Shima

1. Contents
2. Introduction: Islands and Audiovisual Media 10.21463/shima.231
   Philip Hayward and Panayiota Mini
3. After Television in the Azores: Broadcasting an Archipelago 10.21463/shima.222
   Inês Vieira Rodrigues
   Abstract Keywords
   Television, archipelagic interiority, territory, the Azores, architectural apparatus
   This article draws on a situated perspective to address the creation of the television broadcast service in the Azores (through the RTP- Açores channel) and its role in constructing a political narrative grounded in territory, society and culture. Through discussion of the insularity of the Azores, media architectural apparatus and the concrete effect of mediated interventions, the proposal is that the Azores exist socially and politically through audiovisual mediation. With the arrival of television, the nine islands began ‘to turn towards each other,’ constituting a mediated space – a new public arena – which gave rise to a new, modern, archipelagic interiority. Simply put, it can be contended that the Azorean archipelago is only possible through media agency, and it consists of a territory that was formed through its representation. As media and territory are contingent, I contend that it is less interesting to think about the relationship between the Azorean territory and the media as it is to think about the Azorean territory as media.
4. Breathing With the Camera: A portrait of Orkney through experimental films 10.21463/shima.240
   Ross Mclean
   Abstract Keywords
   Orkney, film, place, relational, islandness
   The outward representation of the Orkney archipelago, around 10 miles off the north coast of Scotland, is mainly predicated on scenic imagery, of standing stones and other archaeological settlements, sea cliffs and wild seas, fishing boats in harbour townscapes, expansive beaches with turquoise waters, all playing a prominent role in projecting a sense of ‘islandness’. Yet, this representation lacks cultural depth, using landscape as a setting based on objectified and disengaged tropes, of the ancient past, remote or wild places, or insular communities. In contrast, Orkney based artists working with film allow us to emerge into a sense of place charged by cultural, experiential and ecological qualities. In their work we see tired tropes of landscape replaced with creatively charged expressions of the island as a relational place. Across this study, the evaluation of these artists’ films is framed through a set of relational qualities, the island as a situated, imagined, sensed, ambient and resourceful place, ultimately being a constructed place where filmmaking and island life merge.
5. Alternative Imaginaries of Cyprus: Space and Narrative Re/construction in Local Music Video Production 10.21463/shima.227
   Costas Constandinides and Maria Kouvarou
   Abstract Keywords
   Republic of Cyprus, music videos, independent music scene, Greek Cypriot Cinema, alternative imaginaries, identity
   The article offers a close reading of music videos created in the Republic of Cyprus during the past two decades, focusing specifically on the ways the audiovisual texts represent space and (re)construct narratives in/of the Greek Cypriot context. Building on existing work in the area of lens-based media studies, namely cinema and photography, the article firstly examines how music videos co-exist and converse with other types of audiovisual representations of the island of Cyprus. Secondly, it presents a classification of local music videos, based on how such creative outputs represent Cyprus as a locale. In doing so, it highlights the ways in which alternative visual treatments might, consciously or otherwise, speak back to and rewrite narratives associated with specific places. The videos are also examined in relation to the lyrical content of the songs and the music genres they belong to. Our work contributes to the expanding body of research on the popular music scape of the island, particularly concentrating on the transgressive dynamic of strands of the Greek Cypriot independent music scene. This is the first study that offers a close examination of local music video production, which we place in the growing scholarly debates about how recent artistic expression in the Republic of Cyprus destabilises dominant representations of space and identity and produces new aesthetics of the Cypriot experience.
6. Of Casinos and Mangoes: Korean Drama Representations of the Philippine Islands 10.21463/shima.233
   Hazel T. Biana
   Abstract Keywords
   Korean TV Drama, representation, Philippines, Islands, Hallyu
   A noticeable trope in South Korean dramas is using actual specific islands as settings. The Philippine islands have been mentioned and portrayed in almost all types of Korean TV drama genres, such as romance, suspense, drama, comedy, action, crime and fantasy. In the first part of the article, these fictional island representations are examined to uncover two types of depictions of cultures of ‘islandness’ or constructions of island identity, the first of which is tropical and paradisiacal, where everything is exotically beautiful, blissful, and bountiful; and the second, dark, dangerous, and chaotic, where criminals and outcasts exercise corruption and power. The second part examines ‘cultural-imperial’ or ‘re- oriental’ suggestions and assumptions in these K-dramas.
7. The Beluga Triangle: Pour la suite du monde (1962), New Quebec Cinema, and the urban/rural dialectic 10.21463/shima.234
   Anthony Kinik
   Abstract Keywords
   documentary film, ethnographic film, cinéma vécu, urban-rural dialectic, New Quebec Cinema
   One of the most celebrated documentaries to emerge from Quebec during the 1960s was Pierre Perrault and Michel Brault’s cinéma vécu classic Pour la suite du monde (1962). This intimate portrait of life on Île-aux-Coudres, an island in Eastern Quebec that sits in the Saint Lawrence River, is generally understood as a work of salvage ethnography. The filmmakers encouraged the island’s inhabitants to take up traditional practices that had long fallen by the wayside and had to be learned from the community’s elders: the hunt of the beluga whale. I’d like to reconsider this film as a work that is not only based on a dialectical tension between the city and the country, but also on tensions between three island formations: Île aux Coudres, Montreal, and New York City. The Montreal connection had to do with the project’s filmmakers and the studio that produced it, while New York came into play late in the film when a beluga whale was transferred to the New York Aquarium. Among other concerns, the foundational myths of all three islands are based on stories of First Contact between European settlers and Indigenous peoples, and, thus, this aspect of Perrault’s film is intensified if we take this approach.
8. Tonia Marketaki’s The Price of Love (1983): The Corfu of class differences and universal archetypes 10.21463/shima.235
   Panayiota Mini
   Abstract Keywords
   Greek cinema, Corfu, island representation, film adaptation, Tonia Marketaki
   Tonia Marketaki’s I timi tis agapis (The Price of Love, 1983) is a film adaptation of the novel Honour and Money (1912) by renowned Greek author Konstantinos Theotokis (1872-1923), the plot of which is set in Corfu in the early 20th century and revolves around a romance doomed to fail due to economic and social factors. As the article points out, before Marketaki’s film, mainstream Greek cinema portrayed Corfu from a tourist perspective, with a few unconventional productions showing the island in an unflattering light. In The Price of Love, Marketaki departed from these traditions by capturing the island’s beauty in pictorial compositions, giving it a fairytale quality. She combined this fairytale charm with Theotokis’s social criticism and changed or added scenes to Honour and Money that expanded Theotokis’s political commentary or gave it psychoanalytic dimensions. Marketaki’s Corfu, the article argues, is a setting where significant social differences and Jung’s universal, archetypal opposites intersect. The Price of Love thus encourages viewers to see the island in a new light and prompts a broader consideration of audiovisual representations of islands as part of a dialogue with previous or contemporary reconstructions and other disciplines. The article supports its argument through a comparative analysis of the film and the novel, also drawing material from Marketaki’s archive.
9. Makronisos as a Lieu De Mémoire: Filmic versions of the island’s landscape 10.21463/shima.241
   Lina Rosi
   Abstract Keywords
   Makronisos, exile islands, Realms of memory (lieux de mémoire), Group of Four, Pantelis Voulgaris, Olivier Zuchuat, Ilias Yannakakis, Evi Karabatsou
   Among the Greek islands that served as places of exile in the 20th century, Makronisos holds a prominent position due to its unique history. During the Greek Civil War in the late 1940s, a ‘rehabilitation’ camp was established on the island under army control. Physical and psychological torture was the primary method for implementing rehabilitation, aiming at ‘reforming’ young recruits and civilians who were under the sway of communist ideology. When the Civil War and its traumatic impact on postwar Greek society became the subjects of public debate during the Metapolitefsi (restoration of democracy), Makronisos remained a widely discussed case, and in 1989 it was officially proclaimed as a historical site. The contribution of cinema to the construction of the island as exemplary lieu de mémoire (‘realm of memory’) is significant. Making extensive use of archival material, filmmakers have constructed visual narratives and drawn a new mapping of the island’s natural and symbolic geography. This article examines four films about Makronisos produced over a span of nearly forty years, from 1975 to 2012, and explores the way in which each film represents the island’s status as memory place. It discusses how the different versions of the traumatic memories of the Civil War are recorded on the natural and architectural landscape of the island and how each director discovers, interprets and brings to the fore its haunted topoi, mapping anew the geography of collective memory, through the insisting presence of traces that the camera discovers, and transforming each film itself into a lieu de mémoire.
10. Capraia Island and Its Representation in Audiovisual Media: Recounting a carceral, agro-pastoral and eco-touristic landscape 10.21463/shima.226
    Pietro Agnoletto, Fausto Di Quarto, & Marco Nocente
    Abstract Keywords
    Island Studies, audiovisual analysis, popular geopolitics, regimes of visibility, ecotourism
    This article explores the shifting representations of the landscape of Capraia island in popular audiovisual media. Through analyses based on a framework delineated by popular geopolitics we explore three different media categories which have portrayed the island over the last decades: naturalistic and historical documentaries, tourism centred TV programs and vernacular audiovisual representations. The aim was to reveal intertwined discourses within broader socio-political factors and histories. The carceral landscape of the former penal colony declined and was replaced by ecotourism and agro-pastoral activities. These top-down narratives obscured the complexity of islanders’ reality, focusing on possible sustainable tourist scenarios as well as romanticising the appearance of a Mediterranean island as near pristine. Nonetheless, if vernacular representations, such as home movies and grassroots interviews, are taken into consideration, local voices and tourist perspectives emerge. We no longer have a one-sided story and polysemy, criticality, and friction become inherent characteristics of recent representations.
11. Two Girls by the Sea: Reflections on the role of the island in the Faroese film Dreams by the Sea 10.21463/shima.237
    Firouz Gaini
    Abstract Keywords
    Film, island, youth, migration, temporality
    This essay discusses island films as a possible cinematographic genre based on the case of the Faroese feature film Dreams by the Sea (Sakaris Stórá, 2017). It examines the role and meaning – as focus and locus – of the island in the award-winning Faroese production, which takes viewers to a small remote village in the northwestern Atlantic island community. Dreams by the Sea is about young lives, islandness, and future dreams. New Faroese cinema aims to de-exoticise the islands and to picture and narrate the stories that too often are – intentionally or unintentionally – kept out of the public eye. This essay is based on my extensive ethnographic research among Faroese youngsters since the beginning of the 21st century with special focus on the film landscape of contemporary island youth. The main findings of the essay were presented at the international Islands and audiovisual media conference organised in Torshavn, the Faroe Islands, 26-28 June (2024).
12. Peter Brook’s Lord of the Flies: Violence on Vieques 10.21463/shima.239
    Catherine Russell
    Abstract Keywords
    Cold War, non-professional actors, Caribbean history, situation, Robinsonade
    The 1963 film adaptation of William Golding’s 1954 novel of Lord of the Flies has become a classic of US Independent Cinema. By comparing the situation of the film shoot on the Caribbean island of Vieques (part of Puerto Rico) with Golding’s parable about human violence, this article explores the ironic failure of the filmmakers to recognise the historical violence that continued to plague this particular island as a contested site. Peter Brook’s approach to the novel demanded an attitude of innocence on the part of his novice actors and crew members to capture the authenticity that he sought. His so-called documentary approach to an island narrative was only achieved through the fiction of obfuscating the real violence taking place on and around Vieques.
13. Ram Setu and Delusions of Archaeological Grandeur: The Politics of Obscuring a Sacred Geology 10.21463/shima.238
    Arup K. Chatterjee
    Abstract Keywords
    Ram Setu, Adam’s Bridge, India, Sri Lanka, aquapelago, Anthropocene
    This article discusses the Indian film Ram Setu (2022) against the backdrop of 21st century public discourses, geological debates, legal proceedings and the general surge of politics revolving around the eponymous tombolo – Ram Setu/Adam’s Bridge (understood by geologists as a stretch of 103 patchy reefs or shallow shoals connecting India’s Rameswaram Island with Sri Lanka’s Mannar Island). It is important to question the locus standi of not only the filmmakers but also the film’s widespread critics. The bulk of the criticism against the film converged around the notion that the filmmakers had attempted to pander to growing Hindutva-oriented sentiments in India. What is more concerning, however, is that both the filmmakers and the film’s critics have remained silent on the tombolo’s aquapelagicity. While the film’s emphasis on archaeology as a methodology of reconstructing the tombolo’s past signals delusions of grandeur, the continued absence of a voice to highlight its geological history is equally disingenuous. Seen through the critical lenses of Island Studies, the film Ram Setu is seen to obscure holistic perspectives of the sacred aquapelago of Rameswaram Island, Dhanushkodi, Thalaimannar and Mannar Island and its entanglements with questions of Tamil fisher’s livelihoods and environmental heritages of the Sethusamudram region.
14. Reframing Asinara: From ‘the Devil’s Island’ to an ‘uncontaminated nature paradise’ 10.21463/shima.228
    Elena dell’Agnese
    Abstract Keywords
    Asinara, prison island, maximum security prison, paradise-island
    Like many other islands in the Mediterranean, Asinara, located to the north of Sardinia, has been a prison island for a long time. Unlike other islands, however, which often housed other forms of use and activities together with their prisons, Asinara was emptied of its population and used solely as a detention centre for more than a century. It was first an agricultural penal colony and a quarantine station for maritime travellers, then a concentration camp, and finally a maximum-security prison, where the ‘enemies’ of the Italian state (terrorists and mafiosi) were detained under extremely harsh conditions (this has led to it being called by sinister epithets such as Devil’s Island, or Italian Cayenne). Since only prison-related activities were allowed on the island, human presence has remained very limited. As a result, although its vegetation and fauna have been massively altered over the years, Asinara has retained a seemingly ‘uncontaminated’ appearance. Today, this allows the island to be reframed as a park and natural oasis, on the one hand rehabilitating its past (after all, it was the prison that kept out land development) and, on the other hand, stimulating the arrival of visitors. As far as the past is concerned, the available visual images are very limited, and consist of a few postcards and snapshots, offering an institutional image of the prison facilities or a ‘normalising’ view of the activities conducted outside them by the relations of the correctional officers (the inmates did not have cameras, and their point of view can only be grasped through their writings). Much richer is the visual material produced after the prison’s closure, both by the main Italian television networks and by the Park Authority itself. This material was analysed in order to study the changing image of an island that, after becoming a gulag, is now portrayed as paradise.
15. Island Political Parties: Differentiating factors in political life in the Canary Islands 10.21463/shima.229
    Alberto Javier Báez-García, Francisco Flores-Muñoz, & Josué Gutiérrez-Barroso
    Abstract Keywords
    Islands, islandness, island political parties, Canary Islands
    This article provides an analysis of the role and evolution of island political parties in the Canary Islands. These political organisations emerge due to the inherent and unique characteristics typical of island life, which mainland territories do not possess. Through a descriptive methodology, electoral surveys are developed for each island alongside a summary table illustrating the combined influence and trajectory of these parties in island elections. Their significance in defending local identity, capacity to form coalitions and lead island governments are emphasised. Similarly, their focus on the island realm, flexibility in negotiations and pursuit of island power are identified. These parties emerge as significant political actors that could serve as examples for other islands facing similar challenges. Their ability to address island needs and promote island-centric development positions them as fundamental elements in the island politics of the Canary Islands, thus contributing to a more representative governance structure.
16. Beyond National Borders: The troubled relationship between Corsica and Sardinia (1948-2020) 10.21463/shima.224
    Marcel A. Farinelli
    Abstract Keywords
    impeded archipelago, trans-border relations, Corsica, Sardinia
    Corsica and Sardinia are two Mediterranean islands, belonging to two different mainland countries: France and Italy. The islands are separated by the Strait of Bonifacio, which at its narrow point is 13 km wide. This has enabled a bond between the population living on both sides. However, this relationship has progressively been disrupted since the 19th century. The islands can be described as an ‘impeded archipelago’, an island group where existing links were not only removed but also potential new relations have been discouraged. Nevertheless, since the second half of the 20th century, Sardinian and Corsican political and economic elites have tried to establish an island-to-island cooperation. Despite their attempts, it was just in 2016 that the Corsican and Sardinian local governments signed an agreement. This article aims to explore the concept of an impeded archipelago through a detailed analysis of the attempts made to establish an island-to-island relationship, and of the elements that have disrupted this relation, from 1948 to 2020. In doing so, it also provides some reflections on the implications and challenges of a fragmented geography and economy for Island Studies.
17. Examining Complexities of Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining on Buru Island, Maluku Province, Indonesia 10.21463/shima.230
    Yusthinus Thobias Male, Amanda Reichelt-Brushett, Mia Donnelly, Caroline Sullivan, Muhamad Sehol, Alberth Nanlohy, & Abraham Mariwy
    Abstract Keywords
    illegal mining, mercury, human health, community, pollution
    The Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) sector is presently one of the largest global sources of anthropogenic mercury emissions. The risk of mercury pollution from ASGM in Indonesia challenges other important industries including fisheries and tourism. Environmental degradation and risks to food safety and human health are major concerns that have been realised at local scales, including on Buru Island, Indonesia. Since the discovery of gold on Buru Island in 2011 the community has undergone dramatic changes. Some of these, such as rapid wealth accumulation, have been of benefit to people involved in the industry, however, they have been marred by negative social and economic consequences including rapid inflation, reduced rice production, and changes to the social fabric. We explore the Buru Island example through over 12 years of research interest and using empirical material through a socio-legal lens. Various legislative changes and government interventions have occurred since 2011 and there are complex interactions between industry players. Currently, the mining is low key with ore being transported to ‘back yard’ processing operations while a permitting system is anticipated. There is a legacy of land degradation and contamination as a result of the mining and ore processing. Alternatives to mercury are being considered but are challenged by uncertainty about product effectiveness, potential toxicity, and a lack of processing knowledge.
18. Feature Review: Liquid Knots: Kate Judith’s Exploring Interstitiality with Mangroves: Semiotic Materialism and the Environmental Humanities (Routledge/Earthscan, 2023) 10.21463/shima.216
    Philip Hayward

1. Taking Time to Know the Island: Multiple temporalities and changing mobilities on Dugi Otok, Croatia 10.21463/shima.211
   Anica Čuka and Tomislav Oroz
   Abstract Keywords
   multiple temporalities, Dugi Otok island, transportation development, mobility, island narrations
   This article is based on the results of field research conducted on several occasions in 2020 and 2021 on the island of Dugi Otok, situated off the Dalmatian coast in Croatia. The article explores the notion of multiple temporalities emerging through the entanglement of spatial transformations, diverse forms of mobility and the lived experience of islanders. The concept of ‘multiple temporalities’ introduced in this article approaches these three aspects as heterogeneous temporal modalities that point to the coexistence and interplay of diverse, sometimes even opposing and contradictory, temporal rhythms. Inspired by theoretical and methodological approaches arising from the temporal turn while rethinking their potential in the context of Island Studies, the article focuses on the specific relations emerging from infrastructural development and the embodied experience of islanders. In order to grasp the complexities of what is popularly referred to as ‘island time’, the aim of the article is to show how processes of transportation development shape islanders' experiences of time.
2. Staging Posts: Thinking through the Orkney archipelago 10.21463/shima.217
   Ross Mclean
   Abstract Keywords
   Orkney Archipelago, staging posts, relational change
   The Orkney Archipelago, around 10 miles off the north coast of Scotland, has seen 6000 years of human settlement, with many archaeological artifacts offering significant insights into the formation of a deep-rooted island culture. The various transfigurations of this island culture to present-day Orkney indicate how external influences shape cultural inheritances, yet how this culture retains fundamental qualities; of imagination, resourcefulness, and territorial interconnections. This issue of how we negotiate the complexity of archipelagic relations is presented through a framework of process-based terms, of formations, transfigurations, constellations, aggregations, and tensions. This framework offers a degree of conceptual specificity, bringing focus to processes of relation change, movement, and interaction, across varying spatial and temporal scales. Underpinned by observational fieldwork, what emerges in this study is a sense of island life, bringing light to cultural and environmental processes, often most intensively manifest around strategic staging posts.
3. Uncovering Attributes of an Internal Islands Diaspora: Connections and Aspirations to Return 10.21463/shima.219
   Kirsten Gow, Lorna J. Philip, Ruth Wilson, Paula M. Duffy, & Margaret Currie
   Abstract Keywords
   Diaspora, internal migration, return migration, islands, subnational diaspora
   A transnational migration lens has shaped diaspora research in recent decades. Yet exploring diasporas in the context of moves across international borders has obscured sub-national diasporas, and this has led to a gap in our understanding of how such groups can and do contribute to their communities of origin. This article aims to develop a better understanding of the Scottish islands diaspora and to explore its potential to contribute to island communities, including via internal return migration. We present findings from a survey conducted with the Scottish islands diaspora to illustrate how internal diasporas can exhibit continued connection to a ‘homeland’. This includes taking an active interest in a ‘home’ island’s future and participating in shared cultural practices that bind individuals together within the diaspora over a sustained period. We find that the Scottish islands diaspora carries many of the hallmarks of its transnational counterparts and highlight how this group has the potential to contribute to the future of Scotland’s islands both at a distance and, potentially, via return migration.
4. Island Art Sustainability Education: A case study of Osakikamijima, Japan 10.21463/shima.221
   Meng Qu, Simona Zollet, & Amos Chiya
   Abstract Keywords
   Education island, art education, sustainability education, peripheral islands, Sustainable Development Goals
   Although both arts education and community sustainability are very important topics for island communities, there is a dearth of academic research on the use of artistic activities to support sustainable island development. In this research, Osakikamijima, a depopulating Japanese island that the Japanese government is trying to rebrand as 'education island', was used as a case study on education on sustainability through the arts. The article employs participatory action research in the form of a 3-day art workshop collaboration between an international middle school, two universities and island residents. Students engaged in sustainability-focused deep mapping exercises, followed by the creation of artist’s books and island soundscapes, to explore how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relate to the island's challenges. The findings reveal that deep mapping enhances students' understanding of the island's interwoven sustainability issues, allowing them to creatively express local knowledge. Despite challenges, these arts-based educational activities foster students' creativity and divergent thinking. Furthermore, the use of an approach combining field studies and art education appears to be more impactful than traditional teaching methods, offering a practical example of how art can strengthen sustainability education on islands and contribute to their revitalisation.
5. Shinjima: Vulnerability, Resilience and Island Fluidity 10.21463/shima.213
   Henry Johnson and Sueo Kuwahara
   Abstract Keywords
   abandonment, environmental activism, fluidity, micro-tourism, resilience, vulnerability
   Shinjima (‘New Island’), a relatively recent volcanic island in south-west Japan, has undergone cycles of settlement, depopulation and re-settlement, mirroring similar circumstances encountered by many small island cultures in Japan. Throughout its history, and in the vicinity of ongoing volcanic activity, the island has experienced periods of vulnerability and resilience, marked by fluctuations in its population and leading to shifts in the island’s identity. Together, these phenomena are explained using the metaphor of fluidity, emphasising continuing changes in Shinjima’s environmental, social and cultural existence. As discussed in this article, in today’s context, Shinjima has emerged as an example of small island revitalisation that is distinct to its locale, embodying a multifaceted identity centred on cultural rejuvenation, environmental activism and micro-tourism. Positioning this study within the field of Island Studies, the article foregrounds Shinjima by documenting its dynamic history and emphasising recent transformations that have augmented and revitalised the small island’s cultural narrative in the contemporary era.
6. Beyond Quintessential Englishness: Wet Leg’s idiosyncratic rendition of the Isle of Wight 10.21463/shima.197
   Philip Hayward and Matt Hill
   Abstract Keywords
   Wet Leg, Isle of Wight, cottagecore, Morris dancing, music video
   One of the most successful new acts in the international anglophone music scene in 2022 was Wet Leg, an indie (i.e. independent music label) ensemble led by singer-guitarists Hester Chambers and Rhian Teasdale. The band attracted attention for its effective pop-rock compositions and arrangements, the sardonic tone of lead singer Teasdale’s delivery of their debut single ‘Chaise longue’ and the band’s inventive music videos. One element that was prominent in the band’s biographies was its origin in the Isle of Wight (IOW), a diamond shaped island lying off the south coast of England, close to the major port cities of Portsmouth and Southampton. The island provided both an insular context for the development of the band and an element of ‘domestic exoticism’ within the UK market. The latter aspect was also manifest in the band’s decision to employ a female Morris (traditional folk dance) troupe to accompany its performance at the 2023 BRIT Awards, where it was awarded prizes for best group and best new artist. This article focuses on the role of the IOW in the band’s biography, perception and oeuvre, with particular regard to its self-produced music videos, and the nature of the island as a repository of what might be regarded as quintessential English sensibilities that the band has inflected in ways that appeal to both domestic and broader audiences.
7. Patchy Anthropocoasts: A transdisciplinary perspective on dunes, plants, rabbits, and humans in the United Kingdom 10.21463/shima.167
   Michael A. Vina, D.M.R Sampath, & Joana Freitas
   Abstract Keywords
   Dune management, Human-animal relations, Dune vegetation, Environmental History, United Kingdom
   In recent years, there has been increasing societal awareness of the crucial role that coastal dunes play in protecting against rising sea levels, mitigating climate change impacts, promoting biodiversity, and providing recreational opportunities. In some regions, dune management has been particularly focused on biodiversity and ecosystem restoration and the presence of alien species on dunes raises concerns about how these species become 'native,' 'invasive,' or 'hybrids' and whether they belong in their new ecosystems. These concerns illustrate how certain animals and plants assume different statuses according to normative categories associated with varying objectives. This article explores how perceptions of coastal dunes in the UK have transformed over time, from marginal resource frontiers to highly valued environments shaped by multispecies relations. In addition, this work explores how dunes around the UK emerge as ‘patchy anthropocoasts,’ that is, uneven landscapes designed by human purposes linked to economic activities, conservation, rabbit populations, unwanted vegetation, and the control of unpredictable sand movements. Bringing together diverse historical materials and scientific literature, this article links human and nonhuman histories with present debates on dune restoration from a transdisciplinary perspective rooted in anthropology, environmental history, and the natural sciences.
8. The Prince of the Abrolhos, 2020-2023: On Micronations and Pseudolaw in Western Australia 10.21463/shima.215
   Vicente Bicudo de Castro and Harry Hobbs
   Abstract Keywords
   Houtman Abrolhos Islands, Uncle Margie Island, Micronations, Pseudolaw, New Westralia
   This article examines the Houtman Abrolhos Micro Nation, established by Kristin MacDonald, a Western Australian man, in 2020. The article draws on media reports and documents prepared by the ‘prince’ in support of his legal claims. Notwithstanding a curious attempt to draw support from the neighbouring micronation of New Westralia, MacDonald’s claims were quickly dismissed by the Geraldton Magistrates Court in 2023, and the micronation has ceased to operate. Nevertheless, its brief existence demonstrates the continuing allure of micronationalism and pseudolaw for some individuals who have allowed what they perceive to be a personal injustice to take on a political dimension.
9. Understanding Local Perceptions of Impacts of Climate Change Among Small-Scale Sama-Bajau Fishers and Their Patrons in Wakatobi National Park, Indonesia 10.21463/shima.223
   Asnarulkhadi Abu Samah, Amar Maruf, Nobaya Ahmad, & Hanina Hamsan
   Abstract Keywords
   Climate change, patrons, perception, Sama-Bajau Fishers, Wakatobi
   Understanding similarities and differences in perceptions of climate change impacts aids in the development of co-adaptation strategies. While there has been extensive research on perceptions of climate change impacts among small-scale fishing communities, studies focusing on the perspectives of maritime tribes, fishers, and their respective patrons in small islands are notably scarce. The current study compares the perceptions of climate change impacts by Sama-Bajau fishers and their patrons in Wangi-Wangi Island of Wakatobi National Park. Data was collected through in-depth interviews, casual conversations, field observation, and secondary data analysis between August 2021 and February 2022. Findings revealed that although fishers and their patrons similarly perceived some impacts, they perceived others differently because of distinct sources of information and experience. Fishers, middlemen and employees of fishing companies perceived the impacts through personal observation and information from other fishers while government and non- governmental officers relied on scientific reports and personal experience in addition to the information given by the fishers. Future research should explore context-specific coping, adaptation and transformation measures based on local perceptions and diverse patron-client relationships to inform policy development.
10. Imagining a Utopian Island: Reading Sarah Joseph’s Aathi (2011) 10.21463/shima.218
    Anna Jyothi James and Shalini M
    Abstract Keywords
    Aquapelago, Keralam, Imaginary Island, Utopian Island, Anthropocene
    This article reads the novel Aathi (‘The gift in green’), written in 2011 by the Malayalam author Sarah Joseph, within the frameworks of Blue Humanities and Island Studies. Keralam's cultural geography is inherently entwined with its coastal and aquatic environment, necessitating an examination of this South Indian coastal state through a hydrological lens, especially in light of anthropogenic environmental instabilities. This study intends to analyse how the centrality of water in this text impacts its narrative and themes by positing the imaginary island of the text as a utopian aquapelago. As an early feminist writer in Kerala, Sarah Joseph incorporates ecofeminist sensibilities in the text, allowing for a re-exploration of discourses around women and the environment from an aquatic perspective. By examining Aathi as a South Asian literary work, this article also aims to deepen the understanding of the region's environmental, cultural, and social milieu, emphasising the need for multiple voices and perspectives in dealing with water-related issues.
11. Freediving in Antiquity: Some notes on the interdisciplinary workshop ‘The Ocean Below’ held at the University of Warsaw (December 7th 2023) 10.21463/shima.214
    Mari Yamasaki and Emilio Rodríguez-Álvarez
12. Sailing Within Hong Kong’s Outlying Islands: The 2nd Inter-Island Festival, Hong Kong, November 2023 10.21463/shima.220
    Myriem Alnet and Otto Heim
13. Feature Review: Jonathan Pugh and David Chandler’s The World as Abyss: The Caribbean and Critical Thought in the Anthropocene (University of Westminster Press, 2023) 10.21463/shima.225
    P. Khalil Saucier

