Community Group: Ulluminate CIC

Researchers: Lisa MacDonald, Arts & Humanities (University of Edinburgh, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig)

Location: Ullapool, Wester Ross

Exploring the role of Gaelic culture as a citizen science tool, looking to the Gaelic cultural archives as a source of knowledge on local bird migration.

Mamta Patel, Community lead at Ulluminate, said:

Our community is not alone in experiencing high levels of general eco-anxiety but engagement with researchers takes this general fear and makes it more manageable as well as pointing to mitigating actions we might be able to take e.g. to protect currently endangered species and have the knowledge to protect others that may be next.

About the project

Ulluminate CIC is a social enterprise working in Ullapool and the surrounding area of Wester Ross. It aims to demonstrate the existing science knowledge and expertise in the local area, whilst also showing how it is inextricably linked to people’s everyday lives, art and culture.

The group saw the Climate Change funding as an opportunity to explore the role of Gaelic culture in citizen science, by examining the preservation of knowledge about bird migration in Gaelic cultural archives.

Community-researcher partnership

The group worked with Lisa MacDonald, a PhD Student at the University of Edinburgh and lecturer at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, to carry out a literature review of citizen science and Gaelic to gain information about bird migratory patterns and behaviours through examples of Gaelic literature and song.

The group also worked with research students and the Gaelic Community Choir, Còisir Ghàidhlig an Iar Thuath, to support the researcher’s work with the choir by singing about themes that had emerged from the research. The choir presented these ‘findings through song’ at their Hogmanay Ceilidh and at their inaugural conference. 

The project also worked with a local artist to design postcards with images of birds that had been identified through the project, with their Gaelic names displayed. These were distributed locally and proved to increase interest in the research project amongst the local community.

Research impacts

The group has found that communicating the local impacts of climate change, rather than just focusing on it as a “bigger impending doom scenario”, has enabled better community engagement on the topic and has made it feel more manageable “both emotionally and practically”.

Having worked so well with the researcher, the group now report increased confidence in their ability to engage with research, and have highlighted the value of bringing an external voice to the discussion who the community would be more willing to listen to and engage with. 

Indeed the group has since launched a new citizen science project monitoring the prevalence of jellyfish off the coast of the Ardmair beach, as well as the diversity of species found there. 

More widely, the research activities also formed part of the development of Ullapool’s inaugural science festival which seeks to explore science through the arts with the belief that “lived experience and cultural wisdom are as valid a way to look at our world as through the microscope”.