Kathleen Jamie's most recent work explores her responses to the environment in the twenty-first century and reflects her ever-increasing preoccupation with the natural world. Like much of the writing falling under the contested label of ‘new nature writing’, Jamie's texts resist easy categorisation and cross the borders of multiple genres. She conceded of her 2005 prose collection Findings that ‘It's not nature writing, but it is; it's not autobiography, but it is; it's not travel writing, but it is’ (Jamie in Scott 2005), and this tension animates much of her recent work. Jamie is certainly not the first writer to resist the labels attached to her writing, or to readily accept the suggestions of what her writing subsequently ‘is’, or should be, ‘about’, and her frustration at continually being further classified as either a female writer or a Scottish writer indicates that even though she may have moved beyond these labels, they continue to be applied to her work. She is further reluctant to be categorised as a ‘nature writer’ and in fact keenly resists such pigeonholing, arguing that ‘It seems to be part of the job to keep redefining and refreshing what these categories mean. […] [M]y job is to keep pushing it and pushing it’ (Jamie in Scott 2005). To this end, this chapter will explore how Jamie's writing resists the limitations of these labels and works to address wider questions concerning our own transience and broader relationship with the non-human world in an increasingly critical, contemporary context, all the while considering how Jamie's work points to possible new paths for writing emerging from Scotland today.

Following the Scottish devolution referendum in 1997, Jamie pointed out that ‘we must start to think beyond that, and to make connections beyond that, be they with England or Europe or North America or Afghanistan, or be they with realms which are non-human’ (Jamie in Dosa 2009: 141). The direction Jamie's writing has taken in the past few decades has reflected this broadened approach, as she increasingly seeks connections between locations both within and outwith Scotland, and has sharpened her focus on the non-human world.