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Coastal Waterways, Cultural Heritage and Environmental Planning (Dedicated to Federica Cavallo 1973-2023) 10.21463/shima.210
   Ifor Duncan and Francesco Vallerani
4. Re-Imagining Urban Wetlands: Watery heritage and food policies in the Albufera de València 10.21463/shima.205
   Chiara Spadaro and Francesco Vallerani
   Abstract Keywords
   food policies, urban wetlands, Albufera, València, fisheries, paddy fields, watery heritage
   Urban food policies require interdisciplinary research and action. Based on a holistic vision, these policies aim to facilitate the transformation of the food systems of cities in a sustainable, equitable and resilient manner. Food availability is key to urban food policies and involves recognition of the widespread disconnect between agriculture and consumers and the central role that food-related practices can play in the transition towards sustainable and resilient cities. This article addresses this topic by investigating the strategic role of one area of urban wetlands that has fostered new positive and shared attitudes towards watery heritage. The recovery of waterscapes in the Albufera, in close proximity to one of the most rapidly expanding Spanish urban areas, València, has allowed for a remarkable improvement of both traditional fisheries and paddy fields that has facilitated the regeneration of sustainable food practices. In 2019, the Horta de València, comprising a system of fields extending over a 28 km² area that is irrigated by the Túria River, was recognised by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). The area includes the historic Huerta and a section of the Albufera National Park that still maintains elements of traditional Arab heritage. The Albufera is thereby a significant repository of watery memories related to fisher people, peasants and sailors that an increasing number of environmentalists and seaside tourists interact with, and it thereby exemplifies the nature of wetlands as knowledge resources that can inspire sustainable food practices and policies.
5. Water Narratives: Exploring the convergence of the Canal du Midi and its coastal landscape 10.21463/shima.202
   Pingyao Sun, Inge Bobbink, and Amina Chouairi
   Abstract Keywords
   Landscape infrastructure, illustrative method, landscape narrative, Canal du Midi, coastal landscape
   Considering ‘infrastructures as landscapes’ and ‘landscapes as infrastructures’, this article uses an open framework to reconsider the distinctive water infrastructure of France’s UNESCO-listed heritage Canal du Midi. More specifically, it profiles the Canal’s Mediterranean outlet. Viewed through a landscape architectonic lens, we investigate the canal, drawing on the theory of landscape narrative and using the illustrative method. The article identifies three crucial narratives – infrastructural, natural & environmental and social & cultural – that help to examine the spatial values of the Canal and its relationship with its southern coastal landscape. The study shows how the Canal du Midi has been transformed and has influenced its surroundings, becoming an integral part of the coastal landscape. We identify and analyse how the Canal functions as an infrastructure composition and an environmentally and culturally significant feature. The landscape narrative framework offers the possibility of sharpening the interpretation of water infrastructures beyond conventional problem-solving approaches by providing a holistic view of the Canal and its water landscapes. This, in turn, offers inspiration for the region's future development, which presently prioritises the preservation of the Canal du Midi and the regeneration of the surrounding area as distinct projects.
6. America’s Intracoastal Waterway: Understanding the nation through narratives about infrastructure 10.21463/shima.204
   Aaron Pinnix
   Abstract Keywords
   Infrastructure, Intracoastal Waterway, Canals, Narrative, Environment
   Traversing the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States, the Intracoastal Waterway comprises 4828 km of protected canals, with 3218.7 km running from Boston to the Florida Keys, and 1609 km running from Carrabelle, Florida to Brownsville, Texas. Often used by commercial vehicles, especially in the transportation of petroleum and petroleum products, the canal gets understood and discussed within American society in a variety of ways. Reading across different texts, I explore how the Intracoastal Waterway has been narrativised, including within a lineage of settler-colonialism, as an ecologically disruptive infrastructure project and as a space for life-affirming encounters. Among these texts I find two dominant modes of narrativising this infrastructure project, each of which impact our understanding of it and, by extension, the nation. Hegemonic narratives emphasise the canal’s place within a nation-wide history of colonisation, while local narratives emphasise the ecology, history, and people surrounding the canal. Altogether, by considering these different approaches we get a complicated understanding of how America gets understood, both locally and at the national level, through the stories told about its infrastructure.
7. From Bayou Heritage to Blue-Green Corridors: The development and contemporary urban functions of New Orleans’ Bayou St. John and Lafitte Greenway 10.21463/shima.179
   Faisal Bukar Mallum, Philip Hayward, and Christian Fleury
   Abstract Keywords
   Bayous, Bayou St. John, Lafitte Greenway, New Orleans, cultural waterways, gentrification
   Over the last two decades there has been an increasing recognition of the cultural significance of rivers, canals and related bodies of water and of residential, recreational and/or heritage spaces located along their banks. These perceptions have led them to be recognised as cultural landscapes that merit preservation, maintenance and/or development. This article furthers research on this area by investigating the history and contemporary operation of one such cultural waterway in New Orleans, Bayou St. John, and of the adjacent Lafitte Greenway, built around a former canal route. In particular, the article identifies the process of social and land- and water-scape modifications that have created neighbourhoods around them and the gentrification that has accompanied this. With particular regard to Louisiana as their location, the article also addresses the nature of bayous and the cultural significance of Bayou St. John’s name in that regard. Balancing its historical-archival account, the article includes detailed discussion of the contemporary circumstances of the bayou and greenway drawing on close perambulant observation conducted between 2016 and 2022.
8. The Infilling and Reclamation of Inland Waterways in Tokyo, 1945–1962 10.21463/shima.177
   Junichi Hasegawa
   Abstract Keywords
   Infilling, reclamation, inland waterways, Tokyo, World War II, debris disposal from disasters
   As part of their reconstruction of the city following Allied bombing during World War II, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government infilled medium to small inland waterways (namely, canals and moats constructed during the 17th century) and utilised the resultant terrestrial strips for new purposes. Wartime damage reconstruction was conducted as part of the official city planning of Tokyo. During the 1940s, various waterways in Tokyo were infilled primarily with debris resulting from wartime bombing and, thereby, these landfills presented a model for the disposal of debris from disasters. In Japan, 115 municipalities were designated as war-damaged cities by the government, whose reconstruction was conducted as official city planning. The article examines how common the disposal of wartime debris via the in-filling of inland waterways was. The in-filling of Tokyo’s inland waterways caused the loss of watery spaces that are nowadays regarded as cultural heritage assets with recreational potential. Studies have either criticised the infilling of waterways or else underscored opposition to the activity. How then was it possible for the authorities to decide on infilling and land reclamation as city planning? Was there any social support for this project? Relatedly, should the decision by the metropolitan government to infill inland waterways be regarded as inappropriate? This article considers these questions and evaluates the modification of such areas after WWII.
9. Terracentric Visions and the Domestication of Aquatic Spaces: A case study of fishers’ huts in the Venetian and Caorle lagoons 10.21463/shima.200
   Rita Vianello
   Abstract Keywords
   Venetian lagoon, Caorle lagoon, fishers’ huts, terracentric perception, tourism, patrimonial assets
   This article aims to reconstruct the origins and evolution of the different types of fishing huts, commonly called casoni, which are widespread in Italy in the lagoon areas of the Upper Adriatic. The focus is on the role played by the casoni in the domestication of these lagoon spaces and on their evolution towards patrimonialisation. The first part of the article analyses the polysemic nature of the concept of aquatic space and proposes insights into different viewpoints and perceptions: from the terracentric vision to the recognition of indigenous knowledge; from the sphere of emotion, to the legislative arena. The second part argues how, in recent years, this emblematic example of human adaptation to a potentially hazradous space is evolving towards a new phase. In a period characterised by a crisis in the fishing sector, the simple fishers’ huts are gradually being transformed into tourist facilities. Paradoxically, this element of the local cultural landscape owes its survival to the 'marketing of tradition' often carried out personally by the fishers who have transformed themselves into tourism operators.
10. Fluctuating Currents: Balancing urban growth and restoring native riverine synergies in Mumbai — the case of Dahisar River 10.21463/shima.203
    Ajay Nayak, Kimaya Keluskar, and Vikram Pawar
    Abstract Keywords
    urban rivers, Dahisar river, natural ecosystems, eco-buffers, water ecologies, climate change, estuarine waters, coastal cities
    In 1690 CE, a transformation was initiated by the British East India Company on the seven islands along India's western coast. These islands, once primarily Portuguese territories featuring indigenous communities deeply intertwined with rich ecological and cultural histories spanning millennia, underwent a gradual metamorphosis into the major metropolis known as 'Bombay,' a trajectory that persists today in its rebranded identity as 'Mumbai.' This article delves into how the commonly accepted imaginations of urban utopia progressively turned away from the perceived stagnant waters of rivers and estuaries that, in reality, served as vital coastal ecological buffers. The expansion of Mumbai city propelled its citizens, particularly marginalised low-income groups and traditional settlement inhabitants, towards the outskirts where vestiges of natural ecosystems endure. This shift granted them rudimentary necessities such as water and outdoor spaces, including prospects for agriculture. The convergence of socially vulnerable communities with ecologically delicate zones frequently led to heightened intricacies and debilitation, placing immense stress on both the city's ecological and social resources. This article centres on the examination of urban rivers, using the Dahisar River, a representative seasonal watercourse in Mumbai, as a focal point. Through this exploration, it seeks to scrutinise the multifaceted networks intertwined with Mumbai's river systems, emphasising the urgency of recalibrating perceptions of rivers in Indian urban landscapes. The study also reflects upon the tumultuous socio-political dynamics of the city, involving governing bodies, indigenous stewards, urban residents, and industries. Amid the array of potential solutions, technical and ecological facets often take a backseat to the socio-political determination required to adopt a more ecologically conscious stance. Nonetheless, optimism persists, as climate change mitigation and urban well-being emerge as entrepreneurial prospects for the nation's economic hub. The national leadership aims to position itself as a catalyst for change, aligning with global ecological narratives on the political stage.
11. The Recovery of Disused Waterways as Blue Corridors: The Battaglia Canal between Padua and the Venetian Lagoon 10.21463/shima.209
    Lisa Zecchin
    Abstract Keywords
    Historical canals, multifunctional management, waterways recovery, Battaglia Canal
    The management of surface freshwater bodies can be considered one of the most important issues affecting the quality of living spaces in the industrialised world. Today's awareness of the importance of sustainable water management includes the artificial canals built over centuries to meet multiple and different needs. The development of railways in the 19th century and the extraordinary spread of road transport after World War II led to the steady abandonment of historic canals all over Europe and the consequent deterioration of their water quality and corridor spaces. This deterioration, in turn, led to socio-cultural conflicts over the spaces and the necessity/desirability of maintaining them in the late 20th century. In recent years the benefits provided by blue-green infrastructure in terms of biodiversity, new socio-economical opportunities and the improvement of the well-being and mental health of their users has been acknowledged by scholars and policy makers in the European Union and elsewhere. The article analyses the territorialisation of the Battaglia Canal in Italy’s northwestern Veneto region, between Padua (Padova) and the Venetian Lagoon and its broader canalscape that has resulted from different adminsitrative and planning processes and the manner in which changes in socio-environmental perceptions has influenced approaches to managing the canal. Building on this, the article raises issues concerning the management of the canal and proposes some perspectives for a multifunctional recovery and a sustainable valourisation of it as a social and environmental asset.
12. Lagoon Wanderings: Boat hydro-perspectivism in the aquapelagic assemblage of the Venetian Lagoon 10.21463/shima.199
    Petra Codato
    Abstract Keywords
    Venetian Lagoon, waterways, aquapelagic assemblage, hydro-perspectivism, boats
    In this article I conduct the reader along a journey that follows different waterways within the Venetian lagoon and provides insights into the water-land interactions of this unique aquapelagic assemblage. Leveraging the methodological tool of hydro-perspectivism, I situate the analytical standpoint within two very different kinds of boat: the vaporetto (a local waterbus) and the kayak. The first, native to the lagoon, gives voice to a sample of the massive population of tourists that constantly crowds the lagoon’s islands and waters. Navigating the congested waterways leading from the Lido littoral to Venice’s historical centre, I raise issues such as over-tourism, water quality, and wave motion. Shifting the perspective to the kayak, a type of boat that originates in Inuit culture and is perfectly suited to the lagoon's shallow waters, the article then investigates the potentialities of analysing from the water’s edge, considering other serious problems of the Venetian aquapelago, such as pollution and hydro-morphological alterations. In conclusion, I argue that by conceiving the boat as not only as a means of transport but also as a means of acquiring and formulating knowledge, it is possible to revitalise hydrophilic feelings and thus the precious aquapelagic identity of Venice’s lagoon that has been in decline over the last century.
13. Fluid Ecologies, Sovereignty, and Colonialism: Princely contestations over riverine islands in colonial India 10.21463/shima.208
    Mahendranath Sudhindranath and John Bosco Lourdusamy
    Abstract Keywords
    Fluid ecology, princely states, colonialism, sovereignty, riverine Islands
    This article analyses the disputes over riverine islands between two princely states in colonial southern India in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These disputes arose because of changes in the islands’ landmass caused by water movements. Such tidal temporalities challenged cartographic rigidities and the established notions of sovereignty of states. What were assumed to be sovereign, undisputed and infallible were unsettled by such hydrological power and the fluid ecologies involved. A set of challenges emanated from external concepts arising from colonialism which undermined the native geographical understanding of the land-water continuum due to the monetisation of land. This article makes a critical appraisal of this double challenge to the traditional understanding of fluid ecologies while also highlighting the counter challenges from the princely states. These contests were particularly pronounced as the princely states had considerable autonomy in internal matters of administration and thus differed from the rest of the colonial territory directly ruled by the British in India. The article contributes to the study of riverine islands by investigating the nature and fluidity of shifting islands, whose variation in temporal contexts has been barely acknowledged in Island Studies to date.
14. River Reach: Chicagoland, riverine reflections and settler harm-reduction poetry 10.21463/shima.207
    Rebecca J. Fiala
    Abstract Keywords
    Graue Mill dam, immigration, native-settler-slave triad, river, settler harm-reduction poetry
    Both case report and epic, ‘River Reach’ is an exploratory anamnesis that presents a metamodern embodied reflection of systems entanglement – exposing attunements to and longings for a place-based riverine kinship capable of addressing a national heritage of displacements, immigrations, and enslavement. To improve state compliance with the US Clean Water Act, Graue Mill dam on Salt Creek at Fullersburg Woods (Oak Brook, IL) will be removed in coming months for creek restoration and re-realignment, creating a point of collision and potential among pasts and futures. ‘River Reach’ is a hyperlocal example of a practical, approachable step toward decolonial poetry and community – examining the insularities and permeabilities of whiteness while encouraging personal, deliberate engagement in the preparatory work required for recalibrating national identity cooperatively. As a centering poem for settler harm reduction and an adjunctive tool for collective action, the piece invites participants into a mimetic rehabitation of relationship through nature. ‘River Reach’ may be performed collectively in collaboration with movement, audiovisual elements, and facilitated reader/audience participation.
15. Monitoring and Mapping Urban Sprawl Over Heritage Hotspots Using Copernicus Land Monitoring Services: The case of periurban large-scale, wind-powered water extraction mills in Palma (Mallorca) 10.21463/shima.206
    Gabriel Alomar-Garau
    Abstract Keywords
    Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, Urban Atlas, HRL Imperviousness, urban sprawl, cultural heritage, windmills, Mallorca
    Among the varied group of human constructions of heritage interest are the old wind-powered water extraction mills that sometimes form large-scale sets in rural areas with high wind potential. On the Mediterranean island of Mallorca (Spain), up to 2,400 windmills dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries have been counted. The areas in which they are located are considered heritage ‘hotspots’, i.e., areas prone to specific problems, such as the progressive abandonment of ethnological heritage resulting from urban sprawl over areas with an agricultural orientation. This article aims to monitor urban sprawl in the municipality of Palma, to quantify and map its impact on a set of windmills located mainly in the plain of Sant Jordi, to the east of the city. The study has been carried out using methodologies and analysis techniques from the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service’s Urban Atlas and Imperviousness Density products. The study shows that areas with agricultural land uses have been progressively transformed into urbanised ones. This transformation has impacted, above all, windmills located in peri-urban areas adjacent to the city. The analysis aims to show the analytical possibilities of Copernicus services and products, and their applicability in the planning and management of peri-urban agro-industrial heritage.
16. Melting in the Daylight: The Asrai’s emergence in modern myth 10.21463/shima.198
    Sarah Allison
    Abstract Keywords
    Asrai, fairies, mermaids, folklore
    The Asrai is a nocturnal fairy popularly attributed to British folklore, most memorable for the fact that any exposure to sunlight will cause it to melt into water. Rather than developing from oral folk tradition, like most legendary creatures, the Asrai may have originated and evolved through literary sources, beginning with the poetry of the Scottish author Robert Buchanan in the 1870s. Since appearing in a folklore account of uncertain provenance in 1970, the Asrai has come into use as a fantasy creature with international spread, developing in a dialogue between print media and the Internet.
17. — Feature Review — Sarah A. Rich & Peter B. Campbell (Eds.), Contemporary Philosophy for Maritime Archaeology: Flat Ontologies, Oceanic Thought, and the Anthropocene (2022). 10.21463/shima.201
    Mari Yamasaki
18. — Obituary — Federica Letizia Cavallo (10 February 1973–16 September 2023)
    Francesco Vallerani, for the Shima Editorial Board

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction – 17(1) 10.21463/shima.195
   Monika Barget, Katrin Dautel, Laura Dierksmeier, Philip Hayward, Jan Petzold, and Kathrin Schödel
4. Reimagining the Juan Fernández Islands: Cruise Tourism and the Commodification of Nature 10.21463/shima.187
   Elizabeth Chant and Natalia Gándara Chacana
   Abstract Keywords
   Juan Fernández Islands, cruise tourism, Pacific, Chile, aquapelago
   This article examines the arrival of cruise ship tourism to the Juan Fernández Islands (Chile) in the first half of the 20th century, considering how this particular form of tourism reconfigured the economic and cultural image of the islands. Bringing together domestic and international advertising and voyage accounts, we assess how the Juan Fernández Islands were incorporated into both Chilean and foreign tourist discourses as an idealised paradise. We highlight how cruise ship tourism marketing rebranded these islands as a ‘romantic’ and exotic destination, reinforcing colonial ideas of isolation and remoteness. In so doing, we underline how cruise tourism facilitated new forms of engagement with the island environment that were distinct from the islanders’ aquapelagic relationality at the interface of water and land. We also showcase how the tourist industry exacerbated the exploitation and commodification of the islands’ natural environment, developing a cultural identity for Juan Fernández that also saw the renegotiation of their place in Chilean national identity, thus contributing to the history of small islands and their modern cultural representations.
5. Empty Homes and Dead Goat Bones on Xiji Yu: Field notes of a cultural landscape and co-creating digital deep maps 10.21463/shima.178
   James X. Morris
   Abstract Keywords
   Xiji, Penghu, island studies, rewilding, spatial humanities, deep mapping
   This article documents the abandoned cultural landscape found on the islet of Xiji in the Penghu Archipelago, in the Taiwan Strait, a heritage site that has been slipping into ruins and rewilding since 1978. This article is written as a response and contribution to the dialogue begun by Cal Flyn (2021) on nature’s return to abandoned spaces. In documenting the ruination of Xiji’s cultural landscape, I suggest that a new motivation for exploration and documentation of abandoned environments such as Xiji and Cal Flyn’s case study island of Swona lies in anticipating the needs of future researchers. The digital turn in the social sciences and humanities has produced conditions in which simple digital survey and research tools are capable of documenting, capturing and reproducing entire cultural landscapes with ease. Collaborative data collection is now a driving force behind spatial humanities, enabling the production of navigable time maps, deep maps and spatiotemporal storyboards. This article presents the cultural landscape of Xiji as it existed in 2017, relying on photographs and observations, and tracks the process of its rewilding through accounts from informants and earlier documentation. Although Xiji’s material heritage continues to deteriorate, digital tools have made it possible to reproduce and reclaim it as a dynamic digital space that can be mapped across time.
6. The Affective Mediascapes of Chinese Island Abandonment 10.21463/shima.180
   Gang Hong
   Abstract Keywords
   island abandonment, Island Studies, affective landscapes, mediascapes, China
   Islands have long been alluring to sojourners from outside, especially when they are, or are assumed to have been, abandoned. The island lure becomes more powerful when the abandonment is represented in the media in ways that evoke compelling affective responses. Against this background, I intend to critically examine the affective mediascapes of abandoned islands by focusing on three Chinese examples. I argue that it is necessary and possible to de-affect the media lure of abandoned islands in a place-specific way and probe for alternative affective responses in relation to one or several dominant affects in a given context.
7. Jersey Parishes, Iconography and Island Senses of Place 10.21463/shima.185
   Peter Hargreaves
   Abstract Keywords
   Jersey, senses of space, iconography, parish inevitability, not-quite places
   The Channel Islands are an unusual archipelago. While they are dependencies of the British Crown, they are not part of the United Kingdom and the main islands – Jersey and Guernsey – enjoy a considerable amount of autonomy, as do Guernsey’s subsidiary territories, Sark and Alderney. Jersey’s internal organisation, through a patchwork of administrative territories known as parishes, is unusual for its longevity and does not accord with modern expectations of hierarchical space. It has been argued that for territories to be perceived as places, they need to be maintained and signalled. Iconography is one such form of signalling. Parish iconography in Jersey is addressed predominantly to insiders, encouraging involvement in parish and community. Travelling through the island, iconography, and particularly its manifestation in signage, informs residents as to which parish they are at any time. The varying adoption of iconography reflects parish individualism but has been diffused: once adopted in one parish, it tends to be adopted in others. There are also locations that can – particularly in the context of Jersey - be described as not-quite places, locales whose identities are (at best) emergent. These lack their own iconography and fit poorly into Jersey’s geography of parishes. The efforts put into parish iconography exemplify Jersey islanders’ efforts to establish and maintain identity by cultural assertion and resistance to homogenisation/modernisation. Not just a record of the past, but maintained and renewed, if anything, parish iconography has increased, as Jersey’s parish system has been perceived as threatened.
8. Fairylands: Bermuda’s ‘Idyllic’ (and Exclusive) Enclave 10.21463/shima.189
   Peter Goggin
   Abstract Keywords
   Fairyland, colonial place naming, tropicalisation, enclave, tourism
   19th century Victorian-era romanticism fuelled popular fascination with fairytales and a trend of fairy-themed place naming in Britain and its colonies and territories. The idealising of small islands that served colonial interests as plantations, prisons, military outposts, and maritime trade posts as idyllic, picturesque, fairytale places evoked attributes of empire while maintaining the status quo of dominant colonial culture. The development of tourism, offshore financing and real estate industries perpetuated the idealism of fairy-themed imaginative place naming of islands and island locations into the next century. This article examines the case of Bermuda as a promoted ‘fairy land’ and its exclusive enclave, Fairylands, through a synthesis of archival analysis and auto-ethnography and contributes to the development of toponymic studies in island research and culture.
9. Ruminating on Seaweed: An Annotated Photo‐Essay. Exploring the Film‐Philosophy of Pierre Creton with the Seaweed‐Eating Sheep of North Ronaldsay 10.21463/shima.192
   Jon K. Shaw
   Abstract Keywords
   Littoral zone, Photography & lens‐based media, Orkney, North Ronaldsay, Animal studies, Eco‐aesthetics, Pierre Creton
   In 1993, recently graduated filmmaker Pierre Creton returned to his rural Normandy roots. There, he has continued to make films alongside his neighbours in the agricultural environment to which he remains intimately tied. His philosophy of film‐ making is summarised in the title of a 2010 book, Cultiver, habiter, filmer – inhabit, cultivate, film. Contrary to more traditional notions of framing, distance and objectivity, here lens‐based media is recognised as an apparatus that takes us into an aleatory, reciprocating process of inhabiting, nurturing and being nourished by a place – its geology, architectures, rhythms and populations, human and nonhuman. The ethics of encounter, ecology and openness is intimately embroiled in Creton’s growing, beekeeping and animal husbandry, as well as his art making. This photo‐essay and accompanying text investigates Creton’s maker‐philosophy in the context of the Orcadian island of North Ronaldsay, famous for its seaweed‐eating sheep, kept at the littoral edges by the island’s stone dykes – themselves a high‐maintenance apparatus. Led by Creton's ideas, through observation and habitation‐with, these sheep become for the artist‐writer more than subjects for the camera; they become guides as to how to inhabit and cultivate the watery margins of the archipelago. They become exemplary artists in their own right.
10. “Our Island Fortress” and the Sea: The threat of a cross-Channel Nazi invasion and the maritime traditions that helped save Britain, 1940–1941 10.21463/shima.191
    Sean Dettman
    Abstract Keywords
    Britain, island, fortress, home front, propaganda
    Britain’s wartime ‘Island Fortress’ propaganda campaign of 1940-1941 projected the language and imagery of a united British people ready to defend their island nation against the threat of a cross-Channel Nazi invasion. Embedded in this patriotic, belligerent, propaganda construct was the insularity and protracted position of ‘Deep England’ that celebrated the rolling hills and British countryside and inspired resistance against advancing Nazi forces. This study shows that the ‘Island Fortress’ propaganda campaign was equally grounded in the language and imagery of Britain’s relationship with the sea, and its long-standing maritime traditions and institutions that commanded its power. However, it does not assume that one or other forces had a particular effect; rather it examines how these factors show a cumulative picture.
11. Indigenous Island Autonomy and Special Economic Zone Status: Developmental tensions of Jeju Free International City, South Korea 10.21463/shima.196
    Adam Grydehøj, Seon-Pil Kim, and Ping Su
    Abstract Keywords
    foreign direct investment (FDI), Indigenous peoples, islands, Jeju Self-Governing Province, special economic zone (SEZ)
    Islands are associated with both high levels of autonomous status and sovereign status on the one hand and the creation of exceptional spaces on the other, both linked with the development of distinctive island cultures. This article argues that there is a tension between these tendencies, as is illustrated by the case of Jeju Island, South Korea. Jeju is a self-governing province and subnational island jurisdiction (SNIJ). Its autonomy is rooted in contested understandings of Jeju natives as an Indigenous people, distinct from the people of the Korean Peninsula. In practice, however, Jeju’s autonomy is used as a tool for containing a special economic zone (SEZ) aimed at attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to South Korea as a whole. By taking an island studies approach, this paper shows how Jeju’s ostensible Indigenous autonomy has been compromised by the island’s use as an exceptional space crafted in conscious relation to the mainland. Key governance mechanisms on Jeju do not prioritise Indigenous rights. Studies of island political and economic development require careful analysis of how diverse political and economic processes are influenced by islandness itself.
12. “Quite an Innocuous Thing”: The Select Committee on the Greater Use of Manx Gaelic and language revitalisation in the Isle of Man 10.21463/shima.184
    Gary N. Wilson and Catriona Mackie
    Abstract Keywords
    Manx, language revitalisation, governance, islandness
    Over the past several decades, Manx Gaelic, the indigenous language of the Isle of Man, a small island in the British Isles, has undergone a profound process of revitalisation and reintegration into the life of the community. At the forefront of this revitalisation process has been a dedicated group of language activists who saved the language following the death of the last native speakers. More recently, however, the Isle of Man government has supported the revitalisation of Manx, mainly through education planning and support for cultural programming. This article examines the Select Committee on the Greater Use of Manx Gaelic, a committee of the island’s parliament, Tynwald, the internal and external contexts that shaped its deliberations and recommendations and the role it played in signalling a change in the attitude of the government towards Manx in the mid-1980s. The Select Committee highlights the important connection between the political (governance) and social (identity) dimensions of islandness in the revitalisation of an Indigenous language in a small island context.
13. Food at the Edge of the World: Gastronomy marketing in Tórshavn (Faroe Islands) 10.21463/shima.183
    Francesc Fusté-Forné and Jonatan Leer
    Abstract Keywords
    Arctic tourism, culinary destination, food tourism, regional development
    While relationships between food and tourism have been extensively investigated in recent decades, the Faroe Islands is a lesser studied food destination. This article analyses the specificities of restaurant scene in the context of food tourism in Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, based on the official promotion of the dining landscape. The authors specifically discuss how the remote Arctic destination of Tórshavn positions itself as a culinary destination based on concepts of authenticity, exoticism, sustainability and innovation. Results show that the small and isolated capital of Tórshavn balances the exoticism of traditional Faroese food experiences with more generic international flavors and urban spaces. Hence, the case opens interesting perspectives on the negotiations of the local and the global in contemporary food tourism marketing of remote island destinations.
14. Mermaids and Related Figures in Jersey and Channel Islands’ Folklore 10.21463/shima.194
    Giles Bois
    Abstract Keywords
    Jersey, Guernsey, mermaids, mermen, sirens
    Drawing on the author’s sustained research on Jersey over the last forty years, this article surveys Channel Islands' folklore concerning mermaids and related figures. In particular it examines the absence of interactions between Channel Islands’ mermaids and landsmen and the possibility of residual traces of mermaid folklore in local tales and legends. In light of this, the sources of Jersey folktales, legends and superstitions are reviewed, with the likely impact of the nature of these sources on the authenticity of surviving material and any likely loss of folktales before they could be recorded, that might explain this absence. The effects on the Islands’ indigenous languages (Norman-French dialects) of immigration from the United Kingdom and the introduction of English over the course of the 19th century is also considered. A brief review is made of the religious disdain in Jersey towards superstitions, which nevertheless persisted. The rise of vernacular literature from the mid-19th century provided a medium for recording some traditions, that by then were already starting to fade away. The focus here is on Jersey, with reference to examples from Guernsey, in support.
15. An Androgynous Alliance: Evelyn De Morgan and ‘The Little Mermaid’ 10.21463/shima.188
    Cecilia Rose
    Abstract Keywords
    Mermaid, Evelyn De Morgan, Hans Christian Andersen, androgyny
    Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919) was a second wave Pre-Raphaelite artist, best known for her large-scale paintings of female figures. In this article, I conduct a detailed study of her androgynous mermaid triptych based upon Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1837), taking into account the artist’s biographical influences, as well as the cultural significance of the story itself. The three oil paintings, namely ‘The Little Sea Maid’ (1886), ‘The Sea Maidens’ (1888) and ‘Daughters of The Mist’ (1914), depict three different scenes in the tale, from the mermaid’s transition into human form, to her sisters’ plea for her to return to sea, to her eventual death and absorption into a purgatory-like state. I argue that these three paintings act both as a vehicle through which to support the ongoing fight for women’s rights, and as a symbol for De Morgan’s concept of theistic evolution. These two motives have been identified separately in the limited scholarship on these works, but the possibility that both exist simultaneously is as yet unexplored.
16. Melusine and the Starbucks’ Siren: Art, Mermaids, and the Tangled Origins of a Coffee Chain Logo 10.21463/shima.190
    Sarah Allison
    Abstract Keywords
    Melusine, mermaid, siren, heraldry
    Melusine, the snake- or fish-tailed heroine of a medieval legend, has been labelled in modern sources as the mermaid in the Starbucks’ coffee chain logo and has become a generic name for two-tailed mermaids. However, it is unclear how the traditionally one-tailed Melusine became linked to this image. Tracing the source of the Starbucks’ logo leads to an obscure end, but similar double-tailed mermaids abound in art and heraldry. Melusine entered heraldry as the mythical ancestress of a few families, and in 19th century works on heraldry, the names mermaid, siren, and Melusine are used interchangeably for mermaids with one or two tails. This article seeks to demonstrate that Melusine’s name became specifically tied to the two-tailed mermaid only after Sabine Baring-Gould’s 1866 study of the legend, which used one such picture as an illustration. Subsequent authors began identifying this illustration as Melusine and labelling similar images accordingly. This shows how visual representation affects the transmission and public perception of myths.
17. Fear of a Black Mermaid 10.21463/shima.193
    Noveliss
    Abstract Keywords
    The Little Mermaid, racial stereotypes, popular culture, black mermaid, Disney
    Noveliss’s track ‘Fear of a Black Mermaid’ was released on his Vagabond EP in November 2022, responding to a social media furore about the casting of Black performer Halle Bailey as the lead in Disney’s live action remake of its 1989 film The Little Mermaid. A self-produced music video for the song was also released in January 2023. The lyrics, music track and music video are reproduced in Shima as significant contributions to debates around racism, racial stereotypes and popular culture triggered by the film.
    Audio: https://noveliss.bandcamp.com/album/vagabond
    Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChIAtfuinHI
18. Feature Review: Beatriz Llenín Figueroa’s Affect, Archive, Archipelago: Puerto Rico’s Sovereign Caribbean Lives (2022) 10.21463/shima.186
    Guillermo R. Gil

Aquatic Mythologies and Monstrosities:

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Of water and monsters 10.21463/shima.182
   Polina Ignatova
4. The Amabie: A Japanese prophetic chimera and chronotope amid political monstrosities 10.21463/shima.163
   Claudia Merli
   Abstract Keywords
   Amabie, chimera, chronotope, yōkai, ningyo, COVID-19, ecology
   The years 2020-2022 engraved our existence with epidemiological and political monstrosities that will not be forgotten for quite some time. The COVID-19 pandemic dragged us to contemplating the possibilities of a plague that, rather than being confined to the global south’s ‘invisible’ territories of diseases, heavily affected the global north and with the prospect of wiping out a large number of the world’s population in a similar manner to that of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Governments were caught between choices to either privilege lives or economies and eugenics reared its head as a spectre from the historical past. A benign marine monster, the Amabie, a prophetic yōkai from Japanese folklore, became popular, initially in Japan and, rather rapidly on a global scale, assumed a prominent position, becoming an icon for the COVID-19 pandemic. I interrogate how people resorted to this chimeric creature from marine and historical depths to deal with existential uncertainty and abnormal lives, rendering it a chronotope that connects times and spaces. Such aquapelagic creatures frame the ambiguity of a world where political, environmental and health disasters merge.
5. Floodwater Ghosts as Social Criticism: A horror film and Tropical Storm Ondoy 10.21463/shima.166
   Hazel T. Biana
   Abstract Keywords
   Typhoon Ketsana, flood, Philippines, social criticism, Shake, Rattle & Roll, floodwater ghosts
   Typhoon Ketsana, known in the Philippines as Tropical Storm Ondoy, hit the nation’s capital more than a decade ago. Metro Manila and its neighbouring rural areas were submerged in floodwaters up to 20 metres high resulting in 921 fatalities and $1.15 billion in damages. Most of those who survived the extreme weather event have various Ondoy stories to tell. In 2011 the popular Philippine horror anthology film series Shake, Rattle & Roll portrayed Ondoy victims as floodwater ghosts in a narrative included in instalment 13, in an episode entitled Rain, Rain, Go Away (RRGA). The floodwater ghosts are chilling reminders of various intersecting issues plaguing the country such as child labour, poor infrastructure, graft and corruption, the lack of proper weather forecasting techniques and equipment, and many others. The ghosts also represent how the most vulnerable sectors suffer from such water disasters, and invite possible discourses on actions that need to be taken against the detrimental effects of extreme weather events on the Philippine islands.
6. Monster-producing Islands: Prospects for island detourning in contemporary times 10.21463/shima.169
   Virgilio A. Rivas
   Abstract Keywords
   aquapelago, archipelagic, babaylans, détournement, detourning, reflexive monsters, Trese, Philippines
   Colonialism produces monsters thriving in island ecologies, but without a structural/historical treatment of how island monsters are created, how the agential relation between colonisers and natives accentuates the dynamics of interpellation, the island would reveal nothing of its past, the reusable trace that can be interpellated in the present. In the modern-day Philippines, a former colonial object to three foreign aggressions (Spanish, American and Japanese) that spanned almost half a millennium, such reusable trace has recently entered the international streaming platform Netflix. Trese (2021), a Philippine-made anime, navigates the myth of aswang, one of the dominant features of Filipino folklore, which centres on the image of a female, vampire-like monster. This image traces its iterative root in the lost history of the babaylans (female shamans) amid the creation of folk Christianity and diffracted engagements with the Christian indoctrination of the islands. This article navigates this subject and how Trese, among other actants in this play of figuration, is itself interpellated by traces of historical, geographical, and non-human ecologies that, in turn, reflect the fundamental role of liquidity in monster-creation as a material-semiotic intervention. As the discussions expand on the two most essential concepts in Island Studies today, the archipelagic and the aquapelagic, the article deploys the concept of detourning, a critical rhetorical arc that binds the article’s multi-faceted discussions, connections, and combinations, from human to the non-human, thus completing its assessment of the dynamics of islands being interpellated by traces.
7. On the Borderline of the Worlds: Swamps in the mythopoetic world picture of the peoples of Russia 10.21463/shima.168
   Olga Lavrenova
   Abstract Keywords
   swamp, mythopoetic world picture, cultural landscape
   This article analyses the ethnic and linguistic world vision of the peoples of Russia with the aim of revealing the most representative mythologemes connected with swamps and defining their meaning and place in the cultural landscape. Swamps are dangerous areas for humans and, at the same time, they are also a source of food and biological diversity. In the boreal and circumpolar areas, swamps are seen as a separate world that has been perceived as a chaos that exists beyond the control of human beings. The range of meanings of the swamp manifests itself in the archaic pagan world picture as a primordial space. Swamps can be seen as chthonic or liminal spaces on the threshold of the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ worlds, providing connection between them. In the Christian – and partly in the Muslim – world pictures, the swamp is infernal space where the deities of the ancient world live disguised as devils. The city dwellers who travel to the countryside to pick berries and mushrooms or to go hunting reveal an archaic tendency to depersonalise swamp spirits and other natural forces by avoiding names and precise definitions.
8. Minatory Monsters for Turbulent Times: “The devil in the shape of a great fish” that presaged the English Civil War and other piscatorial prodigies 10.21463/shima.161
   Robert L. France
   Abstract Keywords
   17th century, Thames monster, “Toad-fish,” angelshark, prodigy
   Monsters, by the Latin definition of their name, are omens that portend turbulent times. The pamphlet A Relation of a terrible Monster called a Toad-fish, published in London in 1642, told of “a fiend, not a fish; at the least a monster, not an ordinary creature” which had become entangled in a fishing net and then put on display in London. The creature was described as resembling a giant toad, with a wide, toothy mouth and human characteristics of ribs, hands, and fingers. Discovery of the Thames monster instilled a sense of worry throughout the realm. The landing of the “Toad-fish” was linked in the tract to a bloody encounter that occurred between two well-known members of the British aristocracy fighting on opposing sides at the onset of the Civil War. The present paper describes how this vernacular publication was part of a flourishing of providential pamphlets in the 17th century wherein natural anomalies were invested with wider ecclesiastical and political meaning. Also undertaken herein is a review of various candidate species from which to suggest that the mysterious Toad-fish may have been another example of the angelshark’s (Squatina squatina) monstrous alter ego. This is an animal that has previously been suggested as being responsible for the ‘sea monk’ noted in several prominent natural histories of the Renaissance.
9. Ancient Sea Monsters and a Medieval Hero: The Nicoras of Beowulf 10.21463/shima.176
   Ryan Denson
   Abstract Keywords
   Old English literature, Beowulf, sea monster, kētos, Greco-Roman mythology
   This article examines the nicor (pl. nicoras) of Beowulf, a type of aquatic monster that appears elsewhere in Old English literature only in the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle and the Blickling Homily XVI. These beasts that attack Beowulf during his swimming contest with Breca and that surround the mere of Grendel and his mother are unfamiliar to modern scholars in terms of their precise nature, being assumed in previous scholarship to be generic water monsters, or hippopotamus-like beasts. Other scholarly suggestions for their underlying influence have been crocodiles and whales. I argue, however, that the nicoras can better be understood as having been influenced by the ancient traditions of the kētos (pl. kētē), the sea monster par excellence of Greco-Roman mythology, which also occupied a prominent place in the Christian imagination. The nicoras in these three Old English texts can be understood, like the dragon of Beowulf, as fantastical creatures that were primarily the product of discernible ancient traditions, rather than generic beasts or purely monstrous versions of real-world animals.
10. Fantastic Marine Creatures From the Late Renaissance: Pietro Tacca’s fountains in Florence’s Piazza della Santissima Annunziata 10.21463/shima.165
    Giorgio Verdiani, Paolo Formaglini and Filippo Giansanti
    Abstract Keywords
    Marine monster statues, Florence, photogrammetry, digital survey, urban landscape
    In the 1550s Florence’s water supply was upgraded through the construction of a new aqueduct. Prior to that, water needs were supported by the remnants of a Roman aqueduct and by wells and cisterns. The new infrastructure increased the amount of available water and allowed for the construction of fountains in the city’s main squares, with themes principally derived from Greek and Roman mythologies. In 1641 the twin Mostri Marini (‘Marine Monsters’) fountains designed by Pietro Tacca were installed in the Piazza dellaSantissima Annunziata. The bronze and stone statues presented fantasy creatures whose flexuous shapes suggested moving fluid. But while these statues complemented the square, they were not originally planned for the location, having been intended for placement in the main Tuscan harbour town of Livorno. This study draws on high-resolution photogrammetry to analyse the structures with this specific digital survey being presented for the first time.
11. Aquatic Mythologies: Divine, liminal and fantastic creatures in the Indian tradition 10.21463/shima.181
    Stefano Beggiora
    Abstract Keywords
    Hindu mythology, monster theory, nāga, mahānāgas, apsarās, makara, ocean, Capricorn, Yuga theory, liminality
    This article offers an overview of some of the most peculiar mythological creatures of the Hindu pantheon related to the watery element. Starting from the analysis of the concept of liminality, which is fundamental to Monster Theory, the symbolism and functions of water in ritualism, folklore and the traditions of South Asia will be explored. Indeed, destruction, metamorphosis, transition, purification and rebirth are all concepts that in Indian traditions are frequently sublimated into the dynamics of the circulation of waters. The monsoon phenomenon, the rushing rivers flowing down from the Himalayas and the depths of the Indian Ocean abysses therefore rise here to metaphysical and existential metaphors. Their hidden meaning has been represented in an allegorical key over the centuries by monstrous, bizarre and emblematic figures that have animated art, iconography and literature and popular legends. This essay tries to explore the issue through a religious and anthropological investigative approach, but with particular reference to Sanskrit literature and the sacred texts of Hinduism.
12. Morgawr and the Folkloresque: (A study of a whopping fish tale) 10.21463/shima.123
    Ronald M. James
    Abstract Keywords
    Morgawr, Loch Ness Monster, cryptids, folklore, folkloresque
    The Morgawr is a sea monster that is reputed to swim along the southern coast of Cornwall, Britain's far south west peninsula. It draws on the belief held by many that prehistoric creatures survive, thriving in deep waters. Unlike many cryptids that derive from a foundation of folk tradition, the Morgawr began as a hoax. Originally part of a prank in 1976, stories of the cryptid have evolved, attracting enthusiasts in Cornwall, but also internationally thanks to the Internet. The creation of the Morgawr and then its subsequent development as an expression of folklore allows for a consideration of how it fits into the idea of the folkloresque, a term advanced by Foster and Tolbert to describe cultural expressions that draw on folklore for inspiration, mimicking tradition but representing something that is distinct. While folk traditions are the bedrock of the folkloresque, the two are distinct. In the case of the Morgawr, a faux tradition seems to have inspired genuine belief.
13. Boat Spirits, Sea Monsters and Seal Women: Fishermen and hidden aquatic dangers in the Faroe Islands 10.21463/shima.162
    Firouz Gaini
    Abstract Keywords
    Aquatic mythology, water dwellers, islands, in-between-ness, the shoveller
    This article discusses aquatic mythologies of the Faroes with focus on the narratives about the shoveller (also called ‘the man on board’), a boat spirit nesting in deep-sea fishing ships. The aim of the article is to examine and interrogate cultural representations of the relation between sea and land in the Faroes today by means of critical reflection on and analysis of the meaning of water-related mythology and folklore: what is the role of the stories and legends about the shoveller and other supernatural beings in present-day conversation about the sea, the islands, and the future? The shoveller, the seal woman, and the others on the ‘other side’ are protagonists of the polyvalent narratives shaping the folklore of the Faroes. They continue to reappear in new settings and among new generations. The spirits, water monsters, and seal women help people envisage what lies beneath the surface, the ocean, and the evident aquapelagic landscape. The shoveller is also a metaphor for the risk and danger in life beyond the fishing vessel today — he is a figure fooling, entertaining, frightening and confusing the islander in the age of globalisation, but also a kobold instructing and guiding the precarious islander in everyday struggle at home and away.
14. Posidaeja and Mami Wata: The online afterlives of two mermaid goddesses 10.21463/shima.175
    Martine Mussies
    Abstract Keywords
    mermaids, mermaid goddesses, Posideaja, Mami Wata, fanfiction, feminism, ecofeminism, oceanic mythologies
    This article examines two examples of fanfiction on oceanic mythologies: ‘Another day, another offering’ by sweetbydesign (2021), about Posideaja, and ‘Mami Wata’ by lucien_cramp (2021). Through both stories, age-old archetypes of mermaid goddesses are harnessed for the environmental agenda. In their fannish rewritings, the authors inverse many Romantic mermaid tropes to empower the mermaid and to confirm the connection between the mermaid and oceanic awareness. Moreover, in their latest remediations, Posideaja’s and Mami Wata’s bodies go against widespread standards for physical beauty and for fitness (i.e. functionality, such as being fit for labour). As such, these two updated mermaids open up a wide range of possibilities for identification and inspiration for their creators as well as their audiences. With their new representations of Posideaja and Mami Wata, the authors thus address two interconnected problems: the oppression of women (in terms of beauty and fitness norms) and the environmental damage done to the oceans (in terms of the acidification of oceans, increases in ocean temperatures and rising sea-levels).
15. Merlerium: Mermaids, mythology, desire and madness in Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse (2019) 10.21463/shima.111
    Philip Hayward
    Abstract Keywords
    The Lighthouse, mermaids, mermaid genitalia, maritime mythology
    Robert Eggers’ 2019 film The Lighthouse provides an idiosyncratic representation of the mermaid as a Jungian anima in a film that revolves around the homoerotic tension between two lighthouse keepers on a remote, windswept island. While the mermaid theme is essentially a minor aspect of the film, juxtaposed with other mythological motifs, it is significant for the intensity of passions it catalyses in one of the film’s two male leads. Analysing the film, its script and statements of directorial intent, this article first discusses aspects of the interaction of the masculine characters and their relation to mythic figures, before going on to discuss the role and design of the mermaid, and of the sex scene she appears in. Additional consideration is given to the role of music and sound design in building nuance and thematic intensity within the film.

