neglected in 'Improvement' and Highland Clearances scholarship. This adopts a top-down narrative, in which Gaels' 'traditional' way of life was obliterated by vast commercial sheep farms and community displacement. In foregrounding Gaelic voices, my research will challenge these mainstream paradigms and create a new perspective on this critical period of Scottish history by employing ideas from human-animal studies to explore interactions between Gaels and their cattle.