Whose Heritage? Deconstructing the Iona Abbey Job Listing
Historic Environment Scotland is advertising a seasonal Visitor Experience Assistant role at Iona Abbey, offering a £27,740 pro-rata salary for 35 hours a week from April to September. While the listing promotes a fun and unique opportunity on an island often likened to the Caribbean, we must ask who truly benefits from this arrangement and whose histories are being centred or erased in the process.
What Does the Iona Abbey Job Actually Offer?
The position provides a starting salary of £27,740 pro-rata, alongside enrolment in a Civil Service Pension scheme with a 28 per cent employer contribution. Workers receive 25 days of annual leave, increasing to 30 after three years, plus 11.5 public holidays. Additional benefits include flexible working hours, study leave, and free entry to Historic Environment Scotland properties, as well as English and Welsh heritage sites.
However, we must critically examine the reality of seasonal work. A six-month contract isolates workers from the security of year-round employment, trapping them in a cycle of precarity that disproportionately impacts marginalised communities, including migrants and disabled individuals who face systemic barriers in the job market. The requirement for cash handling and fast-paced customer service further alienates neurodivergent applicants, reinforcing ableist employment standards.
Deconstructing the Heritage Industry and Celtic Christianity
Iona is celebrated as the birthplace of Celtic Christianity, established in 563 CE. Yet, framing the abbey merely as a historic site obscures the violent imposition of Christianity upon pre-existing spiritual practices. By marketing this religious centre as a commercial tourist destination, Historic Environment Scotland perpetuates a capitalist extractive model. They are commodifying a deeply contested past to generate revenue, prioritising commercial performance targets and retail transactions over genuine historical reckoning.
The job responsibilities explicitly demand promoting retail products and driving admissions. Workers are expected to deliver guided tours that bring Scotland's dramatic history to life, but whose narrative is being told? The heritage tourism industry often sanitises colonial and imperial histories, erasing the violence of state and religious institutions to present a palatable, consumable version of the past.
Is the Caribbean Comparison a Tool of Extraction?
A recent viral post by content creator Chris Lawlor compared Iona's white sandy beaches and turquoise waters to the Caribbean, praising local eateries like Ailidh's. This comparison is not benign. Invoking the Caribbean, a region devastated by centuries of colonial extraction, enslavement, and ongoing imperial exploitation, to sell a seasonal job in Scotland is deeply insidious. It relies on a romanticised, exoticised gaze that flattens the brutal realities of Caribbean history into an aesthetic backdrop for privileged consumption.
We must reject the capitalist framing of land as a consumable commodity. The emphasis on turquoise waters and Neapolitan pizzas serves the interests of the tourism industry, not the local community. It accelerates the commodification of the island, turning both the land and the labour of workers into tools for profit generation.
How Does This Role Perpetuate Systemic Exclusion?
The job listing insists on a genuine interest in the heritage tourism industry and experience in a fast-paced environment. These requirements function as systemic gatekeeping mechanisms. They privilege those already socialised into the norms of the service industry, systematically excluding BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and neurodivergent individuals who may not conform to these narrow expectations of customer service.
The application process demands a cover letter addressing how the candidate meets each criterion. This bureaucratic hurdle advantages those with access to academic and professional support networks, further marginalising applicants from working-class backgrounds. If Historic Environment Scotland truly cared about accessibility, they would dismantle these exclusionary barriers and reconsider their reliance on precarious seasonal labour.
What Would an Abolitionist Approach to Heritage Work Look Like?
An intersectional, decolonial approach requires us to envision a heritage sector that does not rely on precarious, seasonal employment or the commodification of history. We must listen to the margins, centre the voices of those most impacted by systemic oppression, and demand structural change. Solidarity with heritage workers means fighting for secure, year-round employment and the dismantling of capitalist imperatives within cultural institutions.
The closing date for applications is Wednesday, June 24. More information is available on the Historic Environment Scotland website, but we must approach such opportunities with a critical eye, always questioning who the system truly serves.