Articles:

16. Islandness as Narratives of Relation 10.21463/shima.174
    S. G. Waite
    Abstract Keywords
    islandness, narratives, relationality
    This article uses literature on islands and islandness, coloniality, creole identity, indigenous ontology and settler studies to abstract a typology of islandness. The article frames islandness as a product of narratives of relations within and with islands that produce Autochthonous, Settler and Creole islandnesses. The article engages with islands as sites of relational spatialities, following Vannini and Taggart (2013). Those relational spatialities are understood to be produced by, and reproduced through, intergenerational narratives. Using Australia as an illustrative reference, the article identifies themes related to each type of islandness, not as universals but as examples of a type. The article concludes by proposing that the typology can be engaged in validating the variety of islandness narratives that emerge from the process of collective identification within island spaces.
17. Ethics in Small Island Research: Reflexively navigating multiple relations 10.21463/shima.164
    Erika Anne Hayfield
    Abstract Keywords
    Island/islanded communities, research ethics, multiple relations, reflexive navigation, relational ethics
    This article concerns research ethics in small, insular communities such as islands and other locales islanded by topography and/or isolation. Using the Faroe Islands as case, the point of departure is a discussion of how islanders navigate multiple relations and how this might impact research ethics. Because relations in such island/islanded communities can be highly interwoven and complex, this article argues for a situated research ethics that is grounded in multiple relations. Most research ethics codes are grounded in Western individualist thought, conceived outside the social sciences and in non-island settings. Furthermore, they may fail to take adequate account of the social interconnectedness, interdependency, and intimacy, which can prevail in small island/islanded communities. Using the concept of reflexive navigation, the article presents a research ethics that encompasses a relational ethics. In doing to, a framework of ethical reflexive navigation is proposed which can support researchers and island research institutions. Within the relational ethics framework, the ethical qualities of attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness are applied to research in island/islanded communities.
18. From a Fishing Village to Tourist Destination: Hongjia Village in Northeastern China 10.21463/shima.173
    Haoxuan Sa and Michael Fabinyi
    Abstract Keywords
    coastal livelihoods, China, fishing, tourism, yujiale
    Economic transitions from fishing into coastal tourism are common in many contemporary coastal communities globally, and particularly in the case of China. Drawing on interviews from a village in Liaoning province in Northeastern China, we use a political economy framework to more systematically understand the drivers and outcomes associated with the transition from fishing to tourism. We find that while state policies and market forces have encouraged shifts away from fishing and into tourism, tourism is currently governed largely by informal institutions informed by social relations and culture. Our findings emphasise how economic transitions from fishing to coastal tourism are mediated by these inter-related and shifting relationships between state, society, and markets.
19. Exploring “Elsewhereland” — Places Desired, Remembered and Dwelled: Place experience of vacationers on Saaremaa Island, Estonia 10.21463/shima.170
    Jana Raadik Cottrell and Stuart P. Cottrell
    Abstract Keywords
    second home, elsewhereland, everyday, memories, place experience
    This paper examines summer vacationers’ experiences and connections with an island place on Saaremaa in Estonia. Discourse from sixteen in-depth interviews are coupled with a theoretical discussion exploring place, emotions, memory, and self through an analysis of personal narratives on individual emotional perspectives of meaningful places, memory of places elsewhere, and the materiality of the cultural landscape itself. Emotional aspects associated with verbal expressions are examined with a discussion of emergent themes of place experience via a literary narrative writing approach. The emotional dynamics of rhetorical conversation between interviewees, researcher, and place echoed through the shared materiality of people and their environment. Personal narratives of place meanings examine island environments through emotional individual experiences resulting in five themes: places desired, places remembered, lost and found, elsewhereness and home, and returns. Home, everyday, and elsewhere are intertwined impressions of island places memorised, balanced via expressions of belonging as experiences of everyday and nostalgic renderings of times lost.
20. What’s in a Name? The Impact of Disasters on Islands’ Reputations: The cases of Giglio and Ustica 10.21463/shima.171
    Karl Agius and Godfrey Baldacchino
    Abstract Keywords
    disasters, image, reputation, small islands, Giglio, Ustica
    Disasters and their aftermath can leave an enduring, negative impact on the image of tourism destinations. This paper presents research conducted in relation to Giglio (site of the January 2011 Costa Concordia shipwreck) and Ustica (associated with the June 1980 crash of Itavia Flight 870) in order to study the impact of these two disasters on the tourism industry of these two small Italian islands. Methods employed include content analysis of articles published online and interviews with tourism stakeholders including operators, government officials and park managers. Findings suggest that disaster news coverage may initially have helped to increase the international visibility of both islands, however, even after several years, references made to the islands in the press continue to be related to such disasters. Little acknowledgement is made to the islands as tourism destinations or to the nature-based attractions that they offer. In this regard, a counter-engagement with the media and marketing efforts, including the use of social media platforms, is key to ensure that the enduring image of the islands is corrected and better reflects the characteristics of the islands.
21. The Historical Origin of the Atlantic Identity of the Islands of Macaronesia 10.21463/shima.160
    Javier Luis Álvarez Santos
    Abstract Keywords
    Macaronesia, Atlantic Studies, islandness, narratives, relationality
    Every individual who has not been born on an island is a foreigner, an intruder. Consequently, the construction of human island identity involves a contrast with the other, the non-islander. The objective of this study is to ascertain the historical origin of the identity of the Macaronesian islander. The island areas that are being addressed are conditioned by their geographical location in relation to their surrounding territories. That is, their proximity to Africa, their link to America and their dependence on Europe. In short, social, economic and cultural development is determined by the related dynamic ocean environment, i.e., the Atlantic. This research analyses the fluid contacts, complementarity and historical dependencies between the Macaronesian islands that promoted not only a feeling of belonging to supranational Iberian monarchies, but also a sense of belonging to the same region formed by a Portuguese and Spanish population of extra-peninsular origin with its nexus being its insularity.
22. Mary Ann Christian, Exercising Social and Spatial Agency: An isolated island case 10.21463/shima.140
    Donald Patrick Albert
    Abstract Keywords
    Female Agency, Isolated Populations, Mary Ann Christian, Pitcairn Bible, Pitcairn Island
    Mary Ann Christian (1793–1866) was the only daughter of chief Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian and his Tahitian consort Mauatua who settled on Pitcairn Island in 1790. After a violent first decade, and one death to a natural cause, the male population was reduced to a sole male survivor – John Adams. This created a female-dominated milieu within which Many Ann Christian operated with a strong degree of agency across social hierarchies involving island and empire actors, and spatially with her on- and off-island movements. While still a teenager, Mary Ann Christian became the inspiration for Mary Russell Mitford’s exquisite protagonist in Christina: The Maid of the South Seas: A Poem (1811). Almost three decades later, Lieutenant Lowry visiting from the Sparrowhawk dubbed her a cantankerous “old maid” for her concern that girls aged 13, 14, and 15 were too young for marriage; male dominance had reasserted itself. Primary and other credible sources, including demographics, document the events surrounding Herstory.

Land/Water/Wetlands:

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Water, Land and Vapour: Assemblages and the Imaginary 10.21463/shima.157
   Jun’ichiro Suwa
4. Paludal Playscapes: Wetlands as heterotopic ludic spaces 10.21463/shima.112
   Mary Gearey
   Abstract Keywords
   Wetlands, wellbeing, ludic, heterotopias, sustainable futures
   Wetlands are amongst the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Globally our ability to mitigate and adapt to anthropogenic climate change is now closely tied to these paludal waterscapes. This paper uses empirical data to offer insights into how different user groups engage with, and value, wetlands recreationally. Understanding the drivers of human use, and diversity of engagement practices, in wetlands can enable the development of targeted strategies to support long-term, wide-scale wetland adaptations in response to climate change. The data highlighted that English wetlands have been purposively repositioned as ‘ludic’, wellbeing spaces, wherein wetland users are encouraged to spend time, and money, on these sites in widely different recreational ways: for tourism; family time; commemoration, creativity and, unintentionally, delinquency. Utilising the Foucauldian concept of heterotopias, this paper evidences that these wetland ludic activities enable the flourishing of other selves and support alternative imaginative possibilities of sustainable futures.
5. Floating Ground: Wetness, infrastructure, and envelopment in Kochi, India 10.21463/shima.147
   Matt Barlow
   Abstract Keywords
   Kochi, affect, atmosphere, city, flood, monsoon
   The oceanic city of Kochi on the southwest coast of India is known for its abundance of water and as a hub of tourism and urban development. This abundance of water effects the ways in which urban infrastructures, often designed in the temperate climates of the Global North, can operate, and be maintained. In this article, I suggest that infrastructures such as sewers, roads, and rivers tend to separate water from land, thereby containing one to produce the other. In doing so, they render solid surfaces from which urban infrastructures are imagined. To imagine infrastructure otherwise, I attune to wetness, rather than water. I argue that attuning to wetness as an affective quality, changes the way one conceptualises infrastructure. To bring wetness and infrastructure together, I turn to the concept of envelopment where an object and its atmosphere can be brought into conversation. By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Kochi during the devastating floods of 2018, this article provides insights into how infrastructures might be reimagined in tropical urban settlements.
6. “A Swamp Becomes the Capital”: Urban ecologies of empire in Suva (Fiji) 10.21463/shima.152
   Caitlin Vandertop
   Abstract Keywords
   colonial cities, land reclamation, urban ecology, water history, Fiji
   The nineteenth-century expansion of colonial port cities onto land reclaimed from the ocean generated both material and conceptual shifts in the relations between land and water. Focusing on the history of Suva, which was established as the British capital of Fiji in 1882, this article shows how, despite colonial accounts of successful efforts to ‘drain the swamp’, the city’s history has been narrativised as a series of urban disasters. From local critiques of the original unsuitability of ‘malarious swampland’ to indigenous oral accounts of the catastrophic consequences of abandoning hill forts, through to post- independence literary narratives of urban flooding, the reclaimed city has been imagined by its inhabitants as a shifting and precarious space whose terraqueous qualities undermine colonial narratives of a progressive ‘swamp to city’ trajectory. Showing how local accounts anticipate environmental concerns across coastal zones, this article proposes a ‘reclaimed’ urban method that connects colonial pasts to ecological futures, tracing the oceanic connections leading out from the Pacific city to other postcolonial sites.
7. Stormwater Management and the Assessment of Green Infrastructure Implementation in New Orleans 10.21463/shima.146
   Faisal Mallum
   Abstract Keywords
   Green infrastructure, urban sustainability, stormwater management, New Orleans
   Located on a flood-prone delta, the city of New Orleans is faced with several challenges and hazards caused by stormwater runoff that affects the built environment. The inundation of stormwater impacts the normal use of facilities, floods the environment, carries unwanted pollutants to nearby watersheds, and affects the purity of its water system. In New Orleans, stormwater runoff impacts are felt every time there is heavy rain. There is a vital need to implement a more sustainable drainage system for effective stormwater management. Green infrastructure (GI) mimics the dynamics of the natural ecosystem by managing stormwater runoff through a regenerative process. This article assesses the environmental, social, and economic impacts of the implementation of green infrastructure in New Orleans, looking at the strategies employed, and challenges faced by the city government, non-governmental organizations, and neighbourhoods. The paper engages local stakeholders on the implementation of GI. Local practitioners’ points of view are then juxtaposed with the scientific literature on stormwater management to provide a nuanced understanding between practice and literature, and suggest how to improve the implementation of GI in the city.
8. Visions of Water: Swimming in a drying Australian waterscape 10.21463/shima.131
   Camille Roulière
   Abstract Keywords
   Water, Édouard Glissant, Murray River/Mouth, spatial poetics, sound philosophy
   Since the 1820s, the Murray Mouth (South Australia) has been subjected to such disfiguring abuse at the hands of colonists that it now faces an unprecedented health crisis. My research consists of implementing a liquid methodology to explore and illuminate this mouth’s d(r)ying waterscapes. To borrow Celan’s phrase, my words represent “attempts to swim on dry land”: they speak of the harsh dialectics of drought and desertification, and yet, water shapes them as they crisscross pages and landscapes. In this essay, I discuss some of those “attempts to swim on dry land”. I illustrate how I articulate and play with the vulnerable interface between (wet) theories and the (dry) realities of the Mouth’s acoustic textures – or, more precisely, how I recorporealise the conceptual in the sensory. We need this recorporealisation because we need to keep trying to swim on dry land. Only through those attempts can we learn how to listen to the wet ontologies hidden behind the colonial veil of blue-green algae blooms, salt and the staccato pounding of the dredgers working hard to keep the Mouth open.
9. Lord Ram’s Own Sethu: Adam’s Bridge envisaged as an aquapelago 10.21463/shima.136
   Arup K. Chatterjee
   Abstract Keywords
   Adam’s Bridge, Ramayana, Ram Sethu, Sethusamudram, India, BJP, Congress, aquapelago
   Taking the current geological, environmental and religious controversy around the iconic Adam’s Bridge or Ram Sethu (as it is referred to in Hindu sacred mythography) and the proposed Sethusamudram canal project – which has been delayed since the late-20^th century over several administrative terms, due to litigious procedures and protests by religious groups – this article examines the Ram Sethu as an aquapelago. The Ram Sethu is an aquapelagic zone, not merely in geo-historical terms but also in psychological ways, that is largely experienced in the Indian consciousness through the evolution of ancient folkloric motifs in contemporary media-loric polemic. As an aquapelagic imaginary, or indeed a performed aquapelago, the Ram Sethu is sustained by accumulating epistemic plurality from multiple geological, secularist, sacred and environmentalist interpretations. This epistemological plurality or transcendence of (geo-)logocentric meanings is an inevitable function of aquapelagic imaginaries, even more so of the Ram Sethu, which is reproduced by multiple determinate negations of religion (negating ambitions of economic development), developmentalism (negating themes of environmental sustainability), and environmentalism (negating majoritarian discourses of what constitutes the sacred).
10. Atmospheric Visions: Mirages, methane seeps and ‘clam-monsters’ in the Yellow Sea 10.21463/shima.132
    Benjamin Kidder Hodges
    Abstract Keywords
    atmospheres, mirage, Chinese folklore, shen, ecology, deep-sea
    Mirages seen at sea have a long history of being interpreted as distant islands and mythological realms. Hot and cool pockets of air refracting light can make boats and islands appear as if floating in air. These atmospheric visions can be studied as physical phenomena and as cultural imaginaries, an extension of what Philip Hayward has called the ‘aquapelagic imaginary’. In alliance with Donna Haraway’s mythology-inspired Chthulucene, this article will use the Chinese folklore of the shen (蜃) (‘clam-monster’) to consider ecological issues around deepsea mining. In the ancient etiology of the shen, its breath was thought responsible for visions of Penglai, the fabled island home to the Eight Immortals believed to lie somewhere in the Yellow Sea. The search for Penglai and its rumored elixir of life has now been supplanted by exploration for methane, a largely untapped fossil fuel seeping up from the ocean floor. The clams and multi-species communities that cluster around these emissions, alongside mythological sea creatures, give shape to changing affects and atmospheres on the horizon.

Island Feminisms:

11. Introduction: Island Feminisms in/on Island Studies: Place, Justice, Movement 10.21463/shima.153
    Marina Karides and Noralis Rodríguez-Coss
    Keywords
    island feminisms, intersectionality, queer, diaspora, Hawai’i, Guadeloupe, Philippines, race, racism
12. A Breath of Ea: Submergent Strategies for Deepening the Hawaiian Diaspora 10.21463/shima.155
    Mahealani Ahia and Kahala Johnson
    Abstract Keywords
    Diaspora, Feminism, Hawaiian, Indigenous, Kumulipo
    Kanaka Maoli diasporic transmotions have often been imagined as diluted impersonations of Hawaiian indigeneity that fluctuate between settler elimination and Native perpetuation. When interpreted solely by the ebb and flow of this conflict, Hawaiian diasporaneity can be problematically perceived as entirely dependent on settler removal and on-islander permanence for fathomability. This torrential relation between settlers and on-islanders can produce a dialectic that drags the off-islander beneath undercurrents of invasion and resistance, attempting to drown the ea of the diaspora in its depths. In this article, we ask how the settler and on-islander tidalectic might be transformed through unsettling memories of movement that draw Hawaiian indigeneity into the depths of the diaspora. In exploring this question, we suggest that the conception of Hawaiian diasporaneity need not be limited by the antagonism between settler removal and on-island permanence. We argue instead that Hawaiian diasporaneity can be traced to our cosmogonic genealogy chant He Kumulipo and the submergent strategies and adaptations our pre-human ancestors used to navigate the sea, land, and sky for millions of years.
13. The Opacity of Desire: Queerness, Postcolonialism and Diasporic Belonging in Guadeloupe 10.21463/shima.156
    Aurélien Davennes
    Abstract Keywords
    Guadeloupe, African diaspora, Queerness, opacity, ethnography
    This article addresses the seemingly invisibility of queerness in the Caribbean context, which is often believed to result from a deeply homophobic and bigoted insular milieu. This invisibility has less to do with self-loathing, shame, and hiding than with a voluntary gesture toward ambiguity, subtleness, and alteration. I demonstrate that queerness in Guadeloupe is generally not conceived as a sexual and political identity that should be loudly and proudly reclaimed, but rather as both a practice and an effect of an uncertain and impure reading that I call the peu-dit (little is said) or ‘PD’. This ‘little said’ opens up meaning more than it forecloses it as it traces an affective and alternative cartography that irremediably correlates racial and queer formation with continent and island-making. This ethnography is both an inspiration and a call to decontinentalise our standpoint, and to orient ourselves towards an archipelagic and counter-imperial queer thinking.
14. Building a Critical Pinay Islander Framework of Myntoring: A Scholar Warrior’s Navigational Guide 10.21463/shima.154
    Alma M. Ouanesisouk Trinidad
    Abstract Keywords
    Pinay/Filipina diaspora, critical Filipina, myntoring/mentoring, higher education, decolonisation
    The navigation of higher education by Filipina women/Pinay islanders can bring intense feelings of isolation and an emotional toll, especially in predominantly white spaces of learning. Yet, myntors can serve a vital role in navigating coloniality. The pathways of schooling and professionalisation come with constant negotiation and reconciliation of contradictions. In this article, I propose a conceptual framework, Critical Pinay Islander Framework of Myntoring (CPIMF). Based on my reflection of my academic trajectory as an islander and a Pinay ‘scholar warrior’, I argue how this framework can promote a sense of empowerment, liberation, and healing through a critical understanding of the Pinay diaspora, transnational wayfinding, and solidarity. I suggest that CPIFM can be an effective process and method to interrupt and disrupt the settler colonial mentality in academia.

Articles:

15. Shifting Sands, Layering Meanings: A tale of the Goodwin Sands, told through its social production 10.21463/shima.158
    Kathryn Collins
    Abstract Keywords
    Goodwin Sands, production of space, sandbanks, marine space, marine planning
    The Goodwin Sands is a sandbank located four miles east of Kent, in southeast England. At low tides the intertidal areas become accessible, and this has led to the marine space being put to numerous, often contradictory, uses. The rich history and mythology of the Goodwin Sands is juxtaposed with a contemporary marine consent application to dredge aggregate from the subtidal sandbank areas. This article uses the triad of perceived, conceived and lived space found within Lefebvre’s Production of Space thesis to tell a tale of Goodwin Sands. This methodology allows for temporal connections between archival and contemporary expressions of the marine space to be understood. Using the marine consent application as its departure point allows for the story of the Sands to unfold as layered meanings emerge. But this is more than just a story of Goodwin Sands – an attempt to explain what they are – it is an exploration of social production within marine space, and an opportunity to rethink how space is represented within marine planning decision-making.
16. Always Liminal, Always in Transition: Hong Kong as Staircase City 10.21463/shima.150
    Louis Lo
    Abstract Keywords
    Staircase, escalator, gentrification, public space, walking, resistance
    This article analyses the ‘stair culture’ of Hong Kong Island, a place that is constrained by its topography, economic, and social-historical conditions. Staircases are interwoven into an infrastructure of vertical and horizontal pathways. Instead of just being a means of access, staircases play a key role in shaping the urban island. Through a critical examination of these structures and relevant literary and filmic texts (Leung Ping-Kwan’s poems, Wong Kar-wai’s films, and Tsai Ming-liang’s Walker series [2012]), the article provides a way of understanding the extent to which the perception of Hong Kong Island is re-imagined by way of an urbanscape punctuated by staircases. Staircases have the ability to mix up people in different classes in such places as the Central to Mid-Levels area and Sai Ying Pun Centre Street. Both districts are initially connected by staircases and later escalators. By examining the impact of escalators (such as high-speed gentrification, closing down of local stores, and the loss of real public spaces) and the effects of staircases on cultural activities in different areas, this article argues that staircases expose the nature of a classed society in Hong Kong Island – and, by extension, Hong Kong as a whole – and represent a nostalgia that is potentially productive.
17. Venice Without Cruise Ships: Hard Facts or Fake News? 10.21463/shima.151
    Alexander Araya López
    Abstract Keywords
    cruise tourism, global dissent, pandemic, heritage, infrastructure
    For over a decade, social movements campaigning for the safeguarding of Venice and its lagoon have pointed out the many risks and negative impacts of cruise tourism, which include the potential collision with the historic city, water contamination, air pollution, underwater noise, erosion and the ‘touristification’ of the city space and local identity. Although several solutions have been proposed over the years, ranging from infrastructure projects to legal proceedings, in practice, ‘big cruises’ transited across Venice uninterruptedly. While, for some, cruise tourism meant economic growth and job creation, for others, the ‘big cruises’ were symbols of excessive consumption and environmental destruction. After the Covid-19 pandemic forced the industry to an unexpected impasse, resistance against cruises has gone global, and strong social movements have emerged in Mexico, United States, Canada, The Bahamas and Spain. In Italy, a new decree has banned the transit of ‘big cruises’ across the San Marco and Giudecca canals since August 1st, 2021. This essay reviews the events that led to this ban and examines the challenges that Venice still faces in relation to both mass tourism and cruise tourism.
18. From Pure Land to Hell: Introducing four culturally hybrid UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Gotō Archipelago 10.21463/shima.130
    Gwyn McClelland
    Abstract Keywords
    Gotō Archipelago, World Heritage, oral history, environmental history, tourism
    The islands in the Gotō region off Kyushu Island were refuges, mountains providing both terraces for growing potatoes and rice; and hideaways for clandestine religious practices; seas and bays providing fish and seaweed. Religious refugees arrived here in the 18th and 19th centuries, but had to contend with a harsh winter climate, the strong prejudices of indigenous inhabitants, and the long arms of the Nagasaki magistrate. This article locates a migrant people known variously as the senpuku, the kakure, kirishitan, or Hidden Christians (HC), and their descendants who acknowledge the natural world’s imprint on them: their characteristics and cultural heritage are shaped by the interstitial spaces of the islands in which they subside(d). World Heritage Cultural listings in 2018 included sites on the islands and were rightly acclaimed. Yet, here, as in other places, the World Heritage campaign was at times driven by shallow motivations reflecting exotic and unfounded prejudices and tourist-related economic aspirations. Even in the nomenclature, the World Heritage listing mentions the HC, but this group of people are not singular, and require more careful definition. This article seeks to demonstrate how by examining new sources of oral history, we stand to enrich our knowledge by a ‘deep’ engagement, taking account of both human and non-human processes, practices and awareness of place. Secondly, by focusing on this region we may re-orient our understanding of Japanese and East Asian History in a wider context than often understood, and inclusive of this coastal and marginal place. An analysis four of the sites of World Heritage ascribed by UNESCO on the Gotō Archipelago off Nagasaki Prefecture Japan alongside the historic documents and supported by oral history reveals a religious cultural hybridity integrated into a severe environment.
19. Sounding the Island: Representing Chikubu Island in Japanese traditional performing arts 10.21463/shima.128
    Henry Johnson
    Abstract Keywords
    Chikubu Island, islandness, performance, performing arts, representation, ritual
    The uninhabited yet socially active and culturally important Japanese island of Chikubu (Chikubu-shima) is situated towards the northern end of Lake Biwa in the Kansai region of Japan’s largest island of Honshū. Chikubu Island is linked to Shintō and Buddhist ritualistic culture and hosts tens of thousands of day-tripper pilgrims who travel there each year. But its cultural significance is also carried beyond its aquatic margins through multimodal signification in Japanese traditional performing arts where meaning connected with the island is portrayed through visual and sonic media. Extending discourse on islands and performing arts, this article shows how one culturally noteworthy Japanese island is imagined within creative practices and how island meaning is embodied in settings that are far removed from the island’s physical or lake environment. Expanding the scope of Island Studies, select creative works are discussed in terms of how they represent Chikubu Island through sound and symbol.
20. The Ecotourism Hub: A joint cross-border marketing strategy for peripheral islands 10.21463/shima.124
    Karl Agius
    Abstract Keywords
    archipelagos, central Mediterranean, ecotourism, joint-marketing, cross-border
    Notwithstanding their ecotourism potential, small peripheral islands have been closely associated with the enjoyment of sun, sea and sand (3S) as their major tourism product. Fieldwork was conducted in a group of islands/archipelagos collectively known as the Maltese-Sicilian archipelago to identify marketing challenges. Interviews were held with stakeholders to assess their views on the use of a joint cross-border marketing strategy to overcome such challenges. Marketing challenges identified included limited promotion, mostly conducted indirectly, and spearheaded by 3S tourism operators owing to the limited resources of ecotourism operators. Results indicate that several joint marketing and cross- border initiatives are already in place and others are being developed. This approach has the potential to avoid a scenario where small islands are overshadowed by bigger islands and reduces futile competition. By pooling resources, islands will be in a better position to determine their brand, reach more markets and showcase their distinctiveness. Furthermore, products that promote cross-border island hopping increase the competitiveness of small peripheral islands and archipelagos which have experienced habitat fragmentation or islands which are too small to serve as an ecotourism destination on their own.
21. Becoming Cholgueros: An archaeology of the 18th–20th centuries in the Chonos archipelago of Western Patagonia (Chile) 10.21463/shima.148
    Omar Reyes and Amalia Nuevo-Delaunay
    Abstract Keywords
    Western Patagonian channels, shell middens, historical archaeology, 18th–20th centuries, Cholgueros sites
    This article discusses the archaeological record of occupations associated with the extraction of coastal resources during the late 18th to early 20th centuries in the Chonos Archipelago (43°50’–46°50’S, Patagonia, South America). The characteristics of its occupation by Creole/European groups known as Cholgueros have not yet been archeologically addressed. Cholgueros occupations originated intensely over short periods of time and specialised in the extraction of primary coastal resources for the canned food industry. They are composed of large accumulations of unfragmented, uncompacted, and nonstratigraphic shells of a small number of species of mollusks of commercial value, such as Mytilus. Intertidal management areas are also recorded on these sites, such as stone corrals and boatyard or rock clearance areas to prevent boats from hitting intertidal stones. Due to the reduced time scale of formation of these sites they are sensitive to frequent coastal geomorphological changes and therefore sedimentary witnesses to regional coastal dynamics. The analysis of the Cholgueros sites’ evidence broadens our knowledge on coastal use in history, thus allowing us to understand the long timescale of human occupation of the area.
22. The Balearic Islands in ‘Island Encyclopaedias’, 700 BCE–1700 CE: An historical and archaeological assessment of island knowledge production with suggestions for future research 10.21463/shima.149
    Laura Dierksmeier and Stefano Cespa
    Abstract Keywords
    Island knowledge production, historical island encyclopaedias, island resources, interdisciplinary research
    Historical ‘island encyclopaedias’ (isolarii, islarios, ‘de insulis’) and their predecessors (Nesiotikà, peripli) were predominately written by authors of the Mediterranean region from the 7th century BCE to the 17th century CE. In this article, we first present an overview of these sources geared towards an Island Studies readership and next consider two main questions: First, how was knowledge about islands produced in the past? And second, can these historical sources motivate new questions for future research? The Balearic Islands have been selected to investigate these questions due to their long history of settlements and trade networks, which prompted their inclusion in many encyclopaedias. In addition, local archaeological and historical sources permit a comparison of emic and etic perspectives. Topics of analysis include descriptions of geography, cultural customs and resource use (including oil, wine, animals, salt, and freshwater), each selected with a view to future comparative studies.
23. Developments of the Perception of Climate Change and Abnormal Weather in Postwar Japan 10.21463/shima.110
    Keegan Cothern and Junichi Hasegawa
    Abstract Keywords
    Climate change research, global cooling, abnormal weather, global warming, Japan Meteorological Agency
    Climate research has been presented as a largely Anglophone and European affair, while other regional contributions and concerns have been left largely unexamined. An investigation of the Japan Meteorological Agency’s ‘Abnormal Weather Reports’ and related literature instead reveals the concerns of an island nation anxious about immediate weather abnormalities, causes of climate variability, and predicting the consequences of global warming within a geographically vulnerable Japan. Researchers initially focused on the topic of global cooling in the 1970s, sparking fears about Japan’s self-sustainability in the event of a long-term decline in temperatures. By the 1980s, though cooling fears persisted, focus also turned to how El Niño cycles provoked climatic variability, even as initial concern with global warming resulting from human activities, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and ozone depletion grew. Following the Kyoto Protocol’s recognition of anthropogenic climate change and creation of a global cooperative framework, research has begun to focus on the consequences of global warming in exacerbating Japan’s meteorological risks and on mitigating further anthropogenic temperature increases.
24. Beyond the Studio: Embedding the island in music production on the Isle of Eigg 10.21463/shima.108
    Sarah MacKinnon and Matt Hill
    Abstract Keywords
    Recording studios, islands, soundscape, Eigg, Hebrides, Visitations
    Over the last four decades a number of recording studios have been developed on small islands. The first group of these were in warm water locales, exploiting the standard appeal of the tropics as places of rest and tranquillity. More recently a number of studios have developed in cold water islands, promoting the natural environment (and sometimes less than temperate weather) as encouraging reflection and creativity. This article analyses one aspect of the latter, in the form of the Visitations artist- in-residency programme run by Lost Map Records on the Scottish Isle of Eigg. Several of the musicians who have participated in residencies collected sounds from around Eigg that were embedded in original compositions. This has involved the extension of the studio space into the landscape in a process that stands in contrast to the traditional role of studios to insulate recordings from the external world. This article identifies that the first series of Visitations residences produced musical engagements with Eigg that represent the emotional geographies experienced by the musicians in relation to the landscape, providing more locally grounded projects than those produced in more traditional studios on warm water islands.
25. Do Island Languages Exist? A research note from the Nordic countries 10.21463/shima.109
    Joshua Nash, Jón Símon Markússon and Peter Bakker
    Abstract Keywords
    language contact, linguistic isolates, linguistics of islands, sociolinguistics
    This critical report-cum-position statement summarises several workshops and conference panels recently held in three Nordic countries—Denmark, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands—based in developing the concept of island languages. It puts forward the epistemology and ontology of these sessions. The role these gatherings are playing in encouraging a more linguistically mandated direction within island studies and the study of island languages, especially in the Nordic countries and Europe, is summarised.
26. Harry Hobbs & George Williams’ Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty (2021) 10.21463/shima.159
    Vicente Bicudo de Castro

