This is a past event
Since as early as the nineteenth century and up until the 1980s, various institutions across Scotland – including government offices, churches, and charities – participated in an effort to assimilate Gypsy/Traveller communities, families, and individuals into settled society, using housing and child welfare policies as a primary means of coercion. In 1998, survivors of the policies – siblings Roseanna and Shamus McPhee – discovered, while conducting archival research, that government backchannels referred to these policies as 'Tinker Experiments'.
Following on from the First Minister's official apology on 25 June 2025 to Gypsy/Traveller survivors of the Tinker Experiments, this event will shed light on what exactly the Tinker Experiments were and the cultural genocide they waged against Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland, as well as how we begin the path 'towards a more just and equitable Scotland' (apology from First Minister John Swinney, June 2025). The panel is composed of survivors, campaigners, and researchers, whose collective efforts resulted in the government's recognition of the Tinker Experiments, who will discuss the journey leading up to the historic apology and the steps that need to happen next.
The panel will be followed by a reception in James MacKay Hall.
Read the panel’s report to the government on these policies affect Gypsy/Traveller communities.
Roseanna McPhee (she/her) is an alumna of Aberdeen and holds an MA (Hons) in Celtic Studies/English; PGCE (Sec) in Gaelic/English, a Post-Qualification HND in Television Studies from Sabhal Mór Ostaig, and a CoE Training Certificate in Human Rights from Minority Rights Group International. She played an instrumental role in the K. MacLeannan v. GTEIP 2008 legal ruling that recognised the Gypsy Traveller ethnicity and is one of the original campaigners for an apology for the Tinker Experiments. With her brother Shamus, Roseanna uncovered the first Tinker Experiment file in 1998 and began a campaign for acknowledgement and redress.
Shamus McPhee (he/him) graduate of the University of Aberdeen and Warwick, Nacken artist and activist, born and raised in a Tinker Experiment hut at Bobbin Mill, Pitlochry, known to be a Human Rights Defender and a thrawn customer.
Dr Ben Collins (he/him) is a lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, a co-founder of the Third Generation Project, and is a co-author of the recently published archival research on twentieth-century policies impacting Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland. As a community-collaborative researcher and activist, Ben's work has centred around violence waged against Indigenous and minority peoples in North America and East Africa and community-led fights for justice.
Martin Jernigan (they/them) holds an MA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of St Andrews and has recently finished their MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation at the LSE. Interested in issues of justice for minoritized communities within international relations, they were involved with the archival research, analysis, and writing of the report.
Prof Ali Watson OBE (they/she) holds a Chair in International Relations at the University of St Andrews and co-founded the Third Generation Project (TGP) – a think tank dedicated to critical human rights issues – in 2016 at St Andrews. Out of TGP, they led the research team behind the recently published archival research on twentieth-century policies impacting Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland. Ali grew up in Sandilands in Aberdeen – just along the road – and is a University of Aberdeen alum.
- Hosted by
- Elphinstone Institute
- Venue
- King's College Quad, Ground Floor, KCG7