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Mercultures II 10.21463/shima.139
   Philip Hayward
4. Mermaid Iconography and Early Modern Anglo-American Maritime Culture 10.21463/shima.113
   Vaughn Scribner
   Abstract Keywords
   Sailors, Anglo-American, maritime culture, mermaid, iconography, tavern, ship
   This article builds upon recent research on early modern Anglo-American maritime culture to demonstrate how mariners used shared mermaid iconography (such as spaces, symbolism, objects, superstitions, and songs) to cultivate an ‘imagined community’ that linked their lives at sea to that on land, and vice versa. Ships and taverns were key to such efforts, as these public spheres – themselves branded by mermaid iconography – served as well-recognised nodes of maritime identity-ways. Ultimately, early modern Anglo-American sailors claimed mermaid iconography as critical symbols of maritime culture that transcended space and time, thereby helping diverse constituents of global empires to create connections wherever they travelled.
5. “The Waters Were Made for Her”: River Mumma beliefs in 19th and 20th century Jamaican ethnographic accounts 10.21463/shima.141
   Hilary Sparkes
   Abstract Keywords
   river mumma, Jamaica, Africa, ethnography, water spirits
   During her fieldwork in Jamaica in the 1920s, the American anthropologist Martha Warren Beckwith was told by an interviewee that he had seen a river mumma sitting by a pool near St Ann’s Bay, combing her long hair. The river mumma, a form of duppy or spirit, was said to inhabit ponds, lakes and rivers. Not only was she believed to be guardian of such bodies of water, but she was also accredited with the ability to cause and end droughts, bestow the power to heal and to wreak revenge. In this article I examine the folklore and spiritual beliefs surrounding the river mumma in 19th and 20th Century Jamaica and look at where her origins may lie. There is a particular emphasis on material from the late post-emancipation era as this was a time of an awakening interest in Jamaican folk cultures and a number of influential ethnographic accounts, such as Thomas Bainbury’s Jamaica Superstitions (1894) and Martha Warren Beckwith’s Black Roadways (1929), were published.
6. Tales from the Congo River: Catching Mami Wata 10.21463/shima.125
   Lesley Braun
   Abstract Keywords
   Mami Wata, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rumour, Visual culture, digital technology
   Digital culture produces new dislocations, proximities and anxieties. Central here is “meme” culture, whose fluid movement morphs in transmission, drawing on older cultural symbols to create a feedback loop. One folkloric aquatic figure from the African continent and its diasporas, known as Mami Wata, exemplifies this memetic force that is carried over into the digital realm. Mami Wata is dualistic: human and water creature, beautiful and terrifying, pre-colonial and modern. She is fluid, not bound by traditionally grounded mobilities, and her origins are mysterious. Further, she thrives through time and place via rumour and her message and meaning are in constant flux. She is also a symbol of temptation, which carries with it anxiety. Mami Wata is said to haunt the banks of the mighty Congo River and its tributaries, waiting for new victims, thus serving as a cautionary tale, warning people of these potential fluvial supernatural encounters. As we will see, in the face of digitalisation and globalisation, contemporary memes and viral videos of Mami Wata give us a screen to view our own anxious projections. And yet she also reveals the possibility of encounter: an other who shows us another way. Drawing from extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) beginning in 2012, what emerges are parallels between Mami Wata and virality, and how they represent both an attitude and an ambiance in Kinshasa. What is more, we find that Mami Wata shows us a structure by which rumours, memes and in-group culture endure through time, not despite, but thanks to their mysterious origins and fluid meanings.
7. Crossing Merfolk Narratives of the Sacred: Nalo Hopkinson’s The New Moon’s Arms and Gabrielle Tesfaye’s The Water Will Carry Us Home 10.21463/shima.137
   Jalondra A. Davis
   Abstract Keywords
   mermaids, water spirits, Mami Wata, Yemaya, Black Atlantic, Middle Passage, Nalo Hopkinson, Gabrielle Tesfaye, African diasporic religions, spirituality, collage
   This article defines what I call the ‘crossing merfolk’ narrative, the idea that African people who jumped or were cast overboard during the Middle Passage became water-dwelling beings. While critical attention has been increasing for 1990s’ electronic music duo Drexciya, whose sonic fiction contains the most well-known example of this narrative, this is actually a recurring tradition in Black oral and artistic culture that can be traced to West and Central African religions. I focus particularly on what I call ‘crossing merfolk narratives of the sacred’, M. Jacqui Alexander’s term for African diasporic religious traditions anchored in West and Central African cosmologies. Analysing the role of the sacred in two crossing merfolk narratives, Nalo Hopkinson’s 2007 novel The New Moon’s Arms and Gabrielle Tesfaye’s short film The Water Will Carry Us Home (2018), I argue that these texts expand the Black Atlantic imaginary and transform mermaid lore. I develop the term ‘diasporic collage’ to describe the ways in which Hopkinson and Tesfaye reference and combine water spirits and ritual practices from multiple African diasporic traditions into narratives that intersect mermaids and the Middle Passage.
8. From Sailor Traps to Tourist Traps: Mermaid-Themed Tourism Destinations in the United States of America 10.21463/shima.144
   Vaughn Scribner
   Abstract Keywords
   mermaid, tourism, 19th Century, 20th Century, natural world, drinking establishments, United States of America
   Beginning in the mid-19th Century, American boosters, business owners, and city planners fostered various mermaid-themed/named destinations. In doing so, these men and women contributed to the modern American tourism complex, which relied upon Americans’ efforts to commodify the natural world for market purposes and, in turn, distinguish their locales among a burgeoning network of tourist destinations. This article details 19th Century attempts to mermaid brand particular locations and, subsequently, the development of mermaid themed tourist attractions in the 20th and early 21st centuries.
9. “A Thing of Dreams and Desires, a Siren, a Whisper, and a Seduction”: Mermaids and the seashore in H. G. Wells’s The Sea Lady: A Tissue of Moonshine 10.21463/shima.142
   Emily Alder
   Abstract Keywords
   H. G. Wells, mermaids, folklore, sea-bathing, seashore, clothes
   The Sea Lady (1901) is one of the more neglected early novels of H. G. Wells, particularly compared to his more famous scientific romances. Both a social satire and a mediation on the limits of human imagination, Wells’s only mermaid story has drawn surprisingly little attention as a mermaid story. The novel is highly intertextual with legends, written tales, and artwork about mermaids in the 19th Century, which, I argue, Wells deploys in pursuit of the narrative’s interests in gender politics, the critique of social conventions, and philosophical reflection on the possibility of reaching for greater knowledge. Traditional associations of mermaid figures with sexual and ontological transgression and with liminal zones of the sea and the seashore are used to invite reflection on late Victorian social practices around sea-bathing and clothing, as the mythological mermaid’s incursion into the real everyday world exposes its profound vulnerability to radical alternative ways of thinking and being.
10. Research Note: “Distinct Characters of Their Own”: Mermaids in late 19th-mid 20th Century Australian children’s fiction 10.21463/shima.133
    Marea Mitchell
    Abstract Keywords
    Australian mermaids, J M Whitfield, G W Lambert, Harriet Stephens, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Pixie O’Harris
    While mermaids have been found all around the world, their literary and cultural representations are traditionally associated with Europe. Recently attention has been paid to the particular resonance of mer-folk narratives in specifically Australian contexts. Hayward, Floyd, Snell, Organ and Callaway have drawn attention to examples of mer-worlds that directly intersect with and comment on Australian environments. Beginning in the late 19th Century, predominantly women writers relocate mermen and mermaids to explore relationships between land and sea, city and bush that have local resonance for young readers. These stories are often accompanied by rich illustrations designed to appeal to young imaginations. This note comments on three writers whose work relates mer-cultures to Australia: J.M Whitfield, Pixie O’Harris and Harriet Stephens, along with their illustrators, G.W Lambert, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and O’Harris herself.
11. Mermaid Allusions and Star Promotion in the Greek Video-Film Gorgona (1987) 10.21463/shima.143
    Panayiota Mini
    Abstract Keywords
    Gorgona, mermaids, Greek 1980s’ video production, Eleni Filini
    This article examines the first Greek film to give a central role to the concept of the mermaid: Georges Skalenakis’ 1987 direct-to-video feature Gorgona (‘Mermaid’). Although actually concerning an all-human female, Gorgona attaches to her many traits of both the internationally common half-fish/half-woman creature (known in Greek as γοργόνα/gorgona) and the mermaid sister (also known as γοργόνα) in the legend of Alexander the Great. The article identifies the video-film’s allusions to these fishtailed figures and argues that the film produced an updated mermaid image that responded to other national and foreign audiovisual conceptions of the mermaid of the 1980s and enriched the star persona of its female lead, Eleni Filini, with a mythic quality and national symbolism.
12. Mermaids and Corporate Branding: Histories, meanings and impacts 10.21463/shima.127
    Susan C. Graham
    Abstract Keywords
    Brands, brand imagery, brand logos, corporate brands, cruises, mermaids, merpeople, Starbucks
    Companies invest considerable resources into establishing meaningful and impactful brand identities, through which they build essential relationships with consumers. Several well-known consumer brands use mermaids as part of their brand identity. Perhaps no use of mermaids in branding is more ubiquitous than siren emblazoned on every Starbucks coffee cup. But Starbucks is not alone; other consumer brands, such as Chicken of the Sea, Virgin Voyages Cruise Line, and BonV!v Spiked Seltzer, incorporate mermaids as part of their brand architecture. Using the case method, this study will examine, brand by brand, the history, meaning, and impact of mermaids on particular brand identities and, thus, on the consumer relationships. This study considers the brand strategies of using mermaids and reflects on if and why these strategies have worked for the brands included in this study.
13. Research Note: Melusine as Emblem of Truth: Philosophical tentacles, themes and approaches explored in the audiovisual essay The Mystery of Melusine 10.21463/shima.126
    Cecilia Inkol
    Abstract Keywords
    Melusine, truth, Heidegger, magic
    This article introduces the philosophical underpinnings, themes and approaches explored in the audiovisual essay The Mystery of Melusine (2021). Its footage consists of a dramatic performance in which I am enacting the contents of a philosophical poem authored by myself as the titular character. The narrative of the film essay explores the nature of truth and espouses an ontology of magic through a re-interpretation of the myth of Melusine. In European folklore, Melusine is the reclusive and mysterious wife who agrees to marry upon the condition that she is granted her privacy every Saturday. On Saturdays, she spends her solitude secretly bathing her fish tail until one day her husband peeps through the keyhole of her bathing chamber. She learns he has broken his promise to not impede her privacy, and so she evanesces. In my film essay, Melusine is a metaphor for the secretiveness and elusiveness of truth, and the way life unfurls itself in secretive and clandestine ways. The notion of truth as elusive and secretive derives its inspiration from the philosopher Martin Heidegger, and this film essay can be considered a mythic interpretation of some of his ideas. In addition to a mythic interpretation of truth, the film essay provides a narrative for the way life meets itself through otherness and recounts the journey of personal transformation in which the querent must reconcile to truth; this is elaborated as a process of self-seeing and self-recognition that takes place through the alien other.
    • The Mystery of Melusine [video]
14. A Mythological Nudist Lost in Swedish Suburbia: A study of the Nix’s masculinity and media-loric function in the manga series Oblivion High 10.21463/shima.134
    Olle Jilkén
    Abstract Keywords
    nix, Norse mythology, folklore, masculinity, the female gaze
    This article explores the visual representation and function of the folkloric Scandinavian nix in the manga series Oblivion High (2012–2014) published by the manga studio Ms Mandu. The aim of the research is to investigate how a well-known folkloric image develops and to consider the nix’s portrayal of masculinity. The article is a critical cultural study based on feminist and queer perspectives on visual culture and folklore studies. The article concludes that the nix in Oblivion High must update his desirability through spectacular clothing and change of musical instrument to meet the contemporary Western heteronormative masculinity ideals. His weakness to the metal iron ties into the nix’s association to fairies and the construction of the nix’s underwater realm is connected to Norse mythology with the appearance of Aino from the Finish national epos Kalevala, Nornorna and hints of the Norse god Odin. Furthermore, the androgynous art style of shōjo manga (a sub-genre aimed at female teenage readers) creates a heterosexual female gaze pattern, while the imagery of a bishōnen (beautiful boy) connects the character Nix to the literary trope of the ‘pretty boy,’ leaving hegemonic masculinity unchallenged.
15. Mermaids, Mere-Maids and No Maids: Mermaid place names and folklore in Britain 10.21463/shima.129
    Simon Young
    Abstract Keywords
    Britain, fairies, folklore, mermaids, place names
    Fifty mermaid place names relating to landscape features have been identified in Britain (including the Isle of Man). The names are attested from the 16th to the 21st Century: some are extremely well documented, while others have only passing written references. Taken together these names allow us to distinguish different folklore traditions in different parts of the island. For instance, there is a freshwater ‘mere-maid’ in eastern England; and a more familiar marine mermaid attested in the southwest of England. There are also – just as interestingly – large areas of Britain for which no mermaid place names are recorded. The article concludes with a reflection on the ‘Archetypal Modern Mermaid’ (AMM) that dominated in British culture by the 1800s.
16. Mermaid Toponyms in the West Indies: Traditional and non-traditional names 10.21463/shima.135
    Simon Young
    Abstract Keywords
    Caribbean, Folklore, Mermaids, Place names, West Indies
    The study brings together fourteen landscape place names with the element ‘mermaid’ from the West Indies. The locations range from a coastal cave in Bermuda, in the north, to an inland pool in Trinidad, in the south. Some of these names are linked to regional folklore; some are arguably confected names invented, for instance, to encourage tourism. The author asks what markers can help us distinguish between folklore and confected names and ends with a list of other mermaid place names in Africa, the Pacific and America that might have their origins in indigenous or colonial era folklore.
17. Above and Below: The distribution of mermaid, siren and sirène place names across Canada and the creation of related tourist attractions 10.21463/shima.114
    Philip Hayward
    Abstract Keywords
    mermaid, sirène, place names, Canada, destination branding
    European colonists applied terms from their language cultures to various geographical features in territories they explored, occupied and/or settled in. In Canada this resulted in a number of locations being named after mermaids, the French equivalent, sirènes, or the related term sirens. This article provides a survey of these Canadian place names, including discussions of those few whose name origins are known. It also profiles two sites where the manufacture and installation of mermaid statues has resulted in mermaid-themed location naming and related tourism promotion. Discussion of the two examples leads to consideration of the promotional value of mermaid names, associations and visual branding.
18. Research Note: Few and Far Between: The distribution of mermaid, siren and sirena place names across the United States of America 10.21463/shima.138
    Vaughn Allan
19. Shipped Ashore: The origins and deployment of mermaid place names in Australia and related visual representations 10.21463/shima.115
    Philip Hayward and Christian Fleury
    Abstract Keywords
    Mermaid, place name, Australia
    Since European and, specifically, Anglo-Irish colonisation in the late 1700s, a number of Australian locations have been given the name ‘mermaid.’ This article examines the principal derivations of these place names – including those relating to the voyages of the HMC Mermaid around Australia’s coastline in the early 1800s – and some of the manners in which these names have been represented in signage, place branding, commercial applications and/or public discourse. In providing this critical survey, the article examines the inscription of a traditional European folkloric entity (and modern media representations of it) into Australian public culture and, in some instances, the related impact of these on destination branding.
20. Commentary: Mermaid-As-Device: Toponymy, Language and Linguistics 10.21463/shima.145
    Joshua Nash

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Heart of Wetness: Living, narrating, and representing ancient memories and new water rhythms in the Venetian Lagoon 10.21463/shima.122
   Federica Letizia Cavallo, Francesco Vallerani, and Francesco Visentin
   Abstract Keywords
   Venice, lagoon, small islands, wetlands, aquapelago
   The natural and human ensemble of Venice and its lagoon, with its peculiar island features, is among one of the most studied urban and environmental systems in the world. This introduction to Shima’s special issue on Venice and its lagoon provides a brief historical and environmental context to this space and a possible platform whereby the local complexity and liminality of wetlands, lagoons and islands gesture to and evoke global themes, conceptual views, and transdisciplinary opportunities. Focusing on key topics like the theatricality of water engineering, the understanding of water rhythms and the recovery of water memories, we introduce the articles presented herein, providing a geo-historical framework for the various interpretations of living, narrating and representing Venice and its lagoon.
4. Domini da Mar: Manifestations of the aquapelagic imaginary in Venetian symbolism and folklore 10.21463/shima.101
   Philip Hayward
   Abstract Keywords
   Venice, mermaids, sirenas, sea-serpents, Neptune, Lion of Saint Mark
   The concept of the aquapelago, an assemblage of terrestrial and aquatic spaces generated by human activities, was first advanced in 2012 and has been subsequently developed with regard to what has been termed the ‘aquapelagic imaginary’ – the figures, symbols, myths and narratives generated by human engagement with such assemblages. Venice, a city premised on the integration of terrestrial and marine elements within an intermediate tidal lagoon, is a paradigmatic aquapelago and its artists have produced a substantial corpus of creative work reflecting various aspects of its Domini da Mar (maritime dominion). This article engages with one aspect of these engagements, the use of sirenas (mermaids), sea serpents, Neptune and associated motifs in visual and narrative culture from the Renaissance to the present. This subject is explored in a reverse chronological order. Commencing with a discussion of two striking contemporary sculptures, the article goes on to analyse modern renditions of Venetian folklore before moving back to explore a variety of Renaissance paintings and sculptures that feature mythic maritime motifs. Having followed this trajectory, the article shifts focus to examine the manner in which the prominence of the winged Lion of Saint Mark in Venetian iconography counteracts the aforementioned aquatic imagery, reflecting different perceptions of Venice as a social locale and as regional and international power at different historical junctures.
5. ‘Mappy’ Imageries of the Watery City: The cartographic figure of the Venice Lagoon across epochs and media 10.21463/shima.103
   Tania Rossetto
   Abstract Keywords
   Cultural cartography, geo-history of Venice, lagoonal cartography, lagoonal imageries, watery city, carto-essay
   Adopting a cultural approach to cartographic repertoires, this carto-essay highlights the immense visual heritage of the Venetian Lagoon in order to extrapolate a series of ‘mappy’ images that have given shape to the cartographic figure of the city on water. In light of the current convergence of visual culture and cartography, and by adopting visual juxtapositions, the article evokes different cartographic variations of the watery city: from the city sitting on the sea to the city sitting on the lagoon, from the port city to the archipelago, from the maritime city to the (wet) landscape city par excellence. This contribution thus proposes a journey across a range of Venetian cartographic imageries, which include different media and epochs, as well as different genres and registers, from the majestic to the banal, and from the dramatic to the ironic, thus also moving across the different cartographic moods associated with the watery city. As Juergen Schulz used to say during the 1970s while he was investigating modern-age Venetian cartography, the map is not always a map: in past times, the map was often a vehicle for nongeographical ideas. Even today, maps are ideas, they are ways of knowing, thinking and acting, they hold cultural meaning and political messages, but also hopeful imaginings. Indeed, cartographic representations of and rhetoric about the Venetian Lagoon are carried out by different actors, thus contributing to a process of continuous re-figuration and de/re-centralisation of the lagoonal space.
6. Against Ruskin: Joseph and Elizabeth Pennell’s recasting of Venice 10.21463/shima.116
   William Bainbridge
   Abstract Keywords
   Joseph Pennell, Elizabeth Pennell, John Ruskin, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent
   The images of Venice by Philadelphian Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) have never really escaped from James McNeill Whistler’s long shadow. His etchings, drawings, pastels, and lithographs all show the influence of the master. Together with his wife, Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936), he would publish a two-volume biography of his friend (1908). Their allegiance to Whistler and the Barbaro Circle brought the Pennells to endorse a new image of Venice away from the hegemonic cult of Ruskin pervasive in tourist and travel books about the city. This article seeks to reassess the contribution of both Pennells to this group of erudite intellectuals and reconsider their promotion of a more truthful and intimate representation of Venice beyond the mass of tourists and polished marble façades. Its special focus is on the Pennells’ – Elizabeth’s in particular – antagonistic relationship with Ruskin, whose iconic The Stones of Venice had mourned a city forever lost to tourists, over-restoration, and the onslaught of the railroad.
7. Does Flooding Define the Aquapelago? Constructing Venice’s flood disaster risk personality 10.21463/shima.102
   Ilan Kelman
   Abstract Keywords
   climate change adaptation, disaster risk management, disaster risk reduction, floods, risk
   Part of Venice’s character and appeal is sometimes constructed and construed as being not just about water, but also about the role which flood management plays, especially avoiding floods. A ‘disaster risk personality’ is created regarding water-land interaction, based mainly on avoiding inundation. This paper explores the construction of this approach for Venice’s flood disaster risk personality through a conceptual examination of Venice as an aquapelago to understand water-land links and separations. With this baseline, three decision-making lessons for Venice’s flood disaster risk personality are detailed: (i) the dynamicity of the water-land interface and hence the aquapelago, (ii) the impact of structural approaches on disaster risk personality, and (iii) the implications of submergence. While non-structural approaches to flood risk management tend to have the best long-term successes in averting flood disasters, Venice has chosen the opposite approach of constructing a large barrier, substantively changing its disaster risk personality. This choice is not inherently positive or negative, with the desirability and usefulness being subjective and based on the (flood) disaster risk personality sought for the locale.
8. The MOSE Machine: An anthropological approach to the building of a flood safeguard project in the Venetian Lagoon 10.21463/shima.104
   Rita Vianello
   Abstract Keywords
   Venetian Lagoon, acqua alta, MOSE dams, traditional ecological knowledge, small-scale fishing
   This article reconstructs and analyses the reactions and perceptions of fishers and inhabitants of the Venetian Lagoon regarding flood events, ecosystem fragility and the safeguard project named MOSE, which seems to be perceived by residents as a greater risk than floods. Throughout the complex development of the MOSE project, which has involved protracted legislative and technical phases, public opinion has been largely ignored, local knowledge neglected in favour of technical agendas and environmental impact has been largely overlooked. Fishers have begun to describe the Lagoon as a ‘sick’ and rapidly changing organism. These reports will be the starting point for investigating the fishers’ interpretations of the environmental changes they observe during their daily fishing trips. The cause of these changes is mostly attributed to the MOSE’S invasive anthropogenic intervention. The lack of ethical, affective and environmental considerations in the long history of the project has also led to opposition that has involved a conflict between local and technical knowledge.
9. Assemblages in the Venetian Lagoon: Humans, water and multiple historical flows 10.21463/shima.106
   Monica Porzionato
   Abstract Keywords
   History, Venetian lagoon, MOSE, assemblage theory, Manuel DeLanda
   Since the dawn of its existence, and at times thanks to ambitious interventions, Venice and its lagoon have needed to be constantly protected from the various ways in which water has reclaimed its existence. This article asserts that the ways in which Venice approached the watery world imply a tendency to relate to the natural environment as if it was something humans ought to separate themselves from, rather than something towards which they could harmoniously relate. As a result of this mindset, the natural changes which made humans interventions necessary are most often phrased as events abruptly sprouted into being, and less as obvious consequences of pre-existing ecological alterations of the islands’ ecosystem throughout the centuries. In order to read these events differently, this article adopts assemblage theory as delineated in the work of Manuel DeLanda (2006], 2016), according to which history comprises a multiplicity of flows, each belonging to a specific social reality. As such, this article auspicates a way to read ecological alterations of the Venetian lagoon beyond the mere actions of humans and to see, instead, socio-natural changes as the result of intricate relations between heterogenous agents and forces.
10. Saint Mark’s Square as Contested Political Space: Protesting Cruise Tourism in Venice 10.21463/shima.119
    Alexander Araya López
    Abstract Keywords
    public sphere, protest, cruise tourism, policing, urban spaces
    Saint Mark’s Square is unquestionably the most famous tourist attraction in Venice, a piazza characterised by its complex history, unique aesthetics and many allusions to power (given its proximity to the Doge’s Palace and Saint Mark’s Basilica). This square is the largest open space in the city and while it is routinely crowded with tourists from all over the world, political demonstrations have been prohibited since 1997. This article explores Saint Mark’s Square as a contested political space by focusing on the many local struggles against cruise tourism in Venice and its lagoon. Instead of constituting an ‘apolitical’ space, the preferred uses given to the square by local authorities and tourism stakeholders are manifestly ‘political’, producing a space of leisure and consumption that benefits the economic logic behind the ‘normal’ functioning of the piazza. Other alternative social and political uses of the square are not only discouraged but banned, which brings into discussion the Lefebvrian notion of the right to the city: who has access to the centre as a (political) privileged space? The article examines protest acts undertaken by the collective No Grandi Navi, particularly the political events that took place after the MSC Opera collision with another tourist vessel and the dock in June 2019.
11. Caring for the Island City: Venetians reclaiming the city in times of overtourism: contested representations, narratives and infrastructures 10.21463/shima.117
    Cornelia Dlabaja
    Abstract Keywords
    Right to the city, touristification, taking care, inhabiting the city, narratives of change
    Overtourism has transformed Venice into a Disneyfied city in several ways, for example through short-term tourists and their perception and use of the city as a fun park. There is little perception of Venice as a lived-in space which is inhabited by families, elderly people and students going about their everyday lives in a city with only 52,000 inhabitants and a staggering 24 million visitors every year. The article examines the question of how Venetians are reclaiming their right to the island city as a common good for its inhabitants, relating this directly to how the city is cared for. It discusses the phenomena that come with the reshaping of the spaces and everyday lives of Venetian residents due to mass tourism. The different ways the city is inhabited are discussed, and the consequences thereof, based on ethnographic research containing field research in the form of qualitative interviews, participatory observations, analysis of social media activities on Facebook, analysis of secondary data and debates in the media.
12. Far From Gentrification and Touristification? Residents’ perceptions of displacement on Murano Island 10.21463/shima.105
    Dario Bertocchi and Camilla Ferri
    Abstract Keywords
    Murano, tourism gentrification displacement; quality of life, Venetian Lagoon
    Murano, an island in Venetian Lagoon, is world-renowned for its historical glassmaking industry. In the last decades, similarly to what is happening in central Venice, Murano has seen a significant decrease in its population and a reduction of its traditional activities, both being connected to broader tourism gentrification dynamics. Prompted by this, the authors devised and circulated a wide-ranging questionnaire that aimed to investigate the economic, social, and territorial factors affecting people’s quality of life on the island. The questionnaire was completed by almost 15% of Murano’s residents and one aspect that it captured was various inhabitants’ perceptions of issues concerned with tourism gentrification, which we analysed using Cocola-Gant’s (2018) concepts of residential, commercial, and place-based displacement. We found that Muranese residents these dynamics most keenly when they impact their daily life on the island, and they are concerned about the loss of the identity of places they know and live in. We conclude by affirming that this situation is not irreversible, and that policy makers can act to address it.
13. An Island for Everyone: Poveglia as contested public space in the Venetian Lagoon 10.21463/shima.107
    Federica Letizia Cavallo and Francesco Visentin
    Abstract Keywords
    Island grabbing, public space, social movements, island narratives and practices, Poveglia, Venetian Lagoon
    This article focuses on the story of the proposed privatisation of Poveglia, a small uninhabited island in the Venetian Lagoon. In March 2014 the Italian State Property Office announced that a 99-year lease on Poveglia would be offered for sale in an online auction. The reaction of some citizens led to the formation of the association Poveglia per Tutti (Poveglia for Everyone), whose activists and supporters wanted the island to be preserved as a public space and blocked the acquisition. The article firstly frames Poveglia in the processes that are particular to the small islands of the Venetian Lagoon, from abandonment to tourism-related ‘land grabbing’, and then contextualises the story of this minor island in a more general discussion regarding broader ‘right to the island’ narratives and practices with reference to some other European cases. Finally, the article presents the results of a an ethnographically informed analysis of the association Poveglia per Tutti to discuss the capacity and potentialities of some small islands - as separate, limited, and identifiable spaces - to be part of territorialisation processes dealing with active citizenship, resistance to tourist monoculture and the usability of public space. In this way, Poveglia becomes a synecdoche for the whole of Venice and its lagoon, ‘condensing’, at the same time, local and global dynamics.
14. Venice in Varanasi: Fluid landscapes, aesthetic encounters and the unexpected geographies of tourist representation 10.21463/shima.121
    Cristiana Zara
    Abstract Keywords
    Venice-Varanasi, waterscapes, more-than-representational, landscape-in- relation, more-than-visual-aesthetics
    This article has developed from a broader research project on tourist representations and practices in Varanasi, India’s renowned sacred city and popular tourist destination situated by the ‘holy’ Ganges. Here, a recurring ‘sense of Venice’ emerged from Western travel narratives and landscape representations, evoked by both visual and more- than-visual encounters. Drawing on cultural geographies of landscape engaging postcolonial, representational and non-representational theories, the article unravels Venice’s capacity to exist beyond Venice and to mobilise affectual aesthetic connections across different social, material, spatial and temporal contexts. Through an empirical analysis of aesthetic experiences of ‘Venice-in-Varanasi’, it illuminates the ontological liminality of Venice as waterland and image and its epistemological capacity to navigate the entangled material, affective and representational modes through which we encounter the world. Advancing relational theories of landscape via an empirical focus on the waterscapes of Venice and Varanasi, the article contributes to water studies and critical tourism by proposing a fluid and mobile ontology of landscape which seeks to destabilise the representational/non-representational binary, thus feeding into growing research in this direction.
15. Multidirectional Thalassology: Comparative ecologies between the Venetian Lagoon and the Indian Ocean 10.21463/shima.118
    May Joseph and Sofia Varino
    Abstract Keywords
    Indian Ocean, South Asia, Venetian lagoons, islands, maritime history, decolonial performance, ecology
    This article merges discourses from Indian Ocean studies, Island Studies, performance art and decolonial methodologies to offer interdisciplinary ways of thinking about La Serenissima and its navigational histories. It is a transdisciplinary speculative entry, part empirical, part analytical, part applied phenomenology. We write this as a collaboration between two members of the Harmattan Theater company, a New York City based environmental performance ensemble applying environmental theory to site-specific performances engaging oceans and islands. The article is driven by the following research questions: What are the historic relationalities between the Venice lagoon and the Indian Ocean? How has the acqua alta flooding of Venice, accompanied by the mnemonic histories of the Venetian lagoon, impacted understandings of lagoon cultures in the global South, particularly the Malabar Coast of South Asia? This question has propelled the artistic and academic research of May Joseph and Sofia Varino across environmental history, island studies and performance. Drawing on histories of Venetian navigation and lagoon culture, Joseph and Varino propose a comparative lagoon aesthetics, one that would link two archipelagic regions, the Venetian Lagoon and the extended archipelagic region of the Laccadive Sea of India. While we believe a contemporary archipelagic study connecting these two regions does not currently exist, the historical archives suggest otherwise. We draw on the Venetian Camaldolese monk and cartographer Fra Mauro’s Mappa Mundi from the 15th Century to initiate this comparative dialogue between North/Southisland ecologies, seafaring histories and ocean futures affected by climate change and rising sea levels. This research is part of a book that Joseph and Varino are co-writing on islands, archipelagos, coastal regions and climate change, drawing on a ten-year collaboration working with large-scale site-specific environmental performance as research, activism and embodied phenomenology.
16. The Role of Water and Tourism Management in Venice and New Orleans 10.21463/shima.120
    Nina Balan and Bridget M. Bordelon
    Abstract Keywords
    High water, sea-level rise, destination management, heritage tourism
    This article examines the similarities and differences between New Orleans, USA, and Venice, Italy – two coastal cities built on river sediment that are extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels and climate change. In addition to their proximity to water, both cities are characterised by a strong economic dependence on the tourism and hospitality industry. Their adaption to increasing climate change requires different approaches and strategies which have survived progressive degradation during the last centuries. In both cases, various anthropogenic, morphologic factors and global changes have contributed to coastal erosion. Both cities' tourism numbers exceed carrying capacity and potentially pose a risk to local community well-being. The study aims to illustrate how adaptation and mitigation policies (or lack thereof) have evolved in these two international cities and develop new mitigation strategies to minimise negative impacts on the tourism economy and infrastructure.

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Islands and Aquapelagos in the Anthropocene 10.21463/shima.14.2.03
   Amelia Moore
4. Manufacturing Paradise on Catalina Island: Othering an Island and its Residents 10.21463/shima.14.2.04
   Katherine Canfield
   Abstract Keywords
   Catalina Island, tourism, Othering, aquapelago
   Since the 1880s Catalina Island has been developed as a tourist haven that has required a considerable influx of seasonal and longer-term residents to support its business operations. Research on the social dynamics of this tourism economy reveals that residents experience their needs being handled as an afterthought in island infrastructural development. Residents perceive Catalina Island Company as prioritising tourists above employees and residents, and development choices confirm these priorities. The discourse of Catalina Island Company managers’ perceived exclusion of residents has manifested in an othering subjectivity’ of all players in their relations to each other and tourism. They now exist as isolated groups rather than a cohesive community. Private ownership and management of this island’s physical infrastructure make analysing perceptions particularly interesting, as residents express a sense of ownership over the island and its future though they lack legal titles to land. This article analyses the social tension of tourism development on Catalina Island among residents, the Catalina Island Company, and tourists through themes of aquapelagic virtualism, ownership, and the ‘othering’ subject position.
5. Art Islands: Ecological Thought, Underwater Sculpture and the Nature of Development in the Canary Islands 10.21463/shima.14.2.05
   Rennie Meyers
   Abstract Keywords
   artificial reef, tourism, climate change, adaptation, Anthropocene, infrastructure, Lanzarote, Cesar Manrique
   When modern artist and architect Cesar Manrique returned home to Lanzarote, the northernmost of the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco, after a twenty-year sojourn abroad to study modern art in 1964, he returned to an island in flux. Energised by a burgeoning environmentalism acquired in New York City and terrified by the already-apparent impacts of mass tourism on this once-barren volcanic island, Manrique quite literally saw an opportunity in the landscape. Manrique and the local tourism bureau undertook a decades long project to rebrand and, more importantly, redesign the island as simultaneously artistic and ecologically unique. Thirty years later, UNESCO designated Lanzarote a World Heritage Site in part for this socio-ecological synthesis, in some ways precluding overdevelopment and in other ways encouraging Lanzarote’s branding as a uniquely desirable tourist destination. Today, Lanzarote has made substantial public investment in the Museo Atlántico, a massive underwater museum and artificial reef, to extend Manrique’s original legacy and sink tourism development to the seafloor. Lanzarote was one of the first ‘art islands,’ discreet geologic sites made unique in a competitive globalising island tourism industry by embedding art into the local ecology itself. This paper explores how island socio-ecology shaped Lanzarote’s development into an art island, and illustrates how ideas of art, ecology, and value can cross oceans, create connectivity, and alter environments.
6. An Aquapelagic Evolution? Developing sustainable tourism futures in Galápagos, Ecuador 10.21463/shima.14.2.06
   Adam Burke
   Abstract Keywords
   Galapagos, aquapelago, ecotourism, carrying capacity, path dependency
   In less than 200 years, the Galápagos Islands have experienced a fast-tracked transformation from an inhospitable archipelago to a glamorous ecotourism hot spot. Waves of extractive industries and the development of conservation and ecotourism have shaped Galapagueño communities. This article draws upon critical literature to analyse Galápagos as an aquapelagic society — wherein residents’ identities and sense of belonging are conditioned by the interconnections in and between aquatic and terrestrial spaces — dealing with rapid ecotourism development and the attendant socioeconomic and eco-cultural consequences. An initial unpacking of Galápagos histories is provided to frame the cycles of exploitation and development that have structured human life in Galápagos today. This background motivates a critique of Galápagos’ land-sea binary, path dependency on ecotourism, economic leakage, and ways ecotourism practices dissociate Galapagueños from marine spaces. Several ways forward are then presented to account for how social actors — namely the public, private, and conservation-science sectors — may pursue long- and short- term objectives to reinforce Galápagos’ future as one that promotes aquapelagic epistemologies and ontologies as well as socially and environmentally responsible development.
7. Mākua Valley: An anthropocenic story of restoration and reconnection 10.21463/shima.14.2.07
   Emanuela Borgnino
   Abstract Keywords
   eco-cultural practices, sovereignty, sense of place, indigenous ecology, militourism
   This article focuses on ecological restoration and Indigenous re-claiming practices in the Valley of Mākua, on the island of O’ahu, Hawai’i, an area currently occupied by the US military. The island ‘welcomes’ an average of 6 million tourists a year seeking the so-called, ‘aloha experience.’ However, staging “Paradise” comes with a cost, the denial of a colonial past and an exploitative present. The aim of this article is to analyse Indigenous sovereignty eco-cultural practices through the activities of the Mālama Mākua association in the Valley of Mākua, which propose a new kind of relationship with the land a new ‘experience’ based on responsibilities and obligations rather than enjoyment and consumption.
8. The Risk of Dispossesion in the Aquapelago: A Coral Reef Restoration Case Study in the Spermonde Islands 10.21463/shima.14.2.08
   Jessica Vandenberg
   Abstract Keywords
   Community-based conservation, corporate social responsibility, fisheries, coral restoration, dispossession
   Drawing on an ethnographic case study concerning fears of dispossession, corporate social responsibility and coral reef restoration (CRR), this article examines the socio-cultural dynamics related to an ongoing corporate-led CRR initiative located on a small coral island in the Spermonde archipelago of Indonesia. Surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted on 154 households in villages on the island where the program was implemented and on 3 neighbouring islands. By analysing the narratives of local people from the immediate and surrounding communities, this article describes the inter- and intra-village perceptions of the significance and impact of CRR on local wellbeing. Respondents from across the island community revealed varying degrees of feelings of vulnerability, fear and disempowerment. Despite the company’s best intentions to create a monetary-based, community-supported conservation program, the transactional relation that has developed between the community and the company has slowly evolved into fears of multiple forms of dispossession. Initially viewed as a source of supplementary income, the project is now viewed by some members of the community as a process through which local people have sold their rights to marine territories that they once managed. Moreover, the restoration infrastructure that is anchored to the seafloor is perceived as real and physical evidence of the company’s claims to spatial ownership. This fear extends beyond their surrounding seascape, and some islanders are concerned that territorial claims will eventually encroach on the island itself. It is uncertain whether the CRR project will be able to positively influence this developing local narrative. This study highlights the importance of examining aquapelagic social complexities, historical context and micro-political systems at the local level in order to understand evolving realities in the Anthropocene that affect marine conservation outcomes.
9. The Abandoned Cars of Pohnpei: Reflections on a small island economy and environment 10.21463/shima.14.2.09
   Iain Hall and Anne McDonald
   Abstract Keywords
   Federated States of Micronesia, Pohnpei, island sustainability, waste management, small island developing states
   Sustainability is a challenge for many small islands, and particularly small island developing states, where resources are limited but challenges abundant. One such challenge is that of the abandoned motor vehicles throughout the islands of the Federated States of Micronesia, in the north Pacific. Pohnpei, the main island of Pohnpei State, has over one thousand junk vehicles decaying by its roadsides, but what are the economic conditions that have led to their presence, what are the environmental issues that these vehicles now present, and what are the barriers to dealing with them? By considering these issues, the abandoned vehicles of Pohnpei provide a unique lens through which to explore small island sustainability.

10. The Creative Constitution of an Archipelago: Intercultural dynamics in the Belep Islands of Kanaky New Caledonia 10.21463/shima.14.2.10
    Lara Giordana
    Abstract Keywords
    Cultural creativity, archipelagraphy, colonialism/post-colonialism, Kanaky New Caledonia, Belep Islands
    This article considers the Belep islands archipelago in Kanaky New Caledonia as a geo-cultural project in which human collective agency plays a crucial role. In the constitution of the archipelago, geomorphology interweaves with historical, intersubjective and intercultural process of cultural creativity. Cultural creativity is presented here as a theoretical framework and as a useful tool to understand the emergence of original and unexpected forms in many domains of Indigenous island societies who are actively engaged with exogenous forces. In particular, the article concentrates on those historical and contemporary processes that emerge in intercultural dynamics and shape the archipelago, leading first to its reduction, then to its condensation in a new form (the village of Waala), and, most recently, to its expansion.
11. A Critical-Holistic Approach to the Place-Specific Geographies of Inhabited River Islands on the Rural-Urban Fringe of Inland China 10.21463/shima.14.2.11
    Hong Gang
    Abstract Keywords
    River islands, Island Studies, rural-urban fringe, inland China, island imaginary
    River islands have been a relatively marginal topic in Island Studies literature for diverse geographical and disciplinary reasons. Critically engaging with past literature, this article is an attempt to examine this hitherto neglected island type based on the local experiences of inhabited river islands located on the rural-urban fringe of inland China. Through a comparative analysis of Chongming Island (Shanghai), Baguazhou (Nanjing) and Dongzhou Island (Hengyang), the article proposes a critical-holistic approach to understanding the place-specific geographies of these river islands. It is argued that inhabited river islands on the rural-urban fringe of inland China are characterised by a geography of paradox insofar as they are at once super-connected to mainland environments and utterly unconnected with kindred islands in the fluvial system. The former trait implies greater assimilation, with uncertain consequences, for such islands, while the latter indicates the virtual impossibility of them forming larger non-mainland collectivities. It is proposed that identity culture — rather than identity politics — is a more viable, and also urgently needed alternative for these islands in face of mass homogenisation. It is also proposed that studying locations that Island Studies may have cast as atypical presents several benefits for the interdisciplinary field.
12. Navigating Citizenship and National Identity in American Territories: Nationalism in American Samoa and Puerto Rico 10.21463/shima.14.2.12
    Valérie Vézina
    Abstract Keywords
    American Samoa, Puerto Rico, islandness, nationalism
    This article examines the various paths taken by two American territories: American Samoa and Puerto Rico. American Samoans are not citizens of the United States, they are ‘nationals’. Puerto Ricans, on the contrary, are US citizens and have the same rights as any American once they move to the ‘mainland’. Despite this initial difference, there have been few attempts by the government of American Samoa to change or alter the status, and a sense of nationalism is not, at first sight, overly expressed, while in Puerto Rico, five plebiscites on the status question have taken place. The two archipelagos have both been under intense Americanisation and the sense of nationalism in both places is expressed in different ways.
13. Toppling Joubert: Exposing the colonial routes of island connectedness beneath the apparent French roots of Hunters Hill (Sydney, Australia) 10.21463/shima.14.2.13
    Karin Speedy
    Abstract Keywords
    routes and roots, decolonising histories, creative histories, trans-imperial island connectedness, slavery
    The #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement, which has seen the felling of statues of white invaders, colonisers and slave traders, has highlighted the racist legacy of slavery and the inequities, racism and ongoing impact of colonialism throughout the world. The toppling of statues sits within an ongoing historical push to remove visible tributes to colonial violence from the land. The colonial project, however, in its consumption and transformation of the colonised space, has seen the settler narrative firmly imprinted on the landscape. While knocking down statues is a powerful demonstration of resistance, the layers of embedded colonial presence in and on the landscape and in the national narrative remain. In this article, in the spirit of the BLM movement and through both decolonial/activist historiography and a creative/poetic interpretative approach to history writing, I challenge and topple the colonial narrative surrounding Didier-Numa Joubert, 19th Century Franco-Australian trans-imperial entrepreneur and slave trader with interests in and across islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. A man of routes but also of roots, Joubert’s legacy is embodied not in a statue but in the topography and European architecture of Hunters Hill, the Sydney suburb he ‘founded’. I reveal how the ostensible Frenchness of Hunters Hill, ‘islanded’ between two rivers, conceals a complex history of island connection to far-flung sites of colonial exploitation and forced labour in the French and British empires.
14. The Science of the Andamans and The Sign of the Four: The distorted racial hierarchy of British imperial anthropology 10.21463/shima.14.2.14
    Arup K. Chatterjee
    Abstract Keywords
    Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four, Andaman, India, London, Tonga, Colonial and Indian Exhibition
    This article examines the dichotomous relationship between racial hierarchies effected by imperial science, on the one hand, and the subversive potential of the scientific knowledge gleaned from the Andaman Islands, on the other, in Victorian Britain. Knowledge about the Andaman Islands and its ‘savage’ aboriginal tribes had been etched onto British consciousness since the establishment of Britain’s naval base in Greater Andaman (present-day Port Blair), in 1789, followed by a century of anthropological, ethnological, zoological and linguistic and explorations into the Andamanese people. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of the Four began being serialised in 1890, a fantastical knowledge of manners and physiognomy of the Andamanese was remarkably familiar to London, through colonial histories, a wide array of photographs in British periodicals, and iconic clay sculptures of the aboriginals displayed at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886. While British imperialism wanted to project its inexhaustible scientific and technocratic powers counterpoising them against the untameable and (supposedly) prehistoric life of the Andaman Islands, The Sign of the Four ruptured that discourse. I argue that, in the character of the little Andamanese “hell-hound,” Tonga, Doyle presents an example of the failure of imperial scientific prowess to appropriate the savage identity into its racial and hierarchical discourse. Within the seemingly scarce presence of India in the world of Sherlock Holmes, it is deeply consequential that Doyle selected the Andaman Islands as a key location for the origin of his detective plot, as the home of the subaltern Tonga, who pre-empts the spectrality of the hound—a manifestation of imperial guilt and panic—to come later in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
15. Artworks, Assemblage and Interactivity on Teshima 10.21463/shima.14.2.15
    Jun’ichiro Suwa
    Abstract Keywords
    artworks, assemblage, shima, Teshima
    The artworks exhibited on Teshima, an inland sea island in western Japan, generate shima through sensory experiences. In generating the shima as an assemblage, personhood and artistic objects interact as they are embedded in local livelihood. These artworks are activated as visitors are involved in various interactions taking place on the island. In this regard, sensory experiences assemble the artworks by being situated in the here-and-now of shima. Traditional structures of Shinto and Buddhism and pilgrimage routes overlap the artwork sites, generating an accidental polyphony of assembled artefacts and associations. By the same token, artworks decaying in the island’s environment resonate with non-art objects, also intensifying the assemblage.
16. Teshima — From Island Art to the Art Island: Art on/for a previously declining Japanese Inland Sea Island 10.21463/shima.14.2.16
    Meng Qu
    Abstract Keywords
    Teshima, relational art site, social interaction, declining island, relational (is)landscape, community revitalisation
    In order to understand the art island as a new type of socially engaged community revitalisation practice it is necessary to move beyond considering art simply as an aesthetic object. This article is informed by relational aesthetics, creative geography theories and with regard to three evaluation axes concerning artwork, community and new businesses and it considers the entirety of Teshima as an integrated relational art site. Outcomes were evaluated related to the provision of top-down elite art, relational social interactive art and bottom-up community efforts provided by emerging creative businesses on the island. Research for this article revealed that elite arts effectively attract tourists but do not touching upon the deeper root of Teshima culture in locals' way of life. By contrast, relational and interactive arts and business practices have played a significant role in community revitalisation. The case study undertaken identifies the success of the large-scale relational art site as a practice. Operating under an artistic ‘halo’, residents’ art businesses appear as powerful agencies that help Teshima to embark upon a path of self-sufficiency and revitalisation as an island supported by art.
17. Research Note: Looking at the Sea Through a Window: Land reclamation and installation art in Macao, China 10.21463/shima.14.2.17
    Benjamin Kidder Hodges
    Abstract Keywords
    Land reclamation, installation, sound art, Macao, China
    This research note provides an introduction to a collaborative art exhibition by two artists, Crystal W. M. Chan and Benjamin K. Hodges, entitled Mountain Surrounded by Sea. The exhibition, installed at the Creative Macau gallery in May and June of 2020, is a sound and installation work that centres on the ‘Macau New Urban Zone’ project which consists of five new islands currently being constructed through land reclamation in Macao. This special administrative region of China and (modified) archipelago at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta is bound by tight geographical constraints so has historically expanded through land reclamation. A new development project has been launched to specifically meet the future housing and infrastructure needs of the growing population. In the exhibition, two sculptural works and a unifying sound art piece evoke the affective landscape of these developments by highlighting the tension between environmental concerns and desires for new public and private space.
18. Branding Cold Water Islands: The use of themes related to water in logos for island tourism destinations 10.21463/shima.14.2.18
    Susan C. Graham
    Abstract Keywords
    Cold-water islands, island tourism, island branding, tourism branding, tourism logos, warm-water islands
    This abstract will examine whether cold-water islands differ from warm-water islands in the use of water-related themes in their destination logos. Tourism logos for 106 islands were assessed to rate the extent to which themes related to water were present or implicit in the tourism logo. Findings show that both cold- and warm-water islands incorporate water-related themes in their tourism logos, but the manner in which water is represented in those logos differs. The study’s findings provide insights into the attributes that cold-water islands seek to emphasise in their tourism branding and brand identity and may inform cold-water islands’ branding strategies.
19. A rejoinder to Meng Qu’s ‘Teshima — From Island Art to the Art Island: Art on/for a previously declining Japanese Inland Sea Island’ 10.21463/shima.14.2.19
    Jun’ichiro Suwa
    Abstract
    This brief rejoinder reflects on a number of points made by Meng Qu (2020) in his account of the relationship between art and community on Teshima and, in particular, on his critique of my work on a similar topic (Suwa, 2020).

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Islands and Ice: Rethinking Island Studies from the Polar Regions 10.21463/shima.14.1.03
   Johannes Riquet
4. Caribbean Snow and Ice: Exploring Literary Tropical-Arctic Island Relations 10.21463/shima.14.1.04
   Daniel Graziadei
   Abstract Keywords
   poetics of snow and ice, island studies, tropical island, geopoetics, nissopoiesis, decolonial and postcolonial literature
   This article discusses a rather unexpected connection between ice and islands, namely the occurrence of snow, ice, and coldness in Caribbean literature. The first part examines decolonising literary answers to the colonial tradition of snow and ice in Caribbean schooling: Kamau Brathwaite’s study History of the Voice and Derek Walcott’s Nobel Prize lecture The Antilles, Fragments of Epic Memory prepare for the different positions taken in V.S. Naipaul’s novel The Mimic Men, Sam Selvon’s short story ‘The leaf in the wind’, and Aimé Césaire’s long prose poem Cahier du retour au pays natal as well as Stewart Brown’s poem ‘Whales’. The second part focuses on snow, ice, and coldness as reflections of the diaspora experience. It does so via close readings of ‘M’a kai den sneu’ by Curaçaoan poet Frank Martinus Arion as well as L'énigme du retour by Haitian-Canadian novelist Dany Laferrière. The third part turns to the role of snow, ice, and coldness in furthering global relations and metafictional passages via a discussion of Kamau Brathwaite’s poem ‘Guanahani’, Édouard Glissant’s last novel Ormerod, and Derek Walcott’s short essay ‘Isla Incognita’ as well as his poem ‘18’ from The Prodigal. Ultimately, the article argues that the poietic creation of literary spaces and places that include snow, ice, and coldness within Caribbean literature can serve emancipatory and globalising purposes.
5. Resisting Metaphor: A phenomenology of cold and heat in William Golding’s Pincher Martin 10.21463/shima.14.1.05
   Barney Samson
   AbstractKeywords
   coldness, phenomenology, metaphor, island literature, Robinsonade, cold-water islands, fluidity
   Pete Hay (2006) argues that literary islands, in “acts of post-colonial appropriation,” tend to prioritise mainland perspectives that reduce islands to metaphorical projections from a continental vantage point. I offer a complication of Hay’s argument through an analysis of William Golding’s Pincher Martin (1956). Significantly, this novel is centred around a northern island whose predominant characteristic is its coldness. I suggest that Pincher Martin features phenomenological narration, manifested in descriptions focalised through the protagonist’s sensory and somatic perceptions. Central to the novel’s project of representing a phenomenological subjectivity is a constellation of sensory aspects through which Pincher Martin apprehends his situation, most particularly coldness. Through analysing the novel’s discourses of coldness and heat, I will argue that the phenomenological narration destabilises both the perception of the narrated space and the possibility of textual signification. This constructs a diegetic world that cannot be apprehended with any fixed understanding and an island that resists functioning as the vehicle of metaphor.
6. Filming Bear Island: Arctic Island Narratives, Polar Exploration, and Poetic Geometry 10.21463/shima.14.1.06
   Johannes Riquet
   Abstract Keywords
   Cold-water islands, island narratives, island films, geocriticism, poetic geometry, mediation of geography, Arctic imaginaries, poetics of snow and ice
   This article discusses the poetics of polar geography in three filmic accounts of expeditions to Arctic islands: Don Sharp’s Cold War thriller Bear Island (1979), the surfer film Bjørnøya/Bear Island (2014), and the NRK television series Bjørnøya (2014), which documents six months at a meteorological station in the Arctic. Taking Bertrand Westphal’s geocritical call to “place place at the center of debate” (2011: 112) as my starting point, I explore the filmic life of Bear Island in the Svalbard archipelago. As I will demonstrate, all three works create a poetic geometry of experience, mediating Arctic geography to think about the relationship between human agency and the agency of the physical world. They do so, however, in very different ways: Bear Island oscillates between representing snow and ice as forces overpowering humans and a fantasy of human control of the cold landscape that ties into Cold War environmental anxieties; Bjørnøya (the film) and Bjørnøya (the series) engage with surfing and meteorology as practices that embed humans in complex geographical and ecological networks. In doing so, all three works both follow and challenge the conventions of island narratives by giving them a distinct polar spin.
7. Arctic Islands, Archival Exposures (On Jan Mayen, Bjørnøya, and Hopen islands) 10.21463/shima.14.1.07
   Eimear Tynan
   Abstract Keywords
   Arctic coastlines, history, photography, time, materiality, fieldwork, landscape, geographies of knowledge, Jan Mayen, Bjørnøya, Hopen
   This article examines a selection of coastal sites on Jan Mayen, Bjørnøya, and Hopen, three remote Arctic islands, in an investigation of the material changes to these vulnerable environments over time. To engage with these changes, I journey through “geographies of knowledge” by mediating between historical photographic archives and contemporary site analysis. Based on recent fieldwork on these islands, I propose an extension of existing conceptual framings in landscape architecture site analysis to include perspectives and agencies of non-human actors/participants/objects and processes. This allows me to focus on the materiality and temporality of site analysis. My investigation provides insights into the types of changes that have occurred, whether natural and anthropogenic. It argues for the relevance of in-situ research in landscape studies that allows one to engage more affectively, critically, and interpretatively with landscape. Through descriptive and illustrative means, the inquiry extends beyond the boundaries of archival material to present situated, embodied, and relational knowledge and thereby renew our understanding of these coastal sites.
8. An Icy Layer of Isolation: Prince Edward Island’s Sea-Bound Particularity 10.21463/shima.14.1.08
   Hans Connor, Laurie Brinklow, and Adam Fenech
   Abstract Keywords
   sea ice, islandness, ice-boundedness, Prince Edward Island, climate change, insularity, isolation
   The types and degrees of insularity experienced in islands provide considerable material for academics. In the case of Prince Edward Island (PEI), being an Island combined with the isolation caused by sea ice covering the waters around PEI, has impacted Islanders’ sense of relative insularity. Even after the construction of a fixed link to the mainland, Islanders continue to relish in a sense of distinctiveness linked to their Island condition. Since European settlement, PEI’s sea ice barrier has periodically cut off channels of communication and transportation resulting in many societal effects. As ocean temperatures rise due to Climate Change, ice conditions are changing, bringing with them increased coastal erosion and other effects. This article investigates PEI’s relationship with its frozen sea-bound particularity. Drawing upon the Island’s history, culture, and climate data, as well as from the field of Island Studies, the article asks the question: how has this ‘icy layer of isolation’ affected Islanders’ sense of place over time? And what are the potential implications of the effects of Climate Change for PEI?
9. ‘Knowing’ the South Shetland Islands: The Role of Sealers’ Charts 10.21463/shima.14.1.09
   Michael Pearson
   Abstract Keywords
   charts, exploration, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, imperialism, toponomy, sealing
   ‘Discovery’ and ‘knowing’ are two separate processes. Charting of new coasts has been characterised as a colonising action, expressing a power relationship underpinned by discovery, but in the case of the sealers in the South Shetlands it was as much the necessity to know the islands in order to survive as it was an act of ‘owning’ the new land. The South Shetland Islands, located 100 km off the Antarctic Peninsula and 900 km south of Cape Horn, were discovered by Western mariners in 1819. Over the next three years, charts and sailing directions for the islands were created by a Royal Navy surveyor, and by sealers from Britain and the USA. This article looks at the resulting products, and analyses the complex process of knowing new and challenging territory, the underlying influences that can be read into the charts and journals, and in the naming of places in the new territory. It also reflects on the complex and sometimes contradictory forces that distinguish the naval, British sealer and American sealer ways of seeking to understand the South Shetlands.

10. Ningen: The generation of media-lore concerning a giant, sub-Antarctic, aquatic humanoid and its relation to Japanese whaling activity 10.21463/shima.14.1.10
    Felicity Greenland and Philip Hayward
    Abstract Keywords
    ningen, media-lore, aquapelagic imaginary, Japanese whaling
    The ningen, a giant, sub-Antarctic aquatic humanoid, is a mythical creature created by Japanese Internet users in the mid-2000s. Since its inception it has crossed over into international Internet contexts and has been embellished and inflected in various ways. As such it forms an element within modern media-lore, joining a host of pre-constituted mythic/folkloric creatures and more modern inventions. One of the most notable aspects of ningen media-lore is that the creature was conceived as an inhabitant of sub-Antarctic waters, which have not traditionally been perceived to be rich in crypto-zoological entities. Within this location it has been closely associated with Japan’s Southern Ocean whaling fleet and can, in this regard, be understood as a manifestation of a modern aquapelagic imaginary. The article identifies that the original location of the ningen’s story is not merely incidental to its circulation and elaboration but is, rather, a key element of its emergence as a Japanese figure and a continuing aspect of its significance in a broader, international arena.
11. Just a Longboat Ride Away: Maritime interaction in the southern Aegean Sea during the Final Neolithic Period 10.21463/shima.14.1.11
    Margarita Nazou
    Abstract Keywords
    Final Neolithic, Aegean maritime networks, prehistoric exchange, rock carvings, longboat
    In the last decade, abundant evidence for seafaring and interaction among Southern Aegean communities has been produced through the recovery of imported materials (mainly metals, lithics, and ceramics) in archaeological excavations dated to the Final Neolithic period (c 4th millennium BC). This article attempts to synthesise the available data on exchange networks, and to discuss the images of maritime interaction, namely the longboats depicted on FN rock carvings. It is suggested that during the 4th millennium BC maritime communication played an important role in the transfer of people, ideas and technologies. A contrast between closely interacting regions, comprised by both mainland and island areas (such as for example Attica and the Northern Cyclades), and long-range, lower intensity connections (for example between Attica and Crete) can be identified. Similar to the Early Bronze Age period, the capacity of a Final Neolithic community to provide enough men for a longboat crew would be crucial in long-distance maritime connections. The longboat could have been used in establishing social alliances among Final Neolithic communities and/or piracy and warfare.
12. Conjuring Puerto Rico’s Archipelagic, Decolonial Future 10.21463/shima.14.1.12
    Beatriz Llenín Figueroa
    Abstract Keywords
    Puerto Rico, Caribbean, affective archive, archipelagic decolonisation, participatory democracy
    Explicitly situated in the aftermath of the Summer 2019 rebellion, this essay conjures Puerto Rico’s archipelagic, decolonial future by examining, first, three instances of what I call our affective archive of Caribbean regionalism: (1) the 19th Century Confederación Antillana (CA); (2) the mid 20th Century West Indies Federation (WIF); and (3) the 21st Century Puerto Rican performance and community theatre piece, Marea alta, marea baja (2002) by the Agua, sol y sereno (ASYS) collective. Confronting the facts that Puerto Rico’s decolonial movements – both institutional and popular – have not mobilised a Caribbeanist perspective as essential to their objectives, and that the most significant political proposals for materialising Caribbean integration have failed to rally popular power and agency, this essay contends, second, that Puerto Rico’s struggles for a decolonial future must become archipelagic, that is, must take their cue from and expand our affective archive of Caribbean regionalism. In order to do so while continuing to galvanise the popular support experienced in the summer 2019 rebellion, not only must our struggles articulate themselves within and in collaboration with the greater Caribbean, but also as part of a radically participatory democratic project seeking multidimensional sovereignties. Specifically, three proposals are made: (1) the insertion of Puerto Rico in CARICOM’s reparatory justice efforts; (2) the demand that such funds are managed within participatory budgeting models; and, (3) the creation of production and consumption cooperatives in the sphere of cultural sovereignty.
13. “The World’s Most Haunted Island”: Ghost narratives and practices around Poveglia, an abandoned island in the Venetian Lagoon 10.21463/shima.14.1.13
    Federica Letizia Cavallo and Francesco Visentin
    Abstract Keywords
    Ghosts, haunted islands, island narratives, Poveglia, Venetian Lagoon
    Located in the Venetian Lagoon, the uninhabited island of Poveglia has recently gained global renown as “the world’s most haunted island”. This article reconstructs how this ghost island narrative originated and began to circulate, and analyses the social, cultural and geographical preconditions that fostered it. It also considers how such a narrative rebounded on the island, attracting believers in the paranormal and tourists interested in ghosts. The research presented here is based on qualitative methods, such as the critical reading of various texts (social media content, newspaper articles, blogs, videos, pieces of music and television programmes) and semi-structured interviews with the involved actors. Behind an apparently trivial island narrative, the in-betweenness of ghosts (intended as cultural objects able to activate an emotional sphere that goes beyond the rational understanding of places) allows for a reconceptualisation of the discontinuities of time and space, the disconnection between vernacular and academic cultures and the classical dichotomies assigned to insular spaces. The case of Poveglia demonstrates how ghosts can shape not only the way island narratives are told, but also the way that islands are approached and practiced.
14. “I Eat to Kill Hunger”: The foods of Cape Verde and the double-edged sword of Globalisation 10.21463/shima.14.1.14
    Kaian Lam
    Abstract Keywords
    Cape Verde, creole, food, globalisation, tradition
    Cape Verde is a former Portuguese colony that experienced devastating droughts and famines with dire demographic and social consequences up to the last century. As the popular saying goes, “Cabo Verde não é verde” - ie Cape Verde (meaning ‘Green Cape’) is the opposite of what its name suggests. The islanders treasure food because they know how their ancestors and older family members suffered, maintaining to this day a close and grateful relationship with the land. Insular as it is, this archipelago is not immune to globalisation. This study examines some changes in the Cape Verdean diet induced by globalisation, the way food is produced and distributed, and how locals perceive and adapt to these trends. It draws preponderantly on five sessions of fieldwork on five of the nine inhabited islands undertaken between 2016 to 2019. It suggests that globalisation contributes to new urban dynamics and may have homogenising and demoralising effects on rural food traditions but also facilitates a range of synthetic experiences between these tendencies.
15. From Local Media to Vending Machines: Innovative ways of sustaining Okinawa’s shimakutuba and island culture 10.21463/shima.14.1.15
    Junko Konishi and Evangelia Papoutsaki
    Abstract Keywords
    Okinawa, shimakutuba language revitalisation, vending machines, island communicative ecology, island cultural agents, community radio
    This article, referring to the notion of island communicative ecology, explores the role of local Okinawan initiatives for language revitalisation through community radio and island cultural agents, especially focusing on the activities of an individual, Minoru Ikehara, his private information and communications technology company, Crest Co. Ltd and their innovative use of vending machines. In Okinawa, the movement for re-introducing shimakutuba (community languages) officially started in 2006 when Okinawa Prefecture’s legislated Shimakutuba no hi (‘Community Languages Day’). Since then, local governing bodies have increased their language revitalisation efforts especially at school level. However, there have been difficulties with allocating time for shimakutuba education under the control of Japanese government curriculum guidelines. The choice of which language to work with, among various shimakutuba nurtured in each island community, has also raised endless discussions. As a top-down approach is not sufficient, the local media and grassroots efforts have played an important role for in the language revitalisation process.
16. Inverted Crusoeism: Deliberately marooning yourself on an island 10.21463/shima.14.1.16
    Vicente Bicudo de Castro and Matthias Muskat
    Abstract Keywords
    Inverted Crusoeism, castaway, J.G. Ballard, David Glasheen, Restoration/Ma’alpiku Island
    This article introduces the concept of Inverted Crusoeism to research into island cultures. The concept derives from the works of J.G. Ballard and provides a reason as to why people would deliberately maroon themselves on a remote island. An analogy is drawn between the concept of Inverted Crusoeism and the choice of David Glasheen to live in isolation on Restoration (Ma’alpiku) Island in Far North Queensland, Australia. Therefore, whereas islandness and aislamiento define the concept of an island and sets its boundaries, this article extends the conceptual framework of the concept of shima, proposing Inverted Crusoeism as a reason why people would choose to subject themselves to a life of isolation on a remote island.
17. Salut Au Monde! Aquapelagic Instruction in the Red Funnel Magazine 10.21463/shima.14.1.17
    Barbara Therese Ryan
    Abstract Keywords
    Annie E. Trimble, Walt Whitman, Red Funnel Magazine, New Zealand, aquapelagity
    Between 1905 and 1909, the New Zealand-based Union Steam Ship Company published a monthly “glossy,” the Red Funnel Magazine. On this sea-going platform, Annie Eliza Trimble offered literary instruction in c. 20 essays. These essays offer a peep, only, at her enthusiasm for the US poet Walt Whitman. Subtle too, though, is these essays’ reach toward the land-sea-human assemblages that have been termed aquapelagic. My findings about these essays extend research on aquapelagity, Whitman fans, educational journalism, the Union Steam Ship Company, socialistic journalism, early New Zealand literature, and island stories.
18. Teaching Insularity: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives 10.21463/shima.14.1.18
    Anna Kouremenos and Laura Dierksmeier
    Abstract Keywords
    Insularity, archaeology, history, Island Studies
    This article aims to provide readers with content suggestions for teaching classes on insularity from archaeological and historical perspectives. The authors base this overview on two courses they taught at the University of Tübingen in 2019 (‘Insularity and Identity in the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity’ and ‘Mediterranean Island History and Archaeology, Long-Term Perspectives’) for Bachelor and Masters level students. As both authors have conducted extensive fieldwork on Mediterranean islands, these courses were their attempt to engage students critically with their research findings, considering the larger frame of Island Studies. In addition, both courses were interdisciplinary, and this article reflects on the challenges and opportunities such methods present. As the authors’ research focuses on Crete and the Aegean (Kouremenos), and the Canarian and Balearic archipelagos (Dierksmeier), this article reflects primarily those research experiences and is by no means a comprehensive guide. Nonetheless, this survey may assist individuals considering teaching similar subjects. We also hope to encourage dialogue between Island Studies colleagues regarding their experiences teaching insularity.

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Coloniality and Islands 10.21463/shima.13.2.03
   Macarena Gómez-Barris and May Joseph
4. Curating a Decolonial Guide: The Detours Project 10.21463/shima.13.2.04
   Hōkūlani K. Aikau and Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez
   Abstract Keywords
   Decolonialism, sovereignty, genealogy, tourism, Indigenous resurgence
   This essay meditates on the archipelagic sensibilities and knowledge that provide the foundation for the Detours project, an edited collection that subverts the guidebook authorship and authority about the islands of Hawai‘i. It braids the political history of the islands with the intellectual genealogies of postcolonial feminists writing about islands that generated the project’s conceptualisation. These political energies and formations of knowledge are reflected in the substance of the art, poetry, and essays that are curated in the collection. The essay outlines the ethical dimensions of the project and the process of turning away from the guidebook genre toward a book that guides readers to decolonisation—a template and archive of place-based work and representations aimed at achieving ea (life, breath, sovereignty) for the Native Hawaiian people and the Hawaiian Islands. Finally, the essay ends with a reflection on the kinds of responsibilities that island knowledges place on people who visit or live upon them, offering a relationship of reciprocity in place of extraction.
5. Guåhan, The Pacific and Decolonial Poetry 10.21463/shima.13.2.05
   Craig Santos Perez
   Keywords
   Guåhan (Guam), Chamoru, decolonial poetry
6. Underground and at Sea: Oysters and Black Marine Entanglements in New York’s Zone-A 10.21463/shima.13.2.06
   Ayasha Guerin
   Abstract Keywords
   Zone-A, Black mariners, oysters, underground railroad, resilience
   This article offers a pre-history of New York’s Zone-A (flood zone) through analysis of 19th Century Black mariners and their relations with aquatic life. Before European colonisation, New York was one of the most oyster-rich habitats in the world, but reefs were exhausted in just two centuries of settlement. A focus on Black life in the marine trades highlights the ways in which Black work at sea was mediated by desires for freedom on land. This article considers how marine entanglements have assisted Black fugitivity, liberation and community empowerment in 19th Century waterfront communities, but also how the extractive relation to life in the aquapelago ultimately exploited both human and non-human life, reflecting inter-species interdependencies, endangerment and habitat loss under colonial capitalist policies in Zone-A. Considering the intersection of environmental and social justice, this paper models the importance of historicising the liminal space between land and sea, for advancing ideas about race, nature and value in plans for ‘resilience’ in New York’s Zone-A.
7. Settler Responsibility: Respatialising Dissent in “America” Beyond Continental Borders 10.21463/shima.13.2.07
   Rebekah Garrison
   Abstract Keywords
   Settler colonialism, militarisation, Bieke/Vieques, Guåhan/Guam, Hawaiʻi
   Settler responsibility is a worldview grounded in profound relationships, exchanges, and solidarities between Indigenous and non-native communities. When put into practice, settler responsibility requires constant collaboration, articulation, and radical care to support a rich re-envisioning of peace and justice. Through a critique of white settler colonial discourse, I demonstrate that shared histories of US imperialism link Caribbean and Pacific Islands. Building upon kuʻualoha hoʻomanawanui’s notion of kuleana consciousness, I argue that decolonial awareness in local spaces is a necessary step towards creating better worlds. Applying the Hawaiian concept of kuleana, my qualitative and archival findings from Bieke (Vieques), Guåhan (Guam), and Hawaiʻi calls settlers to deepen our approaches and ethical responsibilities to the Indigenous peoples whose lands we occupy. Bringing to the fore that Indigenous movements for demilitarisation respatialise dissent in “America” beyond continental borders, I seek to raise white settler consciousness about our own ignorance of these islands, histories, and peoples.
8. Sisters of Ocean and Ice: On the Hydro-feminism of Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and Aka Niviâna’s Rise: From One Island to Another 10.21463/shima.13.2.08
   Jaimey Hamilton Faris
   Abstract Keywords
   Marshall Islands, Greenland, Climate Change, Climate Mitigation, Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner, Aka Niviâna, feminism, environmental art
   The video poem Rise: From One Island to Another, a 2018 collaboration between Marshallese poet Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and Inuk poet Aka Niviâna from Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) raises key questions about the antimonies of climate mitigation and adaptation discourses across oceans and islands. As “sisters of ocean and ice,” the poets reference the climate relationships between ice melt in Greenland and sea inundation of the Marshall Islands as part of the extended, but differentiated, island colonial histories of occupation, militarism, and development. Having been brought together by environmental activist organisation 350.org, Jetn̄il-Kijiner and Niviâna also strategically use their positionalities as Indigenous islanders to critique not only the continuity between colonial and neo-liberal operations but also the continuity between colonial and environmental scopic regimes, that taken together, stymie climate change imaginaries. In response to these discourses, they claim a feminist hydro-ontological imaginary. Ultimately, the video poem allows an examination of the value of materialist hydro-feminisms and “feminism without borders” (Mohanty, 2003) to extend Island Studies frameworks of the aquapelagic—the assemblage of human interactivity with sea, land, and sky.
9. Mapping a People to Come: Lessons from stressed islands and island assemblages in archipelagic Southeast Asia and other transversals 10.21463/shima.13.2.09
   Virgilio A. Rivas
   Abstract Keywords
   abstract machine, deterritorialisation, reterritorialisation, archipelagic Southeast Asia, Island Studies, transversality
   In Desert Islands (2004) Deleuze discussed the concept of second origin and how a people’s second birth is borne out by its transversal becoming as an island assemblage. Today, islands and open seas, aquatic spaces and land assemblages have become materials or objects of capture that reflect the volatility of geopolitical interests, involving sovereignty issues, historical rights of ownership, effective occupation, etc; all revolving around economic returns and military gains. One particular case is archipelagic Southeast Asia with its active border disputes and inter-island ownership claims. Deleuze took up the promise of transversality, among others, in the notion of island assemblages where islands become consciousness and consciousness becomes islands. What better way to renew this promise other than in Island Studies today? Even so, transversal islands call for reinventing cartographies and island diagramming as much as renewing critical awareness of totalising assignations. The latter involve actants (human and nonhuman) that Deleuze identified with modern forms of subject assignations, such as the state’s reterritorialisations of identity representations, but also with the creative (nonhuman) energies of subjects seeking totalising reductions. This article offers a critical survey of these assignations with especial focus on archipelagic Southeast Asia.
10. Waves of Displacement and Waves of Development: Marshallese Songfest competitions and cultural diplomacy in Springdale, Arkansas 10.21463/shima.13.2.10
    Jessica A. Schwartz
    Abstract Keywords
    Marshallese, songfest, jepta, cultural diplomacy, Springdale, Pacific, diaspora
    This article explores Marshallese cultural diplomacy, particularly songfest competitions known as ‘The Battle of the Jepta,’ from 2013 to 2016 in Springdale, Arkansas (USA). I focus on the role of these songfest competitions as records of the relationship between the US and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, autonomous from the US since 1986 with the Compact of Free Association. Studying Marshallese cultural outreach that is realised through transpacific flows helps decentre US continental colonialism that promotes Global North acquisitions by perpetuating liberal ideologies and myths of islands-as-isolates. Given the educational and economic impulses to out-migrate from the Marshall Islands, I contemplate the prospects of intercultural dialogue and non-hegemonic development through South-South Cooperation from a wave-based theoretical framework and posit its generative potential to create waves of development that can shift and mitigate the impact of waves of displacement.
11. Preserving Maltese Identity in Refugee Management: On the Emergence and Absence of a Prison Spatiality 10.21463/shima.13.2.11
    Laura Otto, Sarah Nimführ, and Patrick Bieler
    Abstract Keywords
    Malta, refugees, island, spatiality, EU border regime, identity, sociotechnical imaginaries
    Since 2002, roughly 19,000 refugees have reached Maltese shores. Both European Union law as well as national Maltese policies shape their reception and treatment. In discourse, these refugees are repeatedly represented as a threat to the social order on the island and its unique Maltese identity. Through various practices of separating refugees from non-refugee society, the societal vision of Maltese uniqueness is stabilised as a sociotechnical imaginary. Through these practices a prison spatiality experienced by refugees emerges. The emergence of this spatiality is illustrated by drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with both refugee and non-refugee institutional actors. Pointing to the relationship between the emergent spatiality and societal self-understandings connecting past, present and future visions of Maltese identity, the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries is applied in conjunction with theories of islandness. It is analysed how practices of physical separation, the impediment of social participation, legal separation and its partial suspension enact Malta as a prison for refugees and thereby stabilise a concrete vision of Maltese identity.
12. Rebounding From Extractivism: The history and re-assertion of traditional weir-fishing practices in the Interior Sea of Chiloé 10.21463/shima.13.2.12
    Ricardo Álvarez, Doina Munita, Rodrigo Mera, Ítalo Borlando, Francisco Ther-Ríos, David Núñez, Carlos Hidalgo, and Philip Hayward
    Abstract Keywords
    Fishing weirs, the Interior Sea of Chiloé, sustainable fisheries, extractivism
    This study analyses the use of traditional fishing weirs in the Interior Sea of Chiloé, in southern Chile. Although fishing weirs were in operation the time of the arrival of the first Europeans in the area in the mid-16th Century, when the indigenous Chono and Williche populations led distinctly aquapelagic lifestyles, we contend that they proliferated in subsequent centuries during the process of mestizaje (mixing) between indigenous populations and Spanish settlers and in response to the pressure exerted by population growth and associated social transformations in an insular location. Weirs remained in use until the second half of the 20th Century but have fallen into disuse in recent times due to the profound socio-productive changes resulting from modern development models favouring intense extractivism. Such developments have exacerbated socio-environmental conflicts and caused a population decline in small islands in the region. Based on our discussions of the above, we propose that the traditional insular fisheries model has allowed sustainable inhabitation of these islands; that its decline has dismantled key community assets; and that a return to socially-managed, non-extractivist fishery practices is essential for regional communities.
13. Puerto Rico: The Future In Question 10.21463/shima.13.2.13
    Adriana Garriga-López
    Abstract Keywords
    Puerto Rico, Decolonisation, Disaster, Food, Sovereignty
    This essay is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out from December 2017 to August 2019. In it, I reframe the condition of disaster that Puerto Rico faced after Hurricane Maria through a consideration of the political economy of the post-hurricane crisis. I consider the ways that Puerto Rico has become a highly active extractive zone on the periphery of US empire and the role of Maria in these transformations, including in terms of the politics of knowledge production. I investigate the notion of auto-gestión for the ways it acts as both a mode of survival within the permanent crisis, and as a quandary of decolonisation that sometimes buttresses colonial state power. I also document some of the autonomous efforts that were part of the recovery, questions that people who survived the storm continue to confront in their everyday lives, and the importance of resource sharing strategies that exist outside the commodity market. Ultimately, enacting food sovereignty within a colony is a paradox, but one that harbours transformative potential. What is transformed after Maria? What changes lie ahead? What role will small farming and climate change play? Puerto Rico’s future remains in question.

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Crimea – Almost an Island? 10.21463/shima.13.1.03
   Olga Oleinikova
   Abstract Keywords
   Crimea, peninsula, islandness, socio-cultural dimension
   Drawing on recent debates about expanded concepts of islands and of Island Studies, this article suggests that Crimea can be regarded as “almost an island” in socio- cultural, political and infra-structural terms. The article discusses Crimean historical moments and events, socio-cultural encounters and autonomies as important dimensions in the establishment of an “islandness” that extends beyond the geographical into the imaginative space. Crimean “almost-islandness” is argued to be created by a combination of the diverse marine spaces that border substantial parts of its terrain, the history of tensions and conflicts between its ethnic groups and the current historical transition from one social and political practice to another (ie the transition associated with its annexation by Russia in 2014).
4. Hyperreality in the Black Sea: Fictions of Crimea in novels by Lev Tolstoy and Vasily Aksyonov 10.21463/shima.13.1.04
   Derek C. Maus
   Abstract Keywords
   Crimea, Lev Tolstoy, Vasily Aksyonov, hyperreality, nationalism
   During and immediately after the crisis that resulted in Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, a number of commentators in the US media referenced Lev Tolstoy’s Sebastopol Sketches and Vasily Aksyonov’s The Island of Crimea as works of literary fiction that helped to explain or even predicted present-day events. Although there is some superficial truth to such statements, both works are actually far more interested in exposing and undermining processes that distorted the reality of Crimea – historical in Tolstoy’s case, speculative in Aksyonov’s – in the service of Russian nationalism. The 2014 crisis was just one of many instances in the past three centuries that involved the use of a “hyperreal” rhetoric of kinship that ostensibly binds the fates of Crimea and Russia together. Rather than simply offering a particularised political commentary on past, present, and future Crimean-Russian relations, both Tolstoy and Aksyonov used Crimea as a fictionalised setting for their critique of the folly of such cynically “imagined geographies” in general.
5. The Annexation of Crimea and Continuing Instability in the Black Sea Region: Dynamics of regional security and new challenges for the Organisation for Democracy and Economic Development (GUAM) 10.21463/shima.13.1.05
   Milana Nikolko
   Abstract Keywords
   Black Sea region, Sub-regional cooperation, security, ODED-GUAM, Russia, annexation of Crimea
   This article provides comprehensive research on sub-regional cooperation between former Soviet Union countries in the Black Sea region. Established in 1997, the Organisation for Democracy and Economic Development in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova (ODED-GUAM), united four countries in their desire to proceed with sub-regional cooperation and the ambitious goal of challenging the traditional power distribution in the region. In the first part of this article I discuss the rationale for a new sub-regional organisation and the stages of its development. From the very beginning, the ODED-GUAM prioritised democratic and economic development, where security was a secondary factor. With Russia regaining economic might and strengthening control over the region, the security challenges become a major factor of instability for all members of ODED-GUAM. Starting with Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria conflicts in early nineties, continuing with the Georgian War in 2008 and climaxing with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the region is experiencing long lasting instability with a growing number of “frozen” and ongoing conflicts.
6. Island History, not the Story of Islands: The Case of St Helena 10.21463/shima.13.1.06
   Stephen A. Royle
   Abstract Keywords
   Islands, History, St Helena, East India Company, Slavery
   This article makes distinctions between stories of islands and island history, between descriptions of individual islands and the subject matter of Island Studies. St Helena is used as the case study, not during its days on the global stage as the prison for Napoleon, but earlier, when it was a revictualing station for East India Company ships returning from the Orient. Events and stories on St Helena during this period are seen to be part of a much wider historical setting of global trade and nascent imperialism. International contestation played a role, too, with the island changing hands twice in 1673 when the Dutch conquerors were displaced by the English navy. Following recapture, the earlier attempts of the East India Company to establish a utopian society on their island were abandoned and a harsh regime imposed, which was met with sedition, mutiny and a slave rebellion. The article concludes with a discussion of the growing realisation of the significance of St Helena and other islands to the study of imperial history.
7. The Identity of the Canary Islands: A Critical Analysis of Colonial Cartography 10.21463/shima.13.1.07
   Ayoze Corujo Hernández
   Abstract Keywords
   Canary Islands, cartography, colonialism, identity, islands
   The Canary Islands is a non-sovereign archipelago that has been incorporated into the Spanish Kingdom since the 14th Century. These islands, located 100 kilometres off the northwest coast of Africa and some 1000km from the Spanish peninsular, have been subject to malleable and often distorted representations in different official maps, which have often not reflected the geographical reality of the archipelagic territory. This article investigates the extent to which aspects of colonial history, such as cartography (the spatial element), the precolonial past (the element of historical consciousness) and/or new categorisation as a "European ultraperiphery" (the rhetorical element) have affected the socio-political identity of the Canary Islands. The latter aspects have created an identity characterised by a lack of consciousness of the islands’ most obvious characteristic - of their being an (offshore) territory of the African continent. Canarian society has thereby lost its “spatial latitude” (ie an African geographical reality) in favor of a “cognitive latitude” (ie its imagination as an extension of Europe).
8. Islandscapes of the Azores and Madeira in the Art of Nuno Henrique, Maria José Cavaco and Rui Melo 10.21463/shima.13.1.08
   Ana Nolasco
   Abstract
   This article analyses a number of representations of the islandscapes of the Madeira and the Azores archipelagos. These representations highlight an aspect that is generally outside the framework of the hegemonic continental perspective of the islands: ie the fragility, uncertainty, resilience and imperfection of human existence on them and the local experience and knowledge of their inhabitants. In this study, I raise the following questions: i) in what way can representations of islandscapes contribute to an independent insular imaginary? and ii) what contribution can insular Atlantic criticism offer to the deconstruction of dominant epistemologies? I argue that the works analysed in the article share an archipelagic aesthetic (in that the deconstruction of dominant stereotypes unleashes a poetic impulse that “makes strange” what is otherwise familiar. As such, these works exercise freedom from opacity - vis-a-vis the reductive transparency of insular representation created by well-established continental cultural traditions - thereby contributing to the possibility of the coexistence of different worldviews.
9. Analysing and Producing Television Reports: A study of the Îles du Ponant that analyses how the audiovisual sector may contribute to Island Studies and Island Development 10.21463/shima.13.1.09
   Laura Corsi and Louis Brigand
   Abstract Keywords
   Television, audiovisual media, development, Îles du Ponant, methodology
   This article is based on a study conducted on the Îles du Ponant islands in western France which focused on the relationship between islands and the medium of television. Two approaches were developed. First, a large corpus of television reports was analysed. Second, two geographers produced a documentary series presenting the results of a study on the social, economic and regional dynamics of the Îles du Ponant. Our objective is not to expand on the contents of the representations of these islands which were disseminated by traditional television media or in the documentary series developed by the above-mentioned geographers. Rather, we seek to show how this approach may prove beneficial, both for island territories and for research. We will also question the role audiovisual media play in Island Studies more generally.
10. The Royal Republic of Ladonia: A Micronation built of Driftwood, Concrete and Bytes 10.21463/shima.13.1.10
    Vicente Bicudo de Castro and Ralph Kober
    Abstract Keywords
    Aislamiento, Sweden, Micronationalism, Micronations, Post-Nation, Third Places
    The Royal Republic of Ladonia, the brainchild of artist Lars Vilks, is a micronation that advocates freedom of expression, supporting art and creativity. This article outlines Ladonia as the physical territory claimed in the Kullaberg peninsula in Sweden and the online community, where the government, nobles, and citizens gather. Ladonia coexists as both a physical territory and as a large and active online community, distinguishing itself from other micronations, which are either active online communities or claim small physical territories. Using Ladonia as the context, this article extends the concept of aislamiento (insularity/islandness) to show how a micronation can have coexisting and interrelated states of aislamiento.
11. Soundtracking a Micronation: Neurobash’s engagement with Ladonia 10.21463/shima.13.1.11
    Sheila Hallerton and Matt Hill
    Abstract Keywords
    Ladonia, Neurobash, Lars Vilks, micronationalism, micronational cultures
    Ladonia, conceived and helmed by artist Lars Vilks since its inception in 1996, operates as a physical and online micronation that is particularly concerned with freedom of artistic expression. While much of the creative activity undertaken in – and in association with – Ladonia has involved sculptural work, the micronation also appointed the electronic music ensemble Neurobash as its official band in 2006-2008. This article explores the ensemble’s motivation for engaging with Vilks and his Ladonia project, the musical work created by them in association with the micronation and their subsequent distancing from Vilks’s activities. In approaching these topics, the article produces a characterisation of one of the few sustained associations between a creative ensemble and a micronation and the opportunities and issues involved in this.
12. Questioning Islands, Islanders and Insularity in the Mediterranean Longue Durée: Some views from the island of Gavdos (Crete, Greece) 10.21463/shima.13.1.12
    Katerina Kopaka
    Abstract Keywords
    Island terminologies/etymologies, small islands, comparative island studies, Island Interdisciplinary Workshop of the University of Crete
    Τhe geological history of the island topoi started in the interior of the primordial sea of our planet hundreds of millions of years ago, an immensely long time before the appearance of humans. Evidence of hominid-“islanders”, and, consequently, their age-old sea crossings, is today being traced deeper and deeper in Palaeolithic stratigraphies. Written forms of the concept of islands exist in early scripts and, with consistency, later in Homer, in ancient literature and in other accounts. Research on islands was established in the 19th and early 20th centuries in major works by authors such as Darwin and Malinowski. But, despite such initial or “proto” activity, how much has our modern synthesis of knowledge and interdisciplinary understanding of islands and islanders – and their territories and seas, identities and behaviours – progressed? What makes us keep wondering about natural and human-made material and symbolic islandscapes, and their potential similarities and distinctions from non-insular worlds? Following on from previous reflections about the work of the University of Crete’s Island Interdisciplinary Workshop that mainly derive from our archaeological and interdisciplinary study of the island of Gavdos, off the southwestern shore of Crete, I shall try to suggest a relevant methodological framework by summarising a number of insular issues in a diachronic Aegean and Mediterranean perspective.
13. – Feature Review –
    Naomi Klein’s The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists 10.21463/shima.13.1.13
    Valérie Vézina
14. – Feature Review –
    The Dark Side of Christmas: Incarceration and Alienation in Gabrielle Brady’s film Island of the Hungry Ghosts (2018) 10.21463/shima.13.1.14
    Philip Hayward

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Mermaids, Mercultures and the Aquapelagic Imaginary 10.21463/shima.12.2.03
   Philip Hayward
4. “Are Mermaids Real?” Rhetorical Discourses and the Science of Merfolk 10.21463/shima.12.2.04
   Peter Goggin
   Abstract Keywords
   Mermaids, fiction, reality, discourse, metaphor
   The question ‘are mermaids real’? would appear, on the surface, to be fairly straightforward to answer, at least for those more inclined to base belief on verifiable facts and scientific evidence of phenomena. As such, this question posed by the USA’s National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration appears to be rhetorical rather than designed to elicit an actual answer. But a deeper rhetorical analysis of the discursive boundaries that presumably exist between popular culture and scientific discourses reveals that the mermaid question is far more complicated. This article addresses and unpacks the discursive spaces of science, prediction, myth, popular culture, and metaphor and argues that the boundaries that are permeated by constructs of merfolk are far more porous then they may seem at first glance.
5. The Reay Mermaids: In the Bay and in the Press 10.21463/shima.12.2.05
   Simon Young
   Abstract Keywords
   Britain, Scotland, Caithness, Mermaids, Press
   C. 1798 and then again in 1809 a mermaid was seen at Reay on the very northern coast of Scotland. These two mermaid sightings were both described in letters in 1809 and afterwards the letters were, without the authors’ permission, printed in an Oxfordshire newspaper. The story created a national sensation in late August 1809 and the Reay mermaids became perhaps the most famous mer-folk to emerge from 19th Century Britain. In this article, I look at how the Reay mermaids were treated by the press and how the case can help us to exploit other mermaid encounters in 19th Century newspapers.
6. Melusine As Alchemical Siren In André Breton’s Arcane 17 (1945) 10.21463/shima.12.2.06
   Alex Woodcock
   Abstract Keywords
   Surrealism; André Breton, Melusine, Tarot, Rocher Percé/Percé Rock
   In 1941 the founder of the Surrealist art movement, André Breton (1896–1966), fled from France to New York. Here he met the artist Elisa Bindhoff (1906–2000) who would become his third wife. In the summer of 1944 they stayed on the Gaspé Peninsula in northeast Canada and during their three months there Breton wrote Arcane 17, an extended prose poem named after the 17th card – The Star – in the tarot’s Major Arcana. The work combined the personal with the mythical and reflected upon themes of love, loss and war, pertinent for Breton, who, like his new wife, had recently experienced profound personal misfortune. The Star symbolised hope and renewal. By associating this card with the medieval figure of the faery-siren Mélusine, Breton found an image through which he could channel his thoughts about everything from alchemy and politics to the future of humanity. In this article I explore why a 14th Century legend re-emerged in the 20th and what it offered to a broken man in the midst of global war.
7. Melusine Machine: The Metal Mermaids of Jung, Deleuze and Guattari 10.21463/shima.12.2.07
   Cecilia Inkol
   Abstract Keywords
   Jung, Deleuze, Guattari, mermaid, nixie, unconscious, technology
   This article takes the image of the feminine water spirit or mermaid as the focus of its philosophical contemplation, using her image as a map to traverse the thought- realms of Jung, Deleuze and Guattari. The feminine, watery symbol in this elaboration acts as the glue that enjoins the ideas of Jung with Deleuze and Guattari and reveals the imbrication of their ideas. Through their streams of thought, the mermaid is formulated as an emblem of technology, as a metaphor that makes reference to the unconscious and its technological involutions, her humanoid-fish form providing an image of thought or way of talking about the transformation of form, and the flitting, swimming valences at work in the unconscious.
8. Ningyo Legends, Enshrined Islands And The Animation Of An Aquapelagic Assemblage Around Biwako 10.21463/shima.12.2.08
   Juni’chiro Suwa
   Abstract Keywords
   Ningyo, ningyo no miira, Biwako, aquapelagic assemblage, sanctuary island
   Biwako is the largest lake in Japan. Its waters, islands and shores have a rich mythology due, in substantial part, to their close proximity to the ancient cities of Kyoto and Nara. This article focuses on two interlinked aspects of the region’s aquatic legends. The first concerns the presence of ningyo (folkloric fish-bodied and human headed creatures credited with human-like intelligence) around the eastern part of the lake and their interaction with human communities. In several accounts, the ningyo were caught and killed by local villagers and a number of temples have subsequently claimed to hold the mummified bodies of these creatures. Nihonshoki, an imperial chronicle from the 1720s CE, tells of a ningyo that appeared as an omen of the death of a prince and folklore relates that the same prince enshrined a mummified ningyo in a local temple before his demise. In this manner, the prince, the legendary ningyo, the preserved ningyo, local villagers and the region’s enshrining religious institutions are intertwined within the aquatic system of Biwako. Secondly, the lake is known for centuries-old sanctuary islands on which Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines have been built. These contain sacred statues and talismans and indicate the manner in which the entire domain of individual islands is an object of worship. The (supposedly preserved) ningyo artefacts of shoreline and inland temples and the enshrined islands manifest and animate the overall aquapelagic assembly of the region. I use the word “animate” to express the manner in which local ningyo legends and sacred island spaces are experienced as “real”. The preserved ningyo artefacts and islands are animated in the spatial-conceptual context of the lake as the materiality of its water generates a whole territory of mythical and contemporary landscapes.
9. When The Nereid Became Mermaid: Arnold Böcklin’s Paradigm Shift 10.21463/shima.12.2.09
   Han Tran
   Abstract Keywords
   Mermaid, Nereid, Triton, Böcklin, Olympian, Rock
   Arnold Böcklin’s untraditional depiction of the Nereid as mermaid merges two strands that classical representations of the sea creature endeavoured to keep separate and that Roman iconography yielded to the Nereid as idealised, anthropomorphic representative of the Olympian order in the treacherous realm that is the monster-breeding sea, and the erotically charged object of male attention. His intention, in his own words, was to fuse figure with setting and atmosphere, such that the Nereid was no longer simply a figure occupying the pictorial space, but embodied in her sensual shape and expression the drawing power of the sea, as well as the vertiginous suggestion of its abysmal depths. Böcklin concludes that the Nereid’s fusion with her environment leads logically to her being conceived as a mermaid, with fishtail. The sea is now no longer, as was the case in ancient iconography, a medium where the Nereid takes gentle rides on the back of always contrasting sea creatures, without ever seeming to merge with, or be affected psychologically by, their disturbing otherness, their difference from her.
10. Desiring The Shore: Adolphe Lalyre and the Sirens of Carteret 10.21463/shima.12.2.10
    Clarice M. Butkus, Christian Fleury, and Benoit Raoulx
    Abstract Keywords
    Adolphe Lalyre, Sirens/Sirènes, Normandy, Carteret
    Adolphe Lalyre was a high-profile French painter in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who has now largely fallen into obscurity. Seemingly unmoved by the series of movements in Modern Art that came to prominence during his lifetime – including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism – he persisted with a style of painting derived from Symbolism, initially favouring religious themes before moving on to a series of works representing (human-form) sirens during an extended residency at Carteret, on the coast of Normandy. The French term sirène refers to both human-form female water spirits and fish-tailed ones of the type usually referred to in English as mermaids. This article explores the aesthetic and cultural dimensions of Lalyre’s sirène paintings and discusses the pleasures and temptations they offered the viewer at an historical moment when Modernism, and Modernity more generally, was in its ascendancy. Our analysis examines Lalyre’s work within the specifically local context of Carteret and, more broadly, with late 19th and early 20th Century France, focusing on the importance of the artist and visual representations in the process of place-making and especially with regard to shifts in the meaning of sea and shore, along with the rise of the tourism industry.
11. Submerging A Fantasy: J.W. Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs 10.21463/shima.12.2.11
    Isabella Luta
    Abstract Keywords
    Mythology, Victorian Art, Sexuality, Curation, Reception Studies, Britain
    Responses to and readings of nude paintings are influenced by contemporary debates on sexual power dynamics. The temporary removal of J.W Waterhouse’s ‘Hylas and the Nymphs’ from display in Manchester Gallery in January 2018 was criticised by commentators and visitors, and framed by the curators of the event as an experiment in re- evaluating the Gallery’s collections in light of current discussions on gender and sexual exploitation. This article will examine the significance of selecting ‘Hylas and the Nymphs’ for removal, providing context of the Greek myth the painting depicts and its reception in Victorian Britain, and review the relevance of water nymph iconography and the themes of submergence in water nymph narratives in regard to curation.
12. Research Note: Lion-Ships, Sirens And Illuminated Cartography: Deploying heraldic and folkloric figures in critique of Brexit 10.21463/shima.12.2.12
    Lucy Guenot
    Abstract Keywords
    Lion-ship, Siren, Mermaid, Heraldry, Brexit, Cinque Ports
    This short research note provides an introduction to the lion-ship symbol of England’s Cinque Ports (comprising the head, forelegs and upper torso of a lion and the middle and rear section of a 13th Century turreted wooden warship) and an artist’s statement concerning my deployment of it alongside the more established figure of the (mermaid- form) siren in a recent artwork entitled ‘Brexit Wrexit’ that reflects my feelings about the United Kingdom’s 2017 vote to leave the European Union. These figures are juxtaposed over a freely rendered map of Western Europe, providing a form of illuminated cartography. Discussion of the overall work, of details from it and their inspiration point to the manner in which long-established heraldic motifs and cultural figures contain embedded meanings that can be activated in fresh contexts to illuminate current socio-political developments.
13. Syrenka Tattoos: Personal Interpretations of Warsaw’s Symbol 10.21463/shima.12.2.13
    Jacek Wasilewski and Agata Kostrzewa
    Abstract Keywords
    Mermaid, Syrenka, Warsaw, tattoos, semiotics
    The Mermaid of Warsaw — known in Polish as the Syrenka — is the principal feature of the city’s coat of arms. In recent years it has also become popular with residents as a tattoo design that has civic, community and individual significance. This article analyses a selection of Syrenka-inspired tattoos inscribed on the bodies of city residents. Although approximately 90% of the images addressed conform to the classic model of the Syrenka, with regards to the position of the figure’s sword and shield, in most other aspects the tattoos differ significantly from the one featured the coat of arms, referencing other images of the Syrenka scattered throughout the city. As such, these tattoos represent more than simple homages to the city’s emblem; they evidence a sentimental bond with the community of Warsaw and express the tattooed individuals’ commitments to and attitudes toward their metropolitan locale.
14. Enchanted Selves: Transgender Children’s Persistent use of Mermaid Imagery in Self-Portraiture 10.21463/shima.12.2.14
    Sally Campbell Galman
    Abstract Keywords
    Mermaids, Gender, Children’s Media, Transgender Children, Childhood, Girl Culture
    In recent years, there has been a surge of popular interest in the lives and experiences of transgender and gender diverse people. However, this interest has been disproportionately focused on adults and teens, on biomedical framing and persistent binarism, without paying attention to young transgender and gender diverse children’s engagement with culture, media and meaning. This article presents data from an ongoing arts-based ethnographic study of young transgender and gender-diverse children (ages 3-10) in the United States. In this study, feminine-identified transgender children repeatedly drew themselves as mermaids in self-portraits and highlighted the importance of other mermaid- related play throughout their drawings and narratives. Even very young transgirls insisted that their drawings of mermaids represented the joy of being able to be their true selves, affirmations of femininity and nascent trans pride. This article begins with a brief discussion of mermaids in Western culture and media, followed by a more in-depth focus on the applicability of the mermaid as metaphor for understanding young transgirl experience, representation and feminine credentialing.
15. “I’d Like To Be Under The Sea”: Modelling gender in Clara F Guernsey’s The Merman and the Figure-Head 10.21463/shima.12.2.15
    Marea Mitchell
    Abstract Keywords
    Mermaids, mermen, American literature, utopias, Clara F Guernsey
    The focus of Clara F Guernsey’s short novel The Merman and the Figure-head: A Christmas Story is a merman who mistakes a ship’s figurehead for a nymph. Alongside this, in sharp and humorous parallel, runs the story of the merchant who commissioned the figurehead, which is based on a local woman whom he admires and then marries. Guernsey specifically refers to a tradition of writings about the mer-world, including Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘Den lille Havfrue’ (‘The Little Mermaid’), The Arabian Nights, and Moby Dick. Funny and light-hearted, the story uses the idea of an alternative underwater world to raise questions about human love and values, and challenges 19th Century assumptions about gender and behaviour. When one old mer-professor indignantly challenges the argument that human beings are undeveloped mermen, to staunchly argue that humans are, in fact, undeveloped walruses, Guernsey wittily employs “the world under the water” to satirise its above-water counterpart. Mer-culture enables a critique of human culture.
16. “A Phallus Out Of Water”: The construction of mer-masculinity in modern day illustrations 10.21463/shima.12.2.16
    Olle Jilkén
    Abstract Keywords
    Mermen, Mermaids, Masculinity, Male Pin-ups, Male bodies, Gay gaze, Female gaze, Medialore, Folklore, Gender, Gender studies, Queer theory, Cultural studies.
    The article addresses the representation of the male equivalent of the mermaid – the merman – in contemporary western illustrations found on the Internet. The article relies on a theoretical framework of gender studies, queer theory, masculinity studies and previous studies of the mermaid including those informed by psychoanalysis and folkloric studies. The merman is examined with regard aspects of gender, sexuality, masculinity and the intertextual relation to mermaid mythology, folklore and research. The article concludes that contemporary illustrations of the merman perform a marginalised masculinity due to archetypally feminising components, such as sexual availability, exposing of erotic body parts, exoticisation and excessive beauty. The illustrations are mainly made to please a male homosexual gaze, although this is not always the case. Due to his marginalised position the merman does not oppose hegemonic conceptions of the binary gender system or the beauty ideals for the western man where whiteness, muscularity and youth are prioritised. The article counters earlier phallocentric explanations of the merman’s marginalisation and points to other feminising components, like the sensual round form of the fishtail and the merman’s close relation to nature.
17. I’s The Merb’y: Masculinity, Mermen and Contemporary Newfoundland 10.21463/shima.12.2.17
    Philip Hayward and Cory W. Thorne
    Abstract Keywords
    Mermen, merb’ys, mermaids, masculinity, Newfoundland, aquapelago
    In late 2017 initial, low-key publicity for a charity calendar featuring a range of bearded Newfoundlanders posing as mermen resulted in international media coverage that discussed and commended the non-stereotypical images produced for the project. This article situates the calendar’s imagery within the history of regional folklore concerning mermen and mermaids, the socio-cultural character of the island of Newfoundland and, in particular, the milieu of its port capital, St. John’s. Through these perspectives, the article analyses aspects of masculinity present in an island society that has experienced significant transitions in recent decades in relation to the decline of its fishery, the increasing work- related mobility of former fisherpeople, increasing ethnic diversity and immigration, and the breaking down of once strongly held attitudes of Newfoundland as being isolated, homogenous and tradition-based. In terms of Island Studies discourse, this has involved the island’s transition from being a relatively autonomous aquapelagic assemblage to an increasingly post-aquapelagic one firmly incorporated within a nation-state. Long viewed as a quintessential “folk setting”, Newfoundland is in a state of change that includes the gradual modification of regional stereotypes of masculinity. The revised images and roles presented in the calendar can be seen to represent new, more fluid definitions of masculinity appropriate for an increasingly more cosmopolitan — yet proudly unique — island society.
18. Mermaiding As A Form Of Marine Devotion: A case study of a mermaid school in Boracay, Philippines 10.21463/shima.12.2.18
    Brooke A. Porter and Michael Lück
    Abstract Keywords
    Mertourism, human-aquatic relationships, mermaids, coastal and marine tourism, Boracay, Philippines
    Mermaiding, the practice of wearing a mermaid tail and/or costume, and often swimming in costume, began in the mid-20th Century and has since grown into a global phenomenon. Despite its increasing popularity, there appears to be no research exploring mermaiding as a tourism activity. Consequently, this is the first study exploring the motivations and experiences of mermaid tourists, employing a case study approach at a mermaid school on the island of Boracay in the Philippines. Semi-structured interviews with one male and eight females, including an instructor/owner, revealed three major themes – fantasy, coastal and marine environment and the marine “other” – with a further overlapping of three core subthemes – power, beauty and hedonism. These subthemes helped explain the motivations to partake in such activities, which included being a waterperson, mythology, novelty and marine conservation. Despite a range of nationalities among the respondents (Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, United States, Philippines and Sweden), it is suggested that more extensive research on mermaiding be undertaken, especially at various locations around the globe.
19. Research Note: Thinking With Mermaids Here & Now 10.21463/shima.12.2.19
    Tara E. Pedersen
    Abstract Keywords
    Mermaid, early modern, epistemology studies, representation
    This research note offers a reflection on my 2015 monograph, Mermaids and the Production of Knowledge in Early Modern England, and examines how the mermaid allows us to explore aspects of literature and culture in Renaissance England that might feel unfamiliar to a 21st Century audience. It then places the concepts employed in the book alongside the work of 21st Century scholars and artists who engage with the mermaid, and other watery creatures, in a variety of contexts in order to offer afterthoughts on how the mermaid continues to be a useful figure to think with here and now.

1. Cover
2. Contents

Debates

3. Salmon as Symbol, Salmon as Guide: What Anadromous Fish can do for thinking about Islands, Ecosystems and the Globe 10.21463/shima.12.1.03
   Mike Evans and Lindsay Harris
   Abstract Keywords
   Assemblage theory; Island Studies; multispecies ethnography; salmon
   Studies of islands have emerged as a unique and vital focus of research over the last couple decades. Works like Hau’ofa’s 1994 ‘Our Sea of Islands’ have moved us quite systematically towards the study of islands, underlining the dynamic connectedness between terrestrial and marine environments, and between individual islands and elsewhere. By tracing the many and varied ways that salmon (and other actants) connect oceans, islands, and other land forms in an ongoing inter-species dialogue, we can move the discourse one step further, and dissolve islands into a multispecies dialogue made in movement. Such a strategy opens up some insights on the inter-connectedness of islands and others.
4. On Seriality 10.21463/shima.12.1.04
   Owe Ronström
   Abstract Keywords
   Seriality, archipelagos
   Evans and Harris’s article on salmon examines the manner in which the anadromous fish connect various marine and terrestrial locations and create assemblages between and within them. This short response piece discusses concepts of seriality pertinent to their article and suggests the potential usefulness of such concepts to Island Studies particularly with regard to its address to combinations of islands and marine spaces.

5. “With [Our] Entire Breath”: The US Military Buildup on Guåhan (Guam) and Craig Santos Perez’s Literature of Resistance 10.21463/shima.12.1.05
   Collier Nogues
   Abstract Keywords
   Guåhan (Guam), militarisation, poetry, activism, decolonisation
   Since 2006’s bilateral US-Japan pact, the island of Guåhan (Guam) has been anticipating an unprecedented buildup of US military and civilian personnel, and a commensurate increase in anti-militarisation and decolonisation activism. This essay reviews the local resistance to the buildup, and examines how the literary strategies of Chamoru poet Craig Santos Perez aim to expand the work of local activism. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s theorisation of political speech in the public sphere and on Arturo Escobar’s extension of that public space into “public cyberspheres,” I argue that [guma’], the most recent volume of Perez’s three-book project from unincorporated territory, extends the public space of appearance of Guåhan’s anti-buildup activism to include the electronic space of online social media. By incorporating the speech emerging from that virtual community into poems, Perez structures and concretises what would otherwise be ephemeral, and invites new readers far from the island of Guåhan into the stakeholding community. Perez’s poetic strategies illustrate the way literature can serve as a nexus of activism, charting a way to resist militarisation in Guåhan and beyond.
6. Samoan Ghost Stories: John Kneubuhl and Oral History 10.21463/shima.12.1.06
   Otto Heim
   Abstract Keywords
   John Kneubuhl; Samoan history; concept of the va; fale aitu
   Hailed as "the spiritual father of Pacific Island theatre" (Balme, 2007: 194), John Kneubuhl is best known as a playwright and a Hollywood scriptwriter. Less well known is that after his return to Samoa in 1968 he also devoted much of his time to the study and teaching of Polynesian culture and history. The sense of personal and cultural loss, which his plays often dramatise in stories of spirit possession, also guided his investment in oral history, in the form of extended series of radio talks and public lectures, as well as long life history interviews. Based on archival recordings of this oral history, this article considers Kneubuhl's sense of history and how it informs his most autobiographical play, Think of a Garden (1992).
7. Narrating Expiation in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean Aquapelago: The Islanding of Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio 10.21463/shima.12.1.07
   Jacqueline Dutton
   Abstract Keywords
   Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Mauritius, Islanding, Identity, Expiation, French and Francophone Literature, Indian Ocean Aquapelago
   Islands are integral to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio’s life and writing. Mauritius and the Indian Ocean aquapelago have a central importance in his work, as many scholarly studies confirm. Since receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2008, Le Clézio has foregrounded his Franco-Mauritian identity more explicitly, in both personal contexts and politico-cultural initiatives. This article examines the evolution of the author’s islanded identity, drawing on his biographical details, interviews and textual analysis of his fictional works, framed by recent developments in Island Studies theory.
8. “The Past Is Making A Comeback”: Michael Winter’s Minister Without Portfolio and the Gendered Island Culture of Newfoundland 10.21463/shima.12.1.08
   Mandy Rowsell
   Abstract Keywords
   Newfoundland, contemporary novels, masculinity, tradition
   At the beginning of the 20th Century, Americans, living in increasingly crowded spaces and industrialised centers, were looking for a replacement for the frontier, something they believed was quickly vanishing. The ‘back to nature’ movement inspired by this search subsequently arose alongside a widespread fear amongst men of losing (what they perceived to be) their traditional manhood. Significantly, a number of men looked to the rugged and isolated island of Newfoundland for the opportunity to simultaneously escape consumerism and prove their masculinity. Decades later, similar ideas have found renewal in the contemporary fiction of Newfoundland writer, Michael Winter. Winter’s most recent novel, Minister Without Portfolio (2013), depicts the island of Newfoundland as haven from modernisation, presenting the island’s isolated areas as spaces where traditional modes of masculinity can be expressed. Though Winter’s past work has been described as sophisticated, cosmopolitan fiction that rejects any caricaturising of Newfoundland as solely rural, or in any way provincial, Winter’s most recent novel conversely celebrates traditional elements of the island’s culture. This celebration is ultimately significant for its connection to the elevation of prescriptive gender roles.
9. Understanding Island Spatiality Through Co-visibility: The construction of islands as legible territories – a case study of the Azores 10.21463/shima.12.1.09
   Celina Vale
   Abstract Keywords
   Azores, co-visibility, island spatiality, terraquée, territorial legibility
   This article explores how the island territory of the Azores (Portugal) emerges and is spatially defined in two cultural texts: Raul Brandão’s As Ilhas Desconhecidas (whose title translates as ‘Unknown Islands’) and Vitorino Nemésio’s Mau Tempo no Canal (published in English language translation as Stormy Isles: An Azorean Tale) and uses them to identify interpretative elements of the island experience. By categorising key island spatialities and sensory inputs, I propose the relationship between the observer and island space and assert that these spatialities converge to form a territory composed of water and land, synthesised via the concept of terraquée, and confirm the existence of an aggregate Azorean island spatiality, which is rooted in co-visibility.
10. Spirits Of Tsureshima: Creative Storytelling with Islanders 10.21463/shima.12.1.10
    James Jack
    Abstract Keywords
    Art, Storytelling, Okinawa, Sea, Spirits
    Folk songs in Okinawa include chants about belief in female spirits returning from the eastern sea. Artists working creatively with islanders convey these spirits in creative ways. This article focuses on islands on the Pacific side of Okinawa, where historical ports facilitate maritime exchange. Rituals were regularly performed on these islands at the entrance to the Nakagusuku Bay by priestesses to protect the community and the Ryūkyū Kingdom. Prohibitions against local rituals were imposed on the Okinawan islands starting in the 17th Century and depopulation is currently threatening the transmission of priestesses’ rituals to the next generation. However, islanders’ resilience has kept spirits alive while artists who work intimately with residents tell stories through creative media. Together with islanders the author created the artwork Sea Birth (2017) composed of stories of interconnection between islands that are often seen separately. For example, the author engaged with residents of Tsuken and Kudaka islands, which were historically Tsureshima, a term that refers to the islands in company. Through artworks such as this, spirits of interconnectivity at risk of disappearing are kept alive and passed along to others. Creative storytelling is a method of empowering island communities to form alternative visions for the future in ways that resist the homogeneity of dominant cultures.
11. The Pursuit Of Insular Authenticity: The Spelling Reform of Loanwords in Palauan 10.21463/shima.12.1.11
    Keisuke Imamura
    Abstract Keywords
    Loanwords, Orthography, Palauan, Language change, Insular authenticity
    From the late 19th to the late 20th Century the language situation in Palau underwent dramatic changes due to continual foreign rule. Twenty years after its independence, the Palauan government and traditional leaders are seeking to bolster the Palauan language in order to establish a firm national identity. The Palau Language Commission was officially launched by the government in 2009 for vitalisation purposes, and as a part of the endeavour, is now working to make a loanword dictionary by which it officially recognises loanwords that are commonly used as a part of Palauan language. In the process of this work, the spelling of loanwords has been reconsidered and reformed for more ‘authentic’ spellings. This spelling reform has some internal disagreement and incoherency due to conflicting positions of various Palauan people. This paper analyses the ongoing loanword spelling reform process as a pursuit for linguistic authenticity that contributes to the reinforcement of national identity.
12. Tourism and Emerging Island Economies: An understanding of stakeholder perspectives in Timor-Leste 10.21463/shima.12.1.12
    Sara Currie
    Abstract Keywords
    Timor-Leste, tourism, stakeholders, tourism planning, government planning, small island nations
    This article analyses the potential for tourism development in the young island nation of Timor-Leste, arguing that tourism could provide an important source of economic revenue, employment and cultural exchange. However, tourism can be a ‘double-edged sword’ and its successes are not always guaranteed. This article identifies that while Timor-Leste’s stakeholders wholeheartedly support tourism, they have concerns about its development, preferring a community-based or ‘pro-poor’ model. Further, tourism decision-making in Timor-Leste is centralised and current government action does not align with tourism planning or stakeholder wishes. To date there has been limited research on community support for tourism in small-island developing economies; this article, therefore, provides a timely addition to the literature.
13. The Principality Of Hutt River: A Territory Marooned in the Western Australian Outback 10.21463/shima.12.1.13
    Vicente Bicudo de Castro and Ralph Kober
    Abstract Keywords
    Aislamiento, Hutt River Province, Islandness, Micronations, Western Australia.
    This article recounts the story of Hutt River Province, later established as the Principality of Hutt River (PHR), under the administration of Leonard George Casley (1970-2017). We highlight the international relations of the principality, its reliance on tourism, and its relationship with Australian taxation authorities. Casley created his own principality within the Western Australian outback and gladly marooned himself in his very own creation. We thus extend the notion of aislamiento to remote geographically isolated environments, illustrating the deeply social and political nature of aislamiento.

Feature Review

14. Secessionism, Submergence and Site-Responsive Art: The Embassy of the Commonwealth of New Bayswater at the 1st Fremantle Biennale 10.21463/shima.12.1.14
    Philip Hayward
    Abstract Keywords
    Secession, Micronationalism, Site-Responsive Art, Submergence, Western Australia, New Bayswater, Rottnest Island
    Assertions of territorial and, particularly, micronational secession have often been highly performative and/or rhetorical. In this regard, they closely parallel aspects of conceptual, performance and installation art practice. It is unsurprising then that a number of prominent micronations have been formed by artists in response to local issues and/or as components of broader artistic projects. The Embassy of the Commonwealth of New Bayswater, created by Perth artist Jessee Lee Johns for the inaugural Fremantle Biennale in 2017, is a prime example of site-responsive art’s ability to provide illuminating representations of key issues in local discourse. The installation merits sustained consideration in this journal due to its intersection with recent debates concerning micronationality in the form of its wry engagement with aspects of Western Australian secessionist politics. Its other significant aspect is its address to issues of sea level rise, encroachment and submergence – a phenomenon whose impacts are likely to over-ride the viability of many low-lying territories let alone any secessionist pretensions individuals or communities inhabiting them may have.

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Island Music and Performance Cultures 10.21463/shima.11.2.03
   Philip Hayward and Junko Konishi
4. Becoming Island: The Aquapelagic Assemblage of Benten-sai Festivals on Sakurajima, in Sai Village, northern Japan 10.21463/shima.11.2.04
   Jun'ichiro Suwa
   Abstract Keywords
   Benten-sai, Benzaiten, Sai, aquapelagic assemblage
   In the maritime districts of Sai village, on Shimokita Peninsula in the far north of Japan’s Honshu island, annual one-day festivals called Benten-sai are held to worship Benzaiten, the Hindu-Buddhist-Shintō goddess deeply associated with islands in Japan. In Yagoshi District, an uninhibited rocky islet named Sakurajima serves as the sacred domain for Benzaiten on a set day each year when a flotilla of boats arrives, a local folk dance is performed and ceremonial food and drink is consumed. During the ritual, the barren rock becomes an island by means of performance and the residents who conduct it also become part of an aquapelagic assemblage as the flotilla parades in traditional fishing waters, extending the space of the island into the sea. As a consequence, the performance, the goddess and the island become each other as (and in) an aquapelagic assemblage.
5. Song Monuments in Okinawa: Intersections of Sound, Place and Memory 10.21463/shima.11.2.05
   Matt Gillan
   Abstract Keywords
   Okinawa; Place; Folksong; Musical topography; Ryukyu; Musical pilgrimage
   Okinawa has one of Japan’s most thriving traditional music cultures, and songs are an important way that Okinawans understand and construct their island community. Most Okinawan songs have strong regional connections within Okinawa, either through lyrics that sing of local topography, events, or people, or because the melody is believed to have originated in a particular village. From the mid-20th Century on, many villages began constructing ‘song monuments’ (Japanese kahi) commemorating songs, composers, or lyrics, in order to create a tangible focus for what was essentially an intangible cultural entity. These monuments usually involve a substantial financial investment, either from local government or private donations, and are often placed in prominent spatial positions within the village. These song monuments are extremely popular among Okinawan music aficionados, and several guidebooks have been published to guide people to these sites. In recent years, bus tours have been organised to transport groups of aficionados en masse to these sites, and since 2015, a Facebook page has enabled the sharing of photographs and information relating to song monuments. The song monument phenomenon is particularly interesting for the way that it acts as a site for the simultaneous construction of connections between sound (the songs that performers sing), geographical space (the locations to which songs are connected) and community (the interpersonal links that are formed as people engage with song monuments). In this article I draw on my own experience visiting song monuments as part of the Okinawan music community, in order to analyse their social importance in modern Okinawa. I consider the song monument phenomenon in the context of domestic tourism, as well as a widespread culture of pilgrimage in Japan.
6. North Meets South: Eisā and the Wrapping of Identity on Okinoerabu Island, Japan 10.21463/shima.11.2.06
   Henry Johnson and Sueo Kuwahara
   Abstract Keywords
   Amami, Eisā, Identity, Okinawa, Okinoerabu
   The small island of Okinoerabu in the Nansei archipelago to the southwest of Japan is located at a crossroads of sub-national cultural flows and exhibits a distinct cultural emblem of island identity in the form of a prominent performing art called eisā. This performance style, which combines drumming, choreography and live or recorded music, has its roots in Okinawa prefecture (to the southwest of Okinoerabu), where its function has moved predominantly from a religious ritual context to everyday entertainment, and nowadays signifies regional, cultural and island identity across several cultural spheres. This article offers a musical history and ethnography of eisā on Okinoerabu in terms of the layers of cultural association that are wrapped in its discourse and practice. The authors show how inter- and intra-island cultural flows, adoption, localisation and transformation help define Okinoerabu identity through eisā, which is often expressed on the island in terms of transregional identity.
7. Musical Performances in the Hebridean Experience Economy 10.21463/shima.11.2.07
   Sarah R. MacKinnon
   Abstract Keywords
   Experience Economy, Tourism, Outer Hebrides, Archipelago, Music
   In a world of increasingly undifferentiated goods and services experiences are said to be the next source of value-adding economic opportunity. Experiences differ from all other economic offerings by being inherently embodied and personalised and the experiences that can attach the most value will be those that are the most engaging and transformative. The experiential and transformational nature of tourism, and particularly island tourism, leads it to be a potential growth sector within an Experience Economy. This article explores how islanders within the Outer Hebrides of Scotland are (co-)creating engaging experiences through music performances in the form of festivals, ceilidhs, and bar sessions to increase tourism spend. This bottom-up approach to socio-economic development is novel in this context as musical performances in the Outer Hebrides have long been tied to the Gaelic language and culture. However, until recently they have not been considered a consumable economic offering. This article explores how using the lens of the Experience Economy offers new insights for islanders to generate tourism spend on their own terms.
8. A Theory of Vibe: Ecomusicologies on Hornby Island 10.21463/shima.11.2.08
   Andrew Mark
   Abstract Keywords
   ecomusicology, sociomusicology, musicking, vibe, participatory discrepancies, Hornby Island
   This article offers ways of considering the relationship between musicking, community, and place that arose from research with residents of Hornby Island, British Columbia. I advance a theory of vibe that captures how Hornby Islanders understand the role of musicking in their society and its importance for community solidarity, and I offer practical examples of this theory in action. Throughout the article, I discuss the relationship between Islanders’ ideas, Charles Keil’s theory of participatory discrepancies and my conclusions.
9. Buai: “There is Good and Bad There” — Experiencing and narrating the spiritual power of music and dance in the New Guinea Island Region 10.21463/shima.11.2.09
   Paul Wolffram
   Abstract Keywords
   Papua New Guinea, Sorcery, Lak, New Ireland, Buai
   Buai is a form of sorcery known throughout the New Guinea Island region of Papua New Guinea. This socially sanctioned form of magical practice is predominantly used for creative ends, particularly the conjuring of music and dance material. In many parts of New Ireland and among the Lak people of Southern New Ireland, Buai is relied upon to deliver new songs and dances for community celebrations and ritual performance. The practitioners of Buai, known as tena Buai, are revered for their creative powers and occasionally feared for their potential to use their power for destructive ends. Through a combination of personal experience and conversations with tena Buai of Southern New Ireland, this article explores the ways in which tena Buai are perceived by their communities. In this article I take up the idea that social practices, actions and understandings such as those of the Buai practice are intersubjectively constituted through narrative as well as practice and therefore in a constant state of change, flux and negotiation.
10. Only in Mentawai: Unique Primate Vocalisations and Songs in an Isolated Indonesian Island Group 10.21463/shima.11.2.10
    Linda Burman-Hall
    Abstract Keywords
    Mentawai, (Si)Kerei, Songs, Primates, Bilou
    Biogeographical isolation has produced a unique rainforest biome and indigenous culture in Mentawai. While its huge surf is famous worldwide, Mentawai’s ecology and peoples remain comparatively unstudied. Alhough Mentawai evolved almost as many endemics as the Galápagos, its hunter-horticulturalists are surprisingly unrelated to Sumatran peoples. This study explores gibbon vocalisations and traditional animist beliefs and songs about gibbons and other primates in Mentawai’s three southern islands and makes a case to document and preserve this intangible cultural heritage. The most important of Mentawai's six endemic primates is the Kloss’s gibbon (Hylobates klossii, locally called bilou), a small, black, monogamous, singing ape. The bilou plays a significant role in the traditional animist cosmology of Mentawai: simultaneously considered a changeling human, a rainforest spiritual guardian and a resource for shamanic healing, at times the bilou spirit can also be an evil trickster or harbinger of death. Deep in the rainforests, mated female bilou sing solo or “duet” melodiously with each other along mutual territorial boundaries. While deforestation and modern hunting endanger all Mentawai primates, humans still imitate the bilou, and elderly (Si)Kerei (shaman) again can perform the endangered animist heritage of bilou songs.
11. Unstable Pitch In The Rainforest And The Mimesis Of Music: The articulation of audio technology and musical techniques in the bamboo panpipes of ’Are’are, Solomon Islands 10.21463/shima.11.2.11
    Hidenori Samoto
    Abstract Keywords
    Musical techniques, Audio technology, Solomon Islands, Bamboo panpipes
    The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how musicians in the Solomon Islands accepted an audio technology ― the electronic tuner ― and how it influenced their musical activities. Through an ethnographic case study of how indigenous musicians thought and managed the materiality of their musical instruments, I show that they regarded the audio technology as a symbol of a global standard of music in contrast to the elastic materiality of their bamboo instruments. While the process may be understood as a standardisation of indigenous music that involved the musicians adopting a rationalistic or modernistic way of thinking, I argue that we also can interpret the phenomenon as reflecting a continuity between the audio technology and the magical significance they assigned to their indigenous instrumental music. In the conclusion, I discuss how we might describe and analyse the hybridisation of indigenous musical technique and audio technology.
12. Interpreting Shima Through Song: Whaling songs in the islands of Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan 10.21463/shima.11.2.12
    Felicity Greenland
    Abstract Keywords
    Japan, Nagasaki Prefecture, whaling, folksong, island, heritage
    In the south of Japan, 5 of the many islands in Nagasaki Prefecture are home to 27 traditional Japanese whaling songs. Mapping and thematic analysis of these songs in relation to the broader nationwide corpus of folksongs in general, and whaling songs in particular, reveals the importance, geographical spheres and character of the islands of Nagasaki Prefecture within Japanese whaling heritage as a whole. Relative to the rest of Japan, the islands have an abundance of whaling songs. These songs show signs of connectedness, having certain elements in common with (non-whaling) folksongs across the country and also have other elements in common with the songs of other whaling communities. Furthermore, a small number of unique elements are signs of local distinctions. Perhaps most significantly, the majority of themes present in the national corpus are also found in the Nagasaki Prefecture island songs, thus casting islands as an invaluable repository for this aspect of culture. In the Nagasaki case, islandness spawned a high density of whaling communities historically. More recently, the drive to nurture local and national culture has been faceted by differentiated contributions from these multiple communities. As a result, this study finds that small islands are not merely convenient units for research but that they play a central role in the holding of broader cultural phenomena.
13. Myth-Making Through Music: The “lost songs” of St Kilda 10.21463/shima.11.2.13
    Sarah R. MacKinnon and Michael Hannan
    Abstract Keywords
    St Kilda, music, mythscape, islomania, thanatourism, mediascape
    The Lost Songs of St Kilda is an album of piano pieces reportedly taught to a Scottish mainlander by a St Kildan music teacher. The album comprises of piano recordings, performed by the mainlander, Trevor Morrison, together with orchestral arrangements of the pieces and was released in September 2016. It reached the top of the British classical music chart shortly after and became the fastest selling posthumously released debut album in British chart history. This paper explores how a contemporary recording of songs reportedly from St Kilda has captured the British fascination with a “remote” place and a “lost” island society in a manner that represents what might be termed “thana-islomania”. The article will suggest that the contemporary recordings and the packaging of the album act in concert to create emotional geographies of St Kilda that are constructed in a mythical place-time, a “mythscape”.
14. Maracatu Nação Noronha: Embodied cultural practice and its sustainability on an isolated Brazilian island 10.21463/shima.11.2.14
    Jon Fitzgerald, Philip Hayward, and Arianne Reis
    Abstract Keywords
    Fernando de Noronha, maracatu, Maracatu Nação Noronha, tourism, cultural sustainability
    Fernando de Noronha is situated approximately 430 km from the northeast coast of Brazil, and is the only populated island within a UNESCO World Heritage-listed archipelago of the same name. This article focusses on the contemporary maracatu ensemble based on the island, Maracatu Nação Noronha, and its significance within the local community. Maracatu is a distinctive northeast Brazilian performance genre with historical links to Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion that blends the African practice of worshipping multiple orixás (spirits) with the Catholic practice of worshipping multiple saints. Maracatu has a long history of grassroots performative traditions and is closely connected to Brazilian carnaval. Maracatu ensembles typically include percussionists, singers, dancing orixás and characters representing members of the court within African crowning ceremonies held during the era of slavery. The article examines the development of Maracatu Nação Noronha since 2002, with a particular focus on music, movement and dance. It explores links between Maracatu Nação Noronha’s activities and the historical development of maracatu, and examines how the group has adapted to the island’s socio- cultural environment in the process of connecting with, and educating, local and tourist audiences. It discusses the significance and sustainability of embodied practices and cultural identity development and creation in the context of a small island whose community is still significantly rooted on mainland practices. The article draws on field trips by the authors in 2012 and 2014, as well as interviews with local residents heavily involved with establishment and maintenance of island maracatu.
15. Puerto Rico: The Quest for a “National” Anthem 10.21463/shima.11.2.15
    Valérie Vézina
    Abstract Keywords
    Nationalism, islandness, symbols, national anthem(s), Puerto Rico
    Since the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Puerto Rico has been under the control of the United States. As an unincorporated territory of the United States, Puerto Rico has a separate identity that manifests itself in various ways. One of the most evident ones is through language, Spanish being the lingua franca for more than 90% of Puerto Ricans. But its nationalist stance is also found in symbols, such as its anthem. Although Puerto Rico adopted an official anthem in 1952, there has been a continuing quest for one that truly expresses the territory. The ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ is sometimes played but there is a more interesting story regarding ‘La Borinqueña’, the official anthem of Puerto Rico. Two opposing versions of this anthem exist. What is the story behind them? What is the meaning of each of those versions? Which version is the official version? This paper will address those questions and link them to the particular political status of Puerto Rico.
16. Musical Boundaries: The Making of Traditional Newfoundland Music(ians) 10.21463/shima.11.2.16
    Samantha Breslin
    Abstract Keywords
    Newfoundland, music, tradition, authenticity, professionalism
    This article explores the boundaries that are constructed around traditional Newfoundland music and musicianship, focusing on the relationships among place, tradition, and history. Drawing primarily on ethnographic fieldwork conducted during the summer of 2009, I explore how some musicians trace historical and place-based connections based on their experiences playing Newfoundland music on the Island and with particular people. In doing so, these musicians draw on concepts of tradition, and ‘emotional’ and ‘historical’ authenticity, to connect certain tunes or settings, and styles of playing to the history and culture of Newfoundland, constructing the “Newfoundlandness” of traditional Newfoundland music. These practices dovetail with the professionalisation of traditional musicianship and provide a means for some to assert their status and authority as traditional Newfoundland musicians. While musicians have varying conceptions about Newfoundland and its music, the connections made among music, place, and history by some musicians work to delimit the boundaries around which music and musicians ‘belong’ to Newfoundland.

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2. Contents

Responses and Debates

3. Remembering the Islands: Some responses to Shima’s special issue on Submergence 10.21463/shima.11.1.03
   Ilan Kelman
   Abstract Keywords
   submergence, islands, memory
   Shima’s special issue on the theme of submergence (v10 n1) approached the topic from a range of disciplinary positions using a variety of islands, covering classic myths and legends, fiction, entertainment, and music. This short response develops several themes running through the issue, focusing on memory and exploring imaginations relevant to understanding the significance of island submergence and (re)emergence.
4. Islandness, Inundation and Resurrection: A mythology of Sea/Land relationships in Mont Saint-Michel Bay 10.21463/shima.11.1.04
   Christian Fleury and Benoît Raoulx
   Abstract Keywords
   Mont Saint-Michael Bay, Scissy Forest, submergence, islandness
   Mont Saint-Michel Bay is located in a coastal area with a high tidal range that has resulted in a varied and complex history of inundation and of its opposite, “de- islanding”. This article explores the mythologisation of the location and its history and identifies recent efforts to ensure that its islandness is re-established and re-affirmed as a local and national asset.
5. Observations on the Concept of the Aquapelago Occasioned by Researching the Maldives 10.21463/shima.11.1.05
   Lindsay Bremner
   Abstract Keywords
   aquapelago, performativity, amphibious history, the Maldives
   In my recent work on the Maldives (Bremner, 2016), I drew on Hayward’s notion of the aquapelago (Hayward 2012a, 2012b) to theorise the Maldives and to develop a new metageographical concept for architecture in today’s globalised world. In this short contribution to Shima debates, I will highlight my observations on the Maldives and the concept of the aquapelago occasioned by this work.
6. Why Island Feminism? 10.21463/shima.11.1.06
   Marina Karides
   Abstract Keywords
   Feminism, Island Studies, Intersectionality, Queer Theory
   Island Studies literature rarely has engaged with feminism or queer theory to explore how gender and sexuality, as it intersects with other social forces, contour the lives of islanders and the cultural and socio-economic conditions of islands. Concurrently, feminist and queer research on islands and of islanders analyse social inequalities, sexuality, and coloniality without deliberating islandness and Island Studies research. Island feminism is offered as a synergistic perspective to enable critical analysis of the social inequalities and sexuality regimes within and across islands and the varied gendered strategies for maintaining island livelihoods and preserving island topologies.

Sustainability and Island Tourism

7. Tourism and Islandscapes: Cultural realignment, social-ecological resilience and change 10.21463/shima.11.1.07
   Joseph M. Cheer, Stroma Cole, Keir J. Reeves, and Kumi Kato
   Abstract Keywords
   Social-ecological resilience, cultural realignment, fast change, slow change
   If, as according to Robin (2015: online), “islands are idealised ecological worlds, the Edens of a fallen planet”, the rationale underpinning tourism expansion should acknowledge MacLeod’s (2013) notion of “cultural realignment” that calls for optimal and resilient encounters. This introductory article to the subsequent theme section of the journal on sustainable tourism acts as a bridge toward the development of emergent themes that describe how island peoples adapt and respond in localised cultural islandscapes as a consequence of tourism expansion. The links between cultural alignment and social-ecological resilience are clear and the principal and overarching question posed in this introductory article is: To what extent are islandscapes resilient to rapidly changing utilities, significances and ways of life wrought by tourism expansion? The vulnerability- resilience duality remains firmly entrenched in the discourse on islands where tourism has become prominent, and although tourism provides some resiliency, overall, islandscapes remain subject to externally driven fast and slow change that exercises an overwhelming influence. Islander agency will likely remain subject to the fluctuations in the demands of the tourism supply chain. Therefore, tourism as a standalone focus of islands is a high-risk proposition, especially in contexts where externally driven change is likely to intensify.
8. Cultural Tourism in the French Pacific 10.21463/shima.11.1.08
   Anne-Marie d'Hauteserre
   Abstract Keywords
   Indigenous Pacific island cultures, cultural tourism, sustainable community based development, French Pacific
   History, authenticity, local culture and leisure offerings are now considered assets in local tourism development. Using a qualitative methodology, I will examine whether cultural tourism can transform the French Pacific into a sought-out tourist destination that benefits the local economy. Re-identifying the French Pacific as a cultural destination might galvanise all its stakeholders (including government agencies) to cooperate so the destination responds better to visitor expectations of the expression of indigenous culture in its localities. It would require hybrid strategies in the sense that customary practices would be commoditised. Commodification of culture raises a number of problems as it caters to fabricated needs (to fit with visitors’ habitus) in order to provide the ultimate desirable experience – given that tropical island destinations are ultimately totally substitutable for tourists from developed countries. French Pacific societies have already woven multiple global links and networks, proving their resilience; can they now offer optimal and enriching encounters for both visitors and residents?
9. Re-Imaging Pitcairn Island: Examining dualities of conflict and collaboration between island/metropole through Tourism 10.21463/shima.11.1.09
   Maria Amoamo
   Abstract Keywords
   Pitcairn, colonialism, conflict, collaboration, tourism
   Islands have been described in terms of their ‘nervous duality’. This statement aptly describes Pitcairn Island, the last remaining British Overseas Territory and smallest jurisdiction in the Pacific. By its very existence as ‘colonial confetti’ Pitcairn denotes the concept of cultural realignment as it relates to relationships of power. Geographically isolated, accessible only by sea and with a population of less than fifty, Pitcairn is famous as the refuge of Bounty mutineers and Polynesians who settled the island in 1790. But Pitcairn’s more contemporary notoriety stems from ‘Operation Unique’, the United Kingdom’s investigation of sexual abuse against women and subsequent trials held on the island in 2004. The court case became a battle over the island’s way of life and a contested case of imperial domination over a tiny, vulnerable community. The trials were a critical point of (dis)juncture that threatened permanence of island place, while global media negatively branded Pitcairn as an island dystopia. The latter has prompted this article’s examination of current plans to grow tourism and attract new immigrants to Pitcairn. As a tool of analysis cultural realignment facilitates an understanding of the dynamics leading to community resilience, the restoration and re-imaging of island place/space, and the changing significances of Pitcairn’s socio- political and cultural landscape.
10. Rural Authenticity and Agency on a Cold-Water Island: Perspectives of contemporary craft-artists on Bornholm, Denmark 10.21463/shima.11.1.10
    Solène Prince
    Abstract Keywords
    Craft-art, Bornholm, rural tourism, authenticity, agency, social capital, countryside
    Bornholm, Denmark is a small, cold-water island home to a cluster of craft- artists whose practices and ambitions contribute to the idyllic rural image of the island. These craft-artists formed an association in the wake of rural tourism development and its process of commercialisation to preserve values of professionalism, quality and rural authenticity in their crafts. This article discusses how the high standards of quality in their association gives them agency to define their interactions with tourists in a way to simultaneously preserve their artistic integrity and make profit from their industry. These actors thereby harness tourism to their advantage, contributing to the redefinition of their island’s rural authenticity. During two periods of fieldwork on Bornholm, 19 local craft- artists were interviewed and participant observations were carried out. This article provides insight into aspects of perceived spatial identity and agency in the context of cold-water islands with rural landscapes.
11. Tourist Initiatives and Extreme Wilderness in the Nakanai Mountains of New Britain 10.21463/shima.11.1.11
    Jennifer Gabriel, Colin Filer, Michael Wood, and Simon Foale
    Abstract Keywords
    Tourism, wilderness, landscape, Nakanai Mountains, Papua New Guinea
    In 2013, the Government of Papua New Guinea identified East New Britain as the country’s tourism centre. Tourism operators in the provincial capital welcomed the government’s plan, but warned that poor infrastructure and the country’s bad image overseas could prevent it from reaping the benefits of ‘huge’ tourism potential. Landowners in the Tentative World Heritage area of the Nakanai Mountains are keen to tap into the perceived potential of tourism development and are creatively monetising their rugged environment in the hope of attracting tourists for adventure tourism. The development of adventure tourism initiatives tap into notions of wild and rugged landscapes, combined with Western fantasies involving travel to dangerous places (mountains, jungles, caves, cascading rivers). We argue that, unless local communities are able to effectively exercise power and control over tourism ventures, the desire to proclaim ecotourism as the ideal alternative form of development risks subsuming local communities and their livelihoods into a future defined primarily by outsiders.
12. Projects and Effects: The past, present and future of the Island of Nueva Tabarca (Alicante, Spain) 10.21463/shima.11.1.12
    Rosario Navalón-Garcia
    Abstract Keywords
    Tourism, heritage, projects, management, sustainability
    Nueva Tabarca island is significant for the fields of Geography and Territorial Planning due to the changes that have occurred in its urban and social fabric and terrestrial and marine environment over the last three hundred years. Its most remarkable aspect has been the manner in which imposed urban projects have modified its form and function. From the construction of a planned utopian city to the tourist boom and urban speculation of the late 20th Century, the island has been a testing ground in which residents have had to adapt to the changing conditions, reflecting successive trends in the region economic development.

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction — Submergence: A special issue on Atlantis and related mythologies 10.21463/shima.10.2.03
   Helen Dawson and Philip Hayward
4. The Atlantis Story: An authentic oral tradition? 10.21463/shima.10.2.04
   Oliver D. Smith
   Abstract Keywords
   Atlantis, Solon, Egypt, Oral Tradition, Plato
   The story of Atlantis appears in Plato’s Timaeus-Critias (c. 355 BCE) as an oral tradition Solon acquired in Egypt and adapted into an epic poem, but which he left unfinished. Nevertheless, Solon told the story to his family relative Dropides, who passed it orally to his son (Critias the elder), who in turn told it to his grandson (Critias the younger). Either this oral transmission actually took place, or Plato was the fabricator. If the latter, the entire tradition (including the island of Atlantis) is likely to be fiction. This article shows there is a lack of evidence for the Atlantis story being an authentic oral tradition and highlights problems with the transmission. Supposing oral retellings of the tradition did take place, it is seemingly impossible to distinguish fact from fiction in the story since the tale of Atlantis must have been garbled as it was retold over generations; reciting a tradition by word of mouth is unreliable.
5. Operation Atlantis: A case-study in libertarian island micronationality 10.21463/shima.10.2.05
   Isabelle Simpson
   Abstract Keywords
   Operation Atlantis, micronations, seasteading, libertarianism
   This article discusses Operation Atlantis, a project by a millionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Werner K. Stiefel, to build a libertarian micronation off the coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It reviews the history and motivations behind Operation Atlantis and discusses how it relates to contemporary libertarian new-nation ventures. Operation Atlantis developed in parallel to ‘back-to-the-land’ communities, which used small-scale technology to return to a ‘natural’ state through simplicity and self-sufficiency. But the main influence on Stiefel’s project was Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (1957), a novel inscribed with her Objectivist philosophy that tells the story of a group of millionaire industrialists who find refuge in a hidden community, Galt’s Gulch, also referred to as Atlantis. Interestingly, in recent years, a number of new offshore micronational projects sharing common influences and purposes and, in their own way, reviving the legacy of Operation Atlantis, have been launched in the United States. The Seasteading Institute is a non-profit working to build floating island nations. Designed as a ‘post-political’ manufactured space, Stiefel’s Operation Atlantis and seasteading borrow aspects of the cruise ship. To better understand the motivations behind Operation Atlantis and similar projects and to situate them within Island Studies, it is helpful to adopt Hayward’s concept of aquapelagos and uncover the disconnection between libertarian offshore micronations and the aquatic environment they intend to occupy.
6. Stargate Atlantis: Islandness in the Pegasus Galaxy 10.21463/shima.10.2.06
   Sarah R. MacKinnon
   Abstract Keywords
   Atlantis, island, islandness, aquapelagic assemblage, science fiction, Stargate
   This paper explores how ‘islandness’ is constructed within the science fiction television program, Stargate Atlantis. While fictional, considering the Atlantis of Stargate offers the opportunity to examine what islandness may be like outside the physical, technical and social parameters of Earth; and to this end this paper offers three insights. Firstly, this paper proposes that even in a distant galaxy, and on an island that is arguably not really an island, several familiar features of ‘islandness’ can be found in places entirely surrounded by water. Secondly, the sea surrounding Atlantis plays an important role in the survival of the city yet remains mostly unexplored by the Earth expedition team, echoing Earthly island scholarship that calls for greater understanding of the maritime aspects of islands. Thirdly, Atlantis is a mobile city-ship and its islandness shifts and transforms to the point of refutability but this paper argues that it resembles an aquapelagic assemblage despite its extraterrestrial capabilities.
7. Chart Mythos: The JAMs’ and The KLF’s Invocation of Mu 10.21463/shima.10.2.07
   Jon Fitzgerald and Philip Hayward
   Abstract Keywords
   Mu, Atlantis, Illuminatus trilogy, The JAMs, The KLF
   The JAMs and The KLF, two overlapping popular music ensembles led by British multi-media performers Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, were notable for both the success they had with a batch of singles in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the complex mythology they constructed and celebrated in song lyrics, music videos, press releases and short films. Key to their mythological project was their association with the fictional lost island-continent of Mu (with the band name JAMs being an abbreviation for ‘Justified Ancients of Mu Mu’). The latter identity was derived from Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus trilogy of novels in which the aforementioned “ancients” were a secret brotherhood involved in combatting the rival Illuminati, who originated in Atlantis. As the JAMS’ and KLF’s oeuvres progressed, aspects of Mu and Atlantis were synthesised by Cauty and Drummond with elements of other actual and fictional islands. The article traces the initial imagination and representation of Mu in esoteric crypto-historical literature, its rearticulation in Shea and Wilson’s counter-cultural novels and its invocation and function in Cauty and Drummond’s work with The JAMs and The KLF.
8. Deep Sea Dwellers: Drexciya and the Sonic Third Space 10.21463/shima.10.2.08
   Nettrice R. Gaskins
   Abstract Keywords
   Drexciya, Black Atlantic, Middle Passage, electronic music, third space
   This article addresses the complex conceptual framework of Drexciya, an electronic music duo from Detroit who established an origin myth based on the Middle Passage, the route for ships carrying enslaved African people from one geographical location to another across the Atlantic Ocean. Whereas the origin myth of Plato’s Atlantis ends in a permanent submersion into the sea, the world of Drexciya begins with the creation of an underwater country populated by the unborn children of pregnant African women thrown off of slave ships. Drexciya exists as a sonic third space characterised by embedded myths, the construction of culture and the invention of tradition. I will highlight the development of this sonic fiction that spans several decades, influencing many artists, musicians and scholars, by focusing on the Drexciyan concept of an intercultural, transnational network that shows the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from their homeland, and newly created spaces that transform identities and cultures. This article draws on obscure artist interviews and well-known sources about Drexciya, including essays by Kodwo Eshun and Ben Williams, while advancing the notion of non-physical, sonic islands that sit in spaces between the island and the ocean.
9. Azealia Banks, Seapunk And Atlantis: An Embattled Humanist Mixtape 10.21463/shima.10.2.09
   Justin D Burton
   Abstract Keywords
   Atlantis, Azealia Banks, Afrofuturism, embattled humanism, Sylvia Wynter
   Azealia Banks’s 2012 Atlantis music video garnered attention for its use of imagery that borrowed its visual aesthetic from a group of internet artists who identified themselves as “seapunk.” Banks released the video months after seapunk’s originators had declared the scene dead and she herself responded to questions about her style by saying “seapunk isn’t real, you know?” Starting at Banks’s declaration of fakery, this article considers Atlantis in the context of the first four songs of the rapper’s Fantasea mixtape, which map a space/sea continuum that uses Afrofuturist signifiers but also frustrates the future-oriented teleology of Afrofuturism. This frustration works as what Sylvia Wynter calls “embattled humanism,” which extends beyond a conception of Afrofuturism that combines the vision of a future elsewhere with the commitment to a present struggle over what it means to be human.
10. The Lost Lands Of Lyonesse: Telling stories of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly 10.21463/shima.10.2.10
    Marea Mitchell
    Abstract Keywords
    Lyonesse, Cornwall, Isles of Scilly, tourism, Arthurian legends
    Lyonesse an imaginary territory, often represented as a lost space, containing a once vibrant, now submerged, land and peoples, was most commonly portrayed as having occupied an area between or including Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, in south west England. Drawing on Arthurian legends, poets, novelists, musicians, and dramatists from the mid-19th Century onwards use Lyonesse, particularly within the romantic mode, to suggest both the loss of some kind of superior social and geographical space, and as a critique of existing conditions. In addition, Lyonesse becomes a space for rethinking gender, class, history and nationality, while also being harnessed for commercial purposes such as tourism. In these representations Lyonesse encompasses lost land, existing islands and a presqu’ile (a peninsular ‘almost island’).
11. Atlantis/Lyonesse (The plains of imagination) 10.21463/shima.10.2.11
    Sheila Hallerton
    Abstract Keywords
    Atlantis, Lyonesse, crypto-history, online micronations
    This research note looks at the confluence of myths of Atlantis and Lyonesse in contemporary Internet culture. It examines online crypto-historical accounts that have hypothesised that the city of Atlantis was located in close proximity to the area usually associated with Lyonesse and, separately, discusses the nature of the mythical territories claimed by the online micronation of Lyonesse. These discussions lead to a characterisation of the manner in which Internet culture promulgates mythic entities such as Atlantis and Lyonesse and gives them fresh inflections for contemporary aficionados to elaborate upon.
12. Revealing Guernsey’s Ancient History In Fact And Fiction 10.21463/shima.10.2.12
    Peter Goodall
    Abstract Keywords
    Guernsey, Neolithic Age, megaliths, G. B. Edwards, Victor Hugo
    In G. B. Edwards’ novel of 20th Century Guernsey life, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page (1981), Ebenezer becomes the unlikely custodian of an ‘ancient monument’ discovered on his land. The incident is treated, in the main, as a topic for comedy—a part of the novel’s satire of the many pretences and frauds of modern Guernsey—but the underlying issues should not be lightly put aside. ‘Les Fouaillages’, a megalithic site discovered in 1978, the year after Edwards’s death, on L’Ancresse Common, a short walk from the place where the fictional Ebenezer spent his whole life, is thought to be 6000 years old, and has a claim to be amongst the oldest built sites on the planet. There are many other ancient sites and monuments on this small island, as there are on the neighbouring Channel Island of Jersey. This article looks at the interconnected yet contrasting ways in which this extraordinary legacy on Guernsey has been revealed and described: the scholarly discourse of archaeology, the myth and legend of the popular imagination, and the literature of Guernsey’s poets and novelists.
13. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Towards an Expanded Concept of Island Studies 10.21463/shima.10.1.03
   Philip Hayward
4. Toponymy, Taxonomy and Place 10.21463/shima.10.1.04
   Christian Fleury & Benoît Raoulx
   Abstract Keywords
   Peninsula, péninsule, presqu'île, almost island, toponymy, Kerguelen Islands, Cotentin
   This article discusses the concepts of and differences between the French terms presqu'île (almost island) and péninsule (peninsula) and their toponymic uses. The discussion raises a number of questions including how and why particular places are named presqu'île or péninsule. We will first focus on examples located in the French Southern and Antarctic Lands and then in mainland France. These two case study areas are complementary. The first example, the Kerguelen Islands in the Southern Indian Ocean, has been the site of a recent attempt to normalise place-naming for the purpose of asserting sovereignty. The second one, the Cotentin, is a part of Normandy, whose long history of human inhabitation has provided several layers of toponymy. Finally we refer to the use of the term presqu'île in the context of urban riverfront revitalisation. In the latter usage, cities try to promote their locations by using the image of the peninsular ‘almost island’. The reflections presented in the article show the complexity involved in naming and interpreting locations as either peninsulas or ‘almost islands’.
5. Gibraltar: A Paradigmatic Presqu'ile? 10.21463/shima.10.1.05
   Peter Gold
   Abstract Keywords
   Spain, Britain, Gibraltar, Ceuta, Melilla, Morocco, peninsula, isthmus, enclaves
   Gibraltar would appear to be a paradigmatic peninsula—a small, elongated territory linked to a substantial mainland by an isthmus, with the many communication advantages that this positioning confers. But because for over three centuries Gibraltar has been a British Overseas Territory (formerly referred to as a colony) attached to Spain, which claims sovereignty of the territory, Gibraltar has had to struggle for survival as a separate entity under the shadow of Spanish antagonism and—at times—outright hostility, especially over the past fifty years. At the heart of the disagreement between Spain and Britain/Gibraltar are the issues of territorial integrity versus self-determination, plus (with regard to the isthmus) the validity of title by prescription. This article examines these issues, as well as the effect of the dispute on the residents on both sides of the border, and considers whether in some respects Gibraltar would have been better off as an island rather than an 'almost island'. It also considers the comparable but distinct situation of Spain's North African territories of Ceuta and Melilla.
6. Islands Within an Almost Island: History, myth, and aislamiento in Baja California, Mexico 10.21463/shima.10.1.06
   Ryan Anderson
   Abstract Keywords
   Aislamiento, Baja California, peninsula, Mexico, Shima
   This paper examines the persistent histories and lasting effects of the Baja California peninsula’s status as an “almost island”. The peninsula is almost an island in so many ways. Its reputation as an island-like entity has also been strengthened by a longstanding myth that it was, in fact, an actual island. In many senses it was an island—isolated, remote, difficult to envision, understand, and control. Geography and climate played a vital role in all of this, but so, too, did human imagination. The author uses the concept of shima, along with discussions about the dual meanings of the Spanish word aislamiento as a way to explore these issues. Aislamiento can refer more concretely to the effects of being on a landform surrounded by water, on the one hand, or the deep social and psychological effects of isolation. Ultimately, the author argues that it is this sense of isolation that works to produce, regardless of geographic and cartographic reality, a powerful sense of islandness.
7. Sakurajima: Maintaining an Island Essence 10.21463/shima.10.1.07
   Henry Johnson & Sueo Kuwahara
   Abstract Keywords
   Islandness, Japan, Kagoshima, peninsula, Sakurajima, toponymy, volcano
   Sakurajima (Cherry Island) began its existence about 26,000 years ago as a volcanic island rising from the northern end of Kagoshima Bay in the south of the island of Kyūshū, Japan. What makes Sakurajima a topic of significance in the field of Island Studies is that it is no longer an island, yet maintains many island-like characteristics—an island essence. In 1914, there was a major volcanic eruption on Sakurajima with a massive lava flow that covered several parts of the island and beyond, and joined it to the Ōsumi Peninsula as part of Kyūshū. Sakurajima is a part of Kagoshima City, the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture, but the main urban part of the city is located about 3.8 km across the water from Sakurajma on the Satsuma Peninsula. This paper examines the life of Sakurajima from island to peninsula, and argues that the former island maintains an island-like identity through such factors as toponymy, shape, travel and tourism. Even though Sakurajima is now a peninsula, which is joined to another peninsula on a much larger island, it is discussed in terms of its islandness as determined by its features, attractions and predominant mode of transport to and from the former island.
8. The Otago Peninsula, A Unique Identity 10.21463/shima.10.1.08
   Megan Potiki
   Abstract Keywords
   Otago Peninsula, Māori, Ōtākou, history, indigenous, insider
   The Otago Peninsula on the South Island of New Zealand has a long indigenous Māori history that is rooted in the land and the people of the area. The stories and genealogy that connect Māori New Zealanders to the Otago Peninsula are well documented and retold. After European contact with and connection to the Otago Peninsula was initiated the colonisation of the area occurred rapidly. The Otago Peninsula historically, and to the modern day, has always had a separate character to that of the adjacent mainland (around the city of Dunedin). Despite the short distance between them, the culture of the Otago Peninsula remains distinct to that of the mainland as if it were an island.
9. Historico-Economic Traces in the Former Island Cities of Zadar and Trogir 10.21463/shima.10.1.09
   Zrinka Mendas
   Abstract Keywords
   historico-economic traces, former island cities, peninsula city, Zadar, Trogir, Croatia
   This article explores historico-economic traces in the ancient cities of Zadar and Trogir in the Adriatic Sea. Islands in the past, they emerged later as small peninsula cities, connected by bridges, canals or both. The reasons for this were economic and political: to protect the islands’ natural resources, trade and territoriality. The historico-economic angle, covering the early and late medieval period, offers insight into ancient, urban and economic traces in Zadar and Trogir. Findings suggest that the peninsula city space, representing the Mediterranean archetype, had an important purpose in organising political, economic and social life. Ancient traces point to the events contributing to the economic prosperity of Trogir and Zadar while urban traces remind us of the military and religious purpose of the peninsula city walls. Market squares served as the hubs of the economic life and influenced the development of various trading activities and artisan occupations. Such organisation of the peninsula-city space has created the foundations for a contemporary cultural heritage and has important implications for regional tourism. The biggest challenge for the administration lies in exploring creative ways of preserving the ancient peninsula city space, including artisan trades and archaeological artefacts. This requires stakeholder engagement between city planners, public and artisan tradesmen as well as finding and utilising various funding sources, including European Union funds, inward investment and education about heritage.
10. Dudley Peninsula: Linguistic Pilgrimage and Toponymic Ethnography on an Almost Island 10.21463/shima.10.1.10
    Joshua Nash
    Abstract Keywords
    Insularity, linguistic pilgrimage, Kangaroo Island, toponymic ethnography, toponyms, Dudley Peninsula
    Toponymy as an active and resourceful medium is used to explore fieldwork experiences and insularity on Dudley Peninsula, Kangaroo Island. Placenames are employed as memes and means to understand emotional connections to place and to reconcile the ‘almost-island’ sentiment on Dudley with the larger island(er)-ness of greater Kangaroo Island.

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Chorographing the Vanuatu Aquapelago
   Thomas Dick
   Abstract Keywords
   Chorography, water music, aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblage, sand drawing, multiscalar, Vanuatu
   This article applies the concept of aquapelagic assemblages to an understanding of artistic and cultural expression in Vanuatu. Using the radical interdisciplinarity of a chorography, I explore the ways that ni-Vanuatu cultural practices such as water music and sand drawing manifest themselves as components of aquapelagic assemblages. Building on Epeli Hau’ofa’s idea of the Pacific as a “sea of islands” (1993) this article continues a project that privileges the voices of ni-Vanuatu artists and cultural producers. A sand drawing is presented as a chorographic inscription of multiscalar Oceanian ontologies informing an analysis of the livelihood aspects of human and non- human (inter)relations in-between, throughout and with islands, shores, seabeds and waters. This chorographic approach foregrounds the multiscalar dimension of aquapelagic assemblages and the interdependence of different aquapelagic assemblages with 21st Century globalised industry, science, and development. A case study of the Leweton community, featured in the Vanuatu Women’s Water Music DVD, shows that the framework of aquapelagic assemblages has value for revealing the creative processes in generating innovations in local art forms and the step-by-step process of commodification of intangible cultural heritage.
4. Micro Nation — Micro-Comedy
   Liz Giuffre
   Abstract Keywords
   Television, online television, comedy, micronations, Pullamawang Island
   This article considers how the concept of micronationality served as a launching pad for a broadcast comedy, the 2012 Australian television series, Micro Nation, set on the fictional island of Pullamawang. I argue that by setting the series within a fictional micronational environment, the creators were able to develop a distinct type of situation for the comedy, embedding the theme of relative size and isolation as a key aspect of the show’s content and utilising unusual production and broadcast techniques. The article’s analysis draws on literature from Television and Broadcast Studies, Island Studies and Genre Studies and reflects on the media representation of micronations more generally.
5. Islonia: Micronationality as an expression of livelihood issues
   Sheila Hallerton & Nicole Leslie
   Abstract Keywords
   Islonia, Dry Island, micronation, absurdity, livelihood, shima, aquapelago
   This article describes the manner in which the owner-inhabitants of Dry Island, off the coast of the Western Scottish Highlands, claimed micronational status (as ‘Islonia’) in 2013, examines their reasons for claiming this status and identifies the results of the venture. Drawing on these characterisations, the article discusses the expression of local livelihood issues in micronational discourse and the manner in which local issues pertaining to Dry Island/Islonia can be understood with regard to the concepts of shima and aquapelagism advanced within Island Studies.
6. Three Islands of the Portuguese Atlantic
   Robert Garfield
   Abstract Keywords
   Madéira, São Tomé, Cape Verde Islands, economy, crops
   Three islands of the Portuguese Atlantic — Madéira, Santiago de Cabo Verde, and São Tomé — were all uninhabited upon discovery, were all settled about the same time, and were under similar political, social, and economic conditions imposed by their Portuguese rulers. However, their economic evolution was quite different. Differences in location, environment and the external needs of Portugal (and Brazil) caused these islands to have very different economic histories. Different crops, different climate, different ecology and different political influences, all played a role in causing the historical differentiation that these three seemingly similar islands went through. This article examines the rise and fall, and sometimes the recovery, of these islands’ economic past. It traces their economic history from the 15th through the 19th centuries, and draws some conclusions and lessons as to why they differed so, despite their seeming commonalities. It concludes with some suggestions regarding the ways in which islands can, or cannot, cope with economic and political change.
7. Three Kilometres and Three Centuries: Kulusuk Island, Greenland
   Anthony J. Dzik
   Abstract Keywords
   Kulusuk, Greenland, modernisation, cultural landscape
   The cultural landscape of Kulusuk Island in East Greenland reflects the interaction/integration of the traditional and the modern on this arctic island that was isolated from the rest of Greenland and the outside world until the late 19th Century. The island had never been a significant hunting area for the region’s Inuit and exhibited little trace of permanent habitation until 1909 when the Danes established a religious mission on the island and a village arose around it. This was the first of several external forces that would change the face of the island. Modernisation brought new technologies and new material culture and the cultural landscape of the island was transformed. This report describes the cultural landscape of the island today and discusses how it reflects the composite effects of traditional subsistence hunting and fishing, governmental programs, World War Two, the Cold War, the regional economy, and tourism. Possible future scenarios are also presented.
8. Island Reflections: Lingering colonial outlier yet miniature continent
   Godfrey Baldacchino
   Abstract Keywords
   Archipelago, heterotopias, Island Studies, Sicily, Italy, Malta, Mediterranean, periphery
   The fortunes of the wider Mediterranean Sea, the world’s largest, have never rested on Sicily, its largest island. A stubbornly peripheral region, and possibly the world’s most bridgeable island, Sicily has been largely neglected within the field of Island Studies. The physically largest island with the largest population in the region, and housing Europe’s most active volcano, Sicily has moved from being a hinterland for warring factions (Sparta/Athens, Carthage/Rome), to a more centrist stage befitting its location, although still remaining a political outlier in the modern era. Unlike many even smaller islands with smaller populations, however, Sicily has remained an appendage to a larger, and largely dysfunctional, state. The Maltese islands are part of ‘the Sicilian archipelago’, and it was a whim of Charles V of Spain that politically cut off Malta from this node in the 1520s, but not culturally. This article will review some of the multiple representations of this island, and its changing fortunes.
9. [Feature Review] New Atlantis: Bringing Science to the Theatre
   Sammie Buzzard
   Abstract Keywords
   Immersive theatre, climate change, floating islands, science communication
   An immersive theatre show set in the future provided an opportunity for scientists to try out a different form of public engagement, alongside informing members of the public about climate change. The experiences of one particular area of the show (related to the polar regions and floating island communities) are discussed. Feedback suggested that the scientists involved rated the experience highly and found it thought provoking, although more involvement in the creative process earlier on in the show’s development would have been beneficial.
10. [Feature Review] Sea Otters, Aquapelagos and Ecosystem Services
    Philip Hayward
    Abstract Keywords
    Haida Gwaii, sea otter, aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblages, ecosystem services
    N.A Sloan and Lyle Dick’s Sea Otters of Haida Gwaii: Icons in Human-Ocean Relations (2012) provides an historical overview of sea otter populations in Haida Gwaii, their environmental context, the crucial role that human intervention has played in their decline and a discussion of the impacts of their possible reintroduction to the region. This review essay considers conceptual aspects of the volume with regard to the reviewer’s previous discussion of Haida Gwaii as a paradigmatic aquapelago (Hayward, 2012b) and outlines how an awareness of the sea otters’ role in particular historical ‘acts’ in the aquapelagic space can inform understandings of the constitution of such spaces.
11. [Correspondence Received] Sark and Breqhou (Continued)
    Gordon Dawes
12. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. An Unhemmed Dress: Popular Preservation and Civic Disobedience on the Manhattan Waterfront from the 1960s-2010s
   Fiona Anderson
   Abstract Keywords
   New York City, Manhattan, waterfronts, preservation, urban studies, maritime history
   This article examines preservationist attitudes towards the derelict Manhattan waterfront from the early 1960s to the present. It explores the complex relationships between civic disobedience, selective public engagement and ‘proper’ metropolitan citizenship that have characterised the constantly-shifting urban geography and built landscape of Manhattan for over two hundred years and have been complicated at the island’s perimeter. Looking at popular preservationist writing by New Yorker staff writer Joseph Mitchell, the photographer Walker Evans, and the New York Times architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable, among other sources, I argue that Manhattan’s identity as a city of, in novelist Henry James’ words, “restless renewals” (1907: 111), is cast in relief at its watery edges. A study of the waterfront’s particular place in Manhattan’s public imagination and popular culture, provides a unique vantage point from which to consider the city’s complex and exclusive notion of public access and acceptable citizenship, its longstanding disinclination to archive itself in its promotion of urban developments that tend to resist the renewal of existing buildings and landmarks, and the commitment of its citizens to engaging Manhattan’s past in the service of its present and future.
4. Cockatoo, The Island Dockyard: Island Labour and Protest Culture
   Lisa Milner
   Abstract Keywords
   Cockatoo Island, unions, labour history, Sydney
   The Cockatoo Island dockyard, off the shores of Balmain in Sydney Harbour, was the largest and most important shipbuilding and repair site in Australia for many decades. It has also been the nation’s most convoluted and industrially complex and disputatious site. The nature of the island and its dockyard workforce from 1850 until its closure in 1992 made for unique industrial and social outcomes, and affected how people were organised, and how they shaped the physical and cultural spaces of Cockatoo Island. Cockatoo Island constituted a geographically concentrated force of power.
   
   This article interrogates the cultural and industrial constitution of the Cockatoo Island workforce through its industrial life in the mid-twentieth century. Employing the perspectives of labour geography with its emphasis on space and place, and an emphasis on worker agency, it discusses the importance of a spatially, locally and globally constituted island workforce to the nature of Cockatoo Island’s working culture. It argues that interrogating the concept of place is vital to understanding the industrial history of the island-dockyard.
5. Career Decision Making in Island Communities: Applying the concept of the Aquapelago to the Shetland and Orkney Islands
   Rosie Alexander
   Abstract Keywords
   Orkney, Shetland, aquapelago, careers, migration
   Geographical location plays an important part in the career decision making of young adults, both in terms of the economic opportunities provided by the local labour market, and in terms of framing the social and cultural context within which decisions are made. Despite employment and migration being key concerns within island settings, little research has been done into the role of island contexts within career decision making of young islanders. In order to conceptualise the role of island contexts, this paper explores the potential of the concept of the aquapelago — identifying how the notion of the aquapelago brings together three key aspects of island contexts: labour markets, migrations and cultural background. The paper concludes that the concept provides a useful reframing of island contexts, but suggests that a greater awareness of diversity between different island aquapelagos and different inhabitants within these aquapelagos may be necessary.
6. Cocos Malay Language Since Integration with Australia
   Alistair Welsh
   Abstract Keywords
   Cocos Malay, linguistic imperialism, language extinction, language convergence
   The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are a remote Australian territory in the Indian Ocean and are home to the Cocos Malay people, who have developed a distinct dialect. It was predicted over 30 years ago that the Cocos Malay language faced extinction, perhaps even within the timeframe of one generation. Two possible threats to the Cocos Malay language were identified. It was felt that English, as the language of power, may replace the Cocos Malay language. The other possibility was language convergence, where Cocos Malay would be subsumed by another, larger Malay dialect. With these issues in mind, I explore developments in the Cocos Malay language since the Islands’ full integration with Australia in 1984. Drawing from extensive ethnographic work and linguistic research into Cocos Malay I also refer to the work of other researchers to analyse how the Cocos Malay language has developed over the past 30 years, in a time of great social change. I argue that integration with Australia and attempts at assimilation have resulted in social dynamics where Cocos Malay language remains a defining marker of Cocos Malay identity positioning. In this social environment, Cocos Malay therefore remains viable and, despite language change, does not face immediate extinction.
7. Fleeting and Partial Autonomy: A historical account of quasi-micronational initiatives on Lundy Island and their contemporary reconfiguration on MicroWiki
   Philip Hayward & Susie Khamis
   Abstract Keywords
   Lundy, temporary autonomous zones, micronations, virtual micronations, MicroWiki
   Micronations are small territories that have been identified as independent by individuals or communities without recognition of that status by either the nation states within whose borders they fall and/or relevant international bodies. The term is of comparatively recent coinage and has largely been used to refer to entities that have claimed autonomous status since the 1960s. As a result, discussions of the phenomenon (such as those included the 2014 theme issue of Shima on islands and micronationality — v8n1) have tended to avoid engagement with the pre-history of the concept and have not examined how and why certain locations (and, especially in this context, types of islands) have leant themselves to quasi-micronational ventures at particular historical points. This article discusses the manner in which the history of the (now indisputably) English island of Lundy has seen a number of quasi-micronational incidents and outlines the shifting nature of their bases and manifestations. The article’s analyses emphasise the significant role that geography and, particularly, (in)accessibility play in forging micronational endeavours. The final section expands this frame of reference to discuss the imaginative reconfiguration of quasi-micronational initiatives on Lundy through the virtual micronation of the ‘New Kingdom of Lundy’ constituted within the online MicroWiki arena.
8. Brecqhou's Autonomy: A Response to Henry Johnson’s ‘Sark and Brecqhou: Space, Politics and Power’ (2014)
   Gordon Dawes
   Keywords
   Brecqhou, Sark, Barclay Brothers
9. The Sark/Brecqhou Dyad: Jurisdictional Geographies and Contested Histories
   Henry Johnson
   Abstract Keywords
   Sark, Brecqhou, politics, power, space
   Over the past few decades, the islands of Sark and Brecqhou have featured in much media and legal discourse. Such factors as jurisdictional contestation, tension and criticism have arisen either between the owners of the private island of Brecqhou and the jurisdiction in which it is located, or as a result of other factors that have an association with Brecqhou on the larger island of Sark. As a type of microstate with a contested history and distinct traditional ways of life, the jurisdictional geographies in the Sark/Brecqhou dyad are of particular interest to the field of Island Studies. I use the term ‘Sark/Brecqhou dyad’ as a way of emphasising the distinct physical, political and social binaries that exist between the islands of Sark and Brecqhou. It is argued that key to understanding some of the points of contestation within and between this island dyad is a comprehension of some of the ways jurisdictional geographies and contested histories have been (re)interpreted. This article is an extension of my earlier article on the subject (Johnson 2014), and one that offers clarification, or one interpretation, of several significant points that help in comprehending this particular case of inter- and intra-island dynamics.
10. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Critiquing the Pursuit of Island Sustainability: Blue and Green, with hardly a colour in between
   Godfrey Baldacchino and Ilan Kelman
   Abstract Keywords
   Climate change, sustainable development, small island developing states
   This article critiques a focus on ‘sustainable development’ which highlights a liveable ‘future’ without paying adequate attention to what, we argue, are more pressing issues for a liveable present. We contend that, while inherently commendable, the thrust of many current initiatives related to sustainable development, especially those associated with climate change, promote an ethos which crowds out other pressing policy pursuits with more immediate relevance — although often also associated with sustainable development — such as health, basic education, poverty reduction, and productive employment and livelihoods. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are at the forefront of these initiatives, given their prominence in discussions on sustainable development, but especially climate change, alongside the basic challenges that they face in maintaining viable economies. Long-term thinking and planning is needed and welcomed; but we may now have gone too far in the opposite direction in terms of aiming for sustainable development in, and for, a distant future that emphasises climate change, without better balancing of that concern with the pressing needs of the moment.
4. Chars: Islands that float within rivers
   Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
   Abstract Keywords
   Char, River islands, Tropical Rivers, Bengal, Hybrid environments
   Chars are pieces of land that rise temporarily from river-beds in South Asia only to disappear at the whim of the Monsoon Rivers. Chars exist in the vocabulary neither of those who study rivers, nor those who study islands, and have largely remained beyond the mainstream discussions on nature/culture. As analytical constructs and as real life examples of hybrid environments, chars have the potential to extend several theoretical boundaries. This paper presents chars as both the products of ecological processes of floodplain processes and delta building, and the processes of historical developments in colonial and post-colonial land and water management, and offers an outline of char environments, their people and their livelihoods in South Asia.
5. Island Paths: Divergent fisheries in the Shetland Islands
   Robert W. Gear
   Abstract Keywords
   Shetland, herring, drift net, maritime cultural landscape, technological diffusion
   This paper offers a case study in a methodology of island analysis drawn from Pope’s concept of maritime cultural landscapes (2008). It analyses the different responses of two islands to the arrival of new fishing technology. These two islands are part of the Shetland archipelago whose population has relied on fisheries for centuries. The peak of the islands’ fish production was in the early 1900s, when the herring industry was at its height. It then entered a period of long decline, during which time the catching sector concentrated into two islands: Burra and Whalsay. In 1965 a new method of herring fishing was introduced from Scandinavia that revolutionised the industry. While Burra did not adopt this technology, Whalsay did, and experienced great success thereafter. The islands continued down very different paths, and remain in stark contrast today. It is argued that the main reasons for the divergent paths lay in the particular historical, social and geographical makeup of the two isles.
6. Continuity and Change: Identity and rights protection among later generation Banabans
   Gil Marvel P. Tabucanon
   Abstract Keywords
   Banaba Island, Rabi Island, Fiji, cultural rights, resettlement, environmental migration
   Identity and minority rights protection within migrant communities are not a new concern in Migration Studies. However, the issues assume poignancy if resettlement is not voluntary, as was the case with the Banaban community that relocated to Rabi Island, Fiji, in 1945. This article explores why later generation Banabans chose to retain core Banaban identity, notwithstanding evidence of acculturation into Fijian society. In the context of current environmental changes threatening to permanently displace low- lying island communities, the Banaban case demonstrates that not only is retention of collective identity possible among later generations but that ethnically distinct peoples need collective rights protection if they are to survive as a community. Despite laws providing land and establishing Banaban autonomy over Rabi Island pursuant to Banaban customary practices, Banaban minority protection is not as secure as it seems. The claims on Rabi Island by its original settlers are bolstered by Fiji’s political instability and, arguably, by the 2013 Fijian Constitution, relative to ownership of Banaban lands. These social and legal developments not only cast doubt on Banaban land tenure but on Banaban minority rights protection generally. Ethnic or cultural minorities, including those displaced by environmental triggers, have distinct customs, traditions and histories requiring legal protection as well as physical and social space to thrive. The protection of cultural diversity, promoting a balance of cultural identity retention and acculturation as a by-product of a healthy interaction with the host society, constitutes a component of successful long-term resettlement.
7. Gazing at Haw Par Villa: Cultural Tourism in Singapore
   Voon Chin Phua and Joseph W. Miller
   Abstract Keywords
   Tourism, Singapore, tourist gaze, cultural tourism
   Tourism is an important and growing industry in Singapore. Studies on Singapore cultural tourism have generally focused on three major sites: Chinatown, Little India and the Malay Village. The Haw Par Villa tourist site has not been examined in recent years. The case study of Haw Par Villa offered here demonstrates how changing times in Singapore have affected the popularity of tourist sites in an island nation. This article discusses the decline and potential rebirth of Singapore’s Haw Par Villa theme park in the context of cultural tourism, placing a special emphasis on Urry’s concept of the ‘tourist gaze’. Multiple methods were used in gathering data for this study: a survey conducted in Singapore of both local residents and foreign tourists; participant observations of Haw Par Villa; and a thematic content analysis of tour guide books and online documents pertaining to the site. Our analyses suggest that Haw Par Villa represents a treasured past of Singapore, although one in danger of fading away with the changing interests of newer generations of tourists.
8. ‘Halfway’ Island: The Creative Expression of Identity Markers within The Band From Rockall project
   Jon Fitzgerald
   Abstract Keywords
   Identity markers, Hebrides, Gaelic, Celtic music, rock and roll, Rockall
   This article explores island identity and identity markers through a case study of a musical and audio-visual project entitled The Band from Rockall (2012) by Scottish songwriters Calum and Rory Macdonald (co-founders of successful Celtic-Rock group Runrig in 1973). The Band From Rockall was inspired by the Macdonald brothers’ experiences growing up in the Hebrides during the late 1950s and early 1960s, when North American rock and roll began to impact strongly on local Gaelic culture. The tiny rocky outcrop of Rockall lies in the North Atlantic approximately 250 miles west of Scotland. Its location between the Hebrides and North America symbolises the meeting of musical cultures that lies at the core of the project. The article describes the genesis of The Band From Rockall and examines its creative outcomes: a CD, vinyl album and behind-the-scenes DVD. It focuses on ways in which various identity markers (involving language, lyrics, music, visual elements and technology) are embedded within the project texts.
9. “Give Me Fish, Not Federalism”: Outer Baldonia and Performances of Micronationality
   Lachlan MacKinnon
   Abstract Keywords
   Atlantic Canada, Outer Baldonia, micronation, performance, environment, diplomacy
   In 1949 Russell Arundel, an American businessman and sport tuna fisherman, asserted the sovereignty of a small island off the south coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. Arundel drafted a Declaration of Independence for the ‘Principality of Outer Baldonia’ and declared the nascent micronation to be a space of recreation, relaxation and tuna-fishing. International newspapers began to cover the story, and a critical letter in the Soviet Liternaya Gazeta prompted a flurry of tongue-in-cheek responses from Baldonian ‘citizens’. Although ownership of the island was transferred to the Nova Scotia Bird Society in 1973, the history of Outer Baldonia reveals a great deal about the types of social performances that correspond with declarations of micronational sovereignty. This article explores how the events surrounding the creation of Outer Baldonia reflect mid-20th Century elite attitudes towards nature and wilderness, as well as non-state diplomacy in the Cold War era.
10. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Islands And Micronationality: An Introduction
   Philip Hayward
   Abstract Keywords
   Micronations, micronationality, islands, seasteading
   Since the 1970s the term ‘micronation’ has been applied to small territories that have been declared as independent but are largely unrecognised as such. Although micronational status has been claimed for various types of location, islands have been particularly prominent as the bases for such endeavours. This essay serves to provide a brief pre-history of island micronations; to characterise the attributes and circumstances of notable micronations; to identify conceptual frameworks pertinent to their promotion; to introduce the case study articles on the topic presented in this theme issue of Shima; and to provide a bibliography of relevant previously published analyses of island micronationality.
4. Sark And Brecqhou: Space, Politics and Power
   Henry Johnson
   Abstract Keywords
   Brecqhou, politics, power, Sark, space
   Sark is a British Crown Dependency that could be described as a type of micronation. It has been a fief of the Crown since the 16th century, and in the 21st Century instituted a form of democratic government. While not part of the UK, nor a sovereign state in its own right, Sark is a self-governing territory within the Bailiwick of Guernsey, and has substantial political autonomy, with its own legislature and judicial system. Sark’s political context comprises a binary existence as a jurisdiction spanning two populated islands: Sark and Brecqhou. This inter-island setting is complicated by Brecqhou having a special relationship with some privileges within the Fief of Sark, and offers a further level of quasi-micronationalism. This article discusses the history of Sark’s and Brecqhou’s inter- island relations. In the context of examining this island binary and the background to the contested ownership of Brecqhou and challenges to Sark’s political system, emphasis is placed on reframing the islands’ intertwined history and locality in connection with notions of space, politics and power. There have been various disputes over Sark and Brecqhou for many centuries, and in recent years the current owners of Brecqhou have argued that the island does not fall under Sark’s jurisdiction. This article shows that Sark exists in several ways within different island groupings and political relationships, and argues that closer analysis of this island context contributes both a case study of inter- island relations to Island Studies, and more broadly to re-thinking the political geography of islands in the context of spatial and power relationships.
5. Captain Calamity’s Sovereign State Of Forvik: Micronations and the Failure of Cultural Nationalism
   Adam Grydehøj
   Abstract Keywords
   Micronations, Forvik, cultural nationalism, Shetland, independence movements
   Micronations are often viewed as humorous phenomena, but, when linked to serious political movements, they have the potential to exert real political influence. In 2008, Stuart Hill (known as Captain Calamity) founded the micronation of Forvik on a small island in the archipelago of Shetland (Scotland, UK). Arguing that Shetland had never become part of the Scottish state, Hill sought to use Forvik as the springboard for a Shetland-wide self-determination movement. Although Hill’s rationale was primarily economic, Shetland possessed a strong pre-existing sense of cultural distinctiveness and tendencies toward cultural nationalism, which came to be popularly associated with Hill’s project. The Forvik micronation, however, received virtually no popular support, and, since its founding, Hill has struggled to make his argument heard through an amused global media and a hostile court system. Ultimately, this micronation has been detrimental to the development of a genuine Shetland self-determination movement and has weakened Shetland’s culturally rooted resistance to wider Scottish nationalism. This study illustrates how, far from bolstering associated nationalist movements, some micronations may lower them into ridicule and defeat.
6. Contested Space: National and Micronational Claims to the Spratly/Truong Sa Islands - A Vietnamese Perspective
   Giang Thuy Huu Tran
   Abstract Keywords
   Truong Sa, Spratly Islands, Bien Dong, South China Sea, Vietnam, micronations
   The archipelago located in the eastern Pacific Ocean around 4-11 degrees North and 109-117 degrees East, known in English language as the Spratly Islands, in Vietnamese as the Truong Sa Islands and in Chinese as the Nansha Islands, has been subject to contesting claims that have intensified in recent decades with the growing perception that the area has substantial sub-surface oil and/or mineral deposits that could prove a lucrative asset to whichever country can establish a definitive claim over and related exploitation of them. Following an account of Vietnam’s historical presence in the area, the article discusses some of the more fanciful micronational claims that have been made over the region and Vietnamese efforts to consolidate their claim to sovereignty in the face of contesting claims from other regional powers. [Editorial Note: Shima invites submissions offering other perspectives on disputed island and marine sovereignty issues in the South East Asia Pacific region.]
7. Queer Sovereignty: The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands
   Judy Lattas
   Abstract Keywords
   Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands, micronation
   The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom (G&LK) seceded from Australia in 2004. Emperor Dale Parker Anderson declared independence upon raising the rainbow pride flag on Cato Island in the Coral Sea Island. The decision to secede was made as a response to the Australian government’s 2004 action in presenting the Amendment of the Marriage Act 1969. In giving my account I draw on a 2007 interview, correspondence with Emperor Dale and other ethnographic material concerning the G&LK. Among other articulations, I consider its secessionist move in light of Linda Bishai’s critique in Forgetting Ourselves (2004). This is that for all its liberationist motivation, secession is essentialist in its conception, and inherently anti-democratic; her prediction is that its preoccupation with state formation is making it irrelevant in the age of ‘rhizomatic’ community networks. In its micronationalist ‘queering’, however, I find secessionist politics more relevant in late modernity, not less, as the pluralising democratic politics of identity and representation are increasingly unable to contest key outcomes of ‘family values’ and ‘national values’ rhetoric in the 21st Century. [Editorial Note: This is a revised version of an essay that was originally published in the journal Cosmopolitan Civil Societies in September 2009]
8. “This Mere Speck in the Surface of the Waters”: Rockall aka Waveland
   Stephen A. Royle
   Abstract Keywords
   Rockall, Waveland, Greenpeace, UNCLOS
   Rockall is a tiny granite knoll isolated in the stormy waters of the North Atlantic. It is not habitable and has of itself no economic value. However, given its location it has been a prize insofar as at one time it was thought its possession could bring control of an exclusive economic zone. Iceland, Ireland and Denmark laid claim in addition to the UK, which had annexed Rockall in 1955, the last territory to be taken into the British Empire. In 1972 Rockall was declared to be part of Scotland. However the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea (1982) now precludes rocks incapable of supporting life to be awarded economic zones. Interest in Rockall then reverted to symbolism especially in its occupation by Greenpeace in 1997 when the global state of Waveland was declared from Rockall’s summit, with Rockall itself as the capital. Greenpeace stayed on Rockall longer than anybody else and a claim has been established to it thereby, but Waveland itself collapsed with the failure of the company that serviced its online presence.
9. North Dumpling Island: Micronationality, the Media and the American Dream
   Clarice M. Butkus
   Abstract Keywords
   North Dumpling Island, Dean Kamen, micronationality
   North Dumpling Island is a 3-acre stretch of land off the Atlantic Coast of the United States. The island has had five known owners since 1639, the most recent of whom is famed inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen. In 1986, Kamen launched a humorous campaign for the island’s secession in response to the State of New York’s denial of permission to build a wind turbine tower on his residentially zoned island property. The following article traces highlights of the media’s response to that campaign and discusses how Kamen has leveraged media publicity around his claims for micronationality to draw attention to his scientific and environmental initiatives, including a micronational model for sustainable energy consumption.
10. In a Stew: Lamb Island’s flirtation with micronationality and the related consideration of a local representative body for the Southern Moreton Bay Islands
    Philip Hayward
    Abstract Keywords
    Lamb Island, micronation, South Moreton Bay, Southern Moreton Bay Islands (SMBI), Queensland
    This research note profiles the background to the short-lived secessionist impulse on Lamb Island in Southern Moreton Bay, Queensland (Australia) in 2013, the role that the media played in disseminating news about the initiative, the manner in which it was represented and its local significance. Further to this, the note outlines the manner in which discussions concerning the viability of an independent council for the four inhabited Southern Moreton Bay Islands (Lamb, Karragarra. Macleay and Russell) relate to the impetus for Lamb Island’s flirtation with micronationality.
11. Shards of the Shattered Japanese Empire That Found Themselves as Temporary Micronations
    Daniel Long
    Abstract Keywords
    Micronations, Japan, Bonin/Ogasawara, Izu islands
    In this short research note, I present a couple of instances in the 20th Century when some Japanese islands temporarily became tiny independent political entities not because of a conscious push to make them so, but because the islands went overlooked in the midst of international political maneuvering. In a manner of speaking, the islands were small and insignificant (and, being islands, not part of mainland Japan) isolated enough that when world leaders drew broad sets of lines on a map, it was easy to overlook the fact these islands had fallen through the cracks.
12. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Aquapelago Debates (part 4): Skimming the Surface: Dislocated Cruise Liners and Aquatic Spaces
   David Cashman
   Abstract Keywords
   Cruise ships, floating, aquatic spaces, aquapelago
   Modern, highly facilitated and luxurious cruise ships provide a highly particular type of environment and a very particular placement within oceanic and harbour spaces. In these regards they may be understood as floating entities effectively removed from their locales or, rather, as removed as they can be, barring issues of technological failure, accident and/or intrusion of extreme weather or geo-physical phenomena. Conceptualised as ‘floating pleasure palaces’, they are less like islands (with their complex gradations of connection to and social engagement with aquatic and sub- surface topographic space) and (increasingly) more like hovercraft that skim across aquatic surfaces. Indeed, in many recent examples, the access to and connection with the marine space that provides the medium for and rationale of ‘the cruise’ is marginalised. This essay begins to theorise the rationale implicit in such disconnections.

Special Issue on The Canary Islands

4. Introduction: Special Issue on the Canary Islands
   Dirk Godenau
5. Feeding Two Million Residents and Ten Million Tourists: Food (in)sufficiency in the Canary Islands
   Dirk Godenau and Juan Sebastián Nuez Yánez
   Abstract Keywords
   Islandness, food sufficiency, vulnerability, Canary Islands
   The level of food self-sufficiency in the Canaries is low and decreasing. The growing demand for food, both due to demographic and touristic expansion and to the population’s increased purchasing power, has not seen a corresponding increase in local food production. This paper details the factors behind the growing dependence on imported food, emphasising the role of insularity and the institutional framework of food production activity. Based on this diagnosis, the main courses of action are identified that could allow for the selective recovery of that portion of the local production that is intended for the internal market.
6. Young African Migrants Reinventing Their Lives in the Canary Islands
   Paloma López-Reillo
   Abstract Keywords
   Unaccompanied minors, immigrants, young Africans, personal goals, emotional experience, integration, transition to adult life
   The intensification of irregular African immigration in the Canary Islands resulted in the arrival of thousands of unaccompanied foreign minors (MENA in Spanish: Menores Extranjeros No Acompañados), reaching a peak of maximum intensity in 2006 during the so-called ‘cayuco crisis’. This population of immigrants under the age of 18 is under the tutelage of the government of the Canary Islands and is placed in specific reception centres for foreign minors (CAME in Spanish: Centro de Acogida para Menores Extranjeros). This paper presents the methodology and main results of a research project, implemented by the author for the Observatory of Immigration in Tenerife (OBITen), on what these young Africans experienced when turned into Unaccompanied Foreign Minors by an administrative process whose aim is to protect them as vulnerable persons. The project fieldwork included in-depth interviews with immigrant minors and experts. Additionally, we carried out semi-structured interviews with professionals involved in the development and education of the unaccompanied foreign minors. We also organised focus groups with the resident Canary Islands population. The results we obtained reveal shortcomings in several areas: in the personal and emotional experience this process implies for the migrants, in the area of administration and management and, particularly, in the transition from the condition of unaccompanied foreign minor to that of adult immigrant.
7. Connecting the Disconnected: The Migratory Transnationalism of Moroccans in the Canary Islands
   León Juan Salvador Santana and Dirk Godenau
   Abstract Keywords
   Transnationalism, international migration, islandness, Canary Islands
   The Canary Islands, a region of Spain and the European Union, are just over 100 kilometres away from the coast of western Africa off Morocco’s southern border. Moroccan immigration to the Canaries grew during the last boom in Spain’s economy (1994-2007), which saw an influx of people from the regions surrounding Morocco who responded to the needs of the local labour market that caters to the tourism industry. This paper presents evidence of an emerging transnational social field that unites the Canaries to these regions through the transnational activities of migrant families. It also considers the unique features that insularity introduces into the analysis of migratory transnationality. The case of the Canaries shows that the territorial dimension and the proximity of borders exert selective effects on migratory flows and on the stratification of the transnational social field.
8. Cultural Realignment, Islands and the Influence of Tourism: A new conceptual approach
   Donald MacLeod
   Abstract Keywords
   Cultural realignment, identity, islands, tourism, anthropology, Canary Islands, La Gomera
   This article introduces a new concept: ‘cultural realignment’, which embraces phenomena such as cultural representation, interpretation, stereotyping and branding. Cultural realignment is the intentional depiction or interpretation of a culture (or part of one) for a specific preconceived purpose. It relates directly to power, and there is a need for this broad concept to help comprehend processes in an era of increasing globalisation, the growth of cultural commodification and the proliferation of representations in media including the internet. A prime concern of the article is the way that cultural realignment impacts on the identities of the communities subject to the realignment. The main examples given relate to island communities and their representation by anthropologists, and to island tourist destinations that have been subject to various descriptions, physical transformations and commodification driven by the tourism industry. A case study is examined as an example in the Canary Islands, using original research material related to recent and longitudinal fieldwork.
9. Emergence and the Insula Improvisa: St. Brendan’s Island and Afro/Canarian (Jazz) Fusion Music
   Mark Lomanno
   Abstract Keywords
   Canary Islands, improvisation, cartography, jazz music, fusion, St. Brendan’s Island
   This article addresses the historical creation of the Canary Islands as spaces of isolation and spaces that isolate, and suggests how these spaces are re-appropriated and re/worked as critiques of that isolation. Beginning with the mythical St. Brendan's Island, I will outline some episodes through which we can critique the actively produced elisions that confine the Canary Islands and their inhabitants to the periphery, perhaps glimpsing opportunities for emergence from within these boundaries. By outlining some historical gaps in Afro/Canarian historiography and geographic gaps in Afro/Canarian cartography, I will demonstrate how the politics of the cite can gloss over the actualities of the site. Amid these gaps and fissures lie spaces in which inhabitants of the Canary Islands can re/form local and global ideas about the Islands and local cultures. Based on ongoing ethnographic research begun in 2009, this article explores how Afro/Canarian jazz musicians draw on local histories and historiographies of fusion to resist and rewrite their peripheral status, reasserting and re/placing themselves on the map through critical re-appropriation of cartographic, historiographical, and sonic technologies.
10. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. The Island/Sea/Territory Relationship: Towards a broader and three dimensional view of the Aquapelagic Assemblage
   Christian Fleury
   Abstract Keywords
   Aquapelagic assemblage, aquapelago, Channel Islands, Island Studies, maritories/merritoires, St-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Trinidad
   Through my research in geography I have developed a particular interest in insularity and territorialisation of marine spaces. By linking these two elements, the concept of aquapelagic assemblage has appeared at the right time and provides me with the opportunity of making a contribution to the exchanges about it in two directions. The first will pick up Philip Hayward’s remark that aquapelagic research “does not simply offer a surface model, it also encompasses the spatial depths of the water” (2012a: 5). This sentence reminds us of the stress on the issues that constitute — out of any specifically insular context — an important tendency in the appropriation process of marine space. Furthermore, the author, in a second article, has taken care to dispel doubts on a question which, he tells us, produced a reaction in a number of readers of his initial exposition of the concept — namely that the aquapelagic assemblage cannot simply be equated with archipelagic sites (2012b: 1-2). By promoting this concept, he establishes a distinction of a chorographic nature that deserves to be extended to more strictly insular and coastal contexts. I will return to this point in the second part of this article, principally with reference to examples of islands with which I am more familiar.
4. Locating Shima in Island Drumming: Amami Ōshima and its Archipelagic Drum Groups
   Henry Johnson and Sueo Kuwahara
   Abstract Keywords
   Amami Ōshima, community, drum groups, Japan, shima
   Amami Ōshima to the southwest of Japan is an island between cultures. Geographically situated between Okinawa prefecture to the southwest and the much larger island of Kyūshū to the northeast, Amami Ōshima is the largest of a chain of islands known as Amami-guntō (the Amami archipelago) within Kagoshima prefecture and the Nansei archipelago. In the contemporary sphere of global cultural flows, some new traditions of group drumming have emerged on Amami Ōshima that have recognised roots either in Okinawa, in mainland Japan or in Amami Ōshima itself. This article focuses on these new traditions of ensemble drum performance and has the aim of showing not only where, how and why such groups have been established but also how a notion of community is constructed within these groups on several different levels of island and archipelagic identity. In doing this, the discussion draws on the notion of shima, meaning both ‘island’ and ‘community’, as a way of discussing select drum groups on the island as case studies for cultural analysis. As well as outlining the background of the drum groups, the article focuses on exploring the notion of shima from different perspectives that cover local, regional and national cultural flows. The article argues that the unique geographic terrain of the island is inextricably linked to a specific notion of islandness, and that this relates to further spheres of belonging in an islandscape of drum groups, villages, islands and archipelagos.
5. Austronesian Cultural Heritage: Historic Preservation and Archaeological Conservation in the Western Pacific
   William S. Ayres
   Abstract Keywords
   Historic preservation, island archaeology, archaeological heritage, Austronesians, Micronesia, Pohnpei
   The idea of shared cultural heritage is significant today for many who speak languages of the widely-dispersed Austronesian language family and who are bearers of a set of related island cultures found extensively in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Shared heritage is an emerging issue throughout the region from Taiwan to Rapa Nui (and even Madagascar to the west), and from Hawai’i to New Zealand. In this paper, cultural heritage is considered in relation to ‘historic’ or ‘heritage’ preservation and archaeological conservation. Historic preservation includes a set of concepts related to conservation of materials from the past and their interlinked interpretations that we value today and selectively re-use. Since the 1970s, archaeological work done in the chains of small islands representing Micronesia in the west central Pacific has been adding to our understanding of the origins and adaptations of early Austronesian colonisers beginning some 3,000-4,000 years ago; it has also provided training in historic preservation at the local level. Illustrations, primarily from Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, reflect some of the developments in historic preservation in that area.
6. Mission-Educated Girls in 19th Century Saint-Louis and their Impact on the Evolution of Tayo
   Karin Speedy
   Abstract Keywords
   Tayo, creole languages, Saint-Louis, New Caledonia, Mission schools, sociolinguistics
   Between 1860 and 1920, a creole language, Tayo, emerged as the community language of Saint-Louis a former Marist mission in southern New Caledonia. This article briefly introduces the demographic history of Saint-Louis and the arrival of Melanesian neophytes from different ethno-linguistic areas of the colony before discussing the influence of education on the development of Tayo, the Pacific’s only French-lexified creole language. It closely examines the role played by the mission-educated Saint- Louis girls in the formation of this language of intra-village communication, exploring the teaching conditions at Saint-Louis at both the boys’ and girls’ schools and comparing these with other mission schools in New Caledonia. Highlighting the exceptional nature of the linguistic ecology of Saint-Louis, it considers the reasons why a French-based creole evolved in Saint-Louis as opposed to an indigenous language-based creole or the adoption of one of the Kanak languages spoken by the neophytes as a vehicular language.
7. The Determinants of Migration in Small Islands
   Jingqiu Guan and Jerome L. McElroy
   Abstract Keywords
   Small islands, migration, political status, immigrant, emigrant
   This study examines the determinants of migration in forty two small mainly tropical islands less than three million in population. Thirteen independent variables are used to measure various economic, social and demographic influences on small island migration patterns. Two profiles are constructed contrasting the characteristics and behaviour of twenty three immigrant and nineteen emigrant islands. The former are found to be more affluent than their emigrant counterparts with higher per capita income and lower unemployment. They also exhibit lower infant mortality, fertility and greater progress through the demographic transition. Immigrant islands are also characterised by dependent political status and the assumed favourable advantages of substantial trade, investment and tourism linkages with their patron countries. Finally, a provisional multivariate model is developed that suggests a combination of determinants account for most of the variation in island migration. They include per capita income, working-age population, literacy and political status.
8. The Blasket Islands and the Literary Imagination
   Irene Lucchitti
   Abstract Keywords
   Blasket Islands, Tomás O’Crohan, Maurice O’Sullivan, Irish literature, cultural politics
   As part of an ancient mythology that saw an animated nature reflected in every place and thing, the island motif has long resonated with spiritual and political significance within Irish culture, and none more so than the Blasket Islands, which rose to prominence as Ireland undertook the processes of national Revival. Reverberating with the ancient significances of the island motif as a place of heightened metaphysical experience, the Great Blasket Island, home of Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig Sayers and Muiris Ó Suilleabháin, stirred the imaginations of those who lived upon it and of those who visited. Although the island community ceased to be more than half a century ago, the Blasket Islands continue to fascinate. This article will offer a brief telling of the Blasket story and then examine the various significances of the island motif in Irish culture that drew the Blasket Islands into the nation’s story of cultural and political revival. It will then consider various representations of the Blaskets in literature written since the demise of the island community — poetry, including Brendan Behan’s ‘A Jackeen Says Goodbye to the Blasket’, Desmond Egan’s ‘The Great Blasket’, Dairena Ní Chinnéide’s suite of poems ‘An Blascaod Mór/The Great Blasket’, and Julie O’Callaghan’s poem, ‘The Great Blasket Island’ followed by two short stories, ‘The Islanders’ by Andrew Sean Greer and Brian Doyle’s ‘The Train’.
9. But who Crafted the Craftspeople? Examining craft policy on three Atlantic Canadian islands
   L. Lynda Harling Stalker
   Abstract Keywords
   Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, craftspeople, identity, cultural production
   Drawing upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this paper sets out to examine the connection between craft policy and the construction of the island craftsperson. This involves examining the craft policies of three Atlantic Canadian islands: Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. These policies were all released in the early 2000s with desires to promote their respective islands to tourists. Through this examination, it is evident that the notion of the craftsperson is not self-determined, is not tied to class of origin, and is not presented as being connected to the culture of the particular island. The official construction of the craftsperson is one that is market- driven and determined by perceived tourists’ desires.
10. 'Patangis-Buwaya': Reflection and praxis ten years after engaging with Iraya- Mangyan internal refugees
    Jonas Baes
    Abstract Keywords
    Iraya-Mangyan, internal refugees, Philippines, Mindoro, Luzon, ‘Patangis-Buwaya’
    In January 2003, I heard the news that a number of Iraya-Mangyan families from Mindoro Island had fled their homes and ancestral domain to seek refuge in the island of Luzon. The news reported that they were escaping a growing militarisation of their island. Having engaged the Iraya-Mangyan in ethnomusicological research from 1982 to 1987, I felt the dire necessity to at least find out who these families were and what the situation was on the island. Through a reliable network of cultural workers and after a month’s search, I eventually found them in a place they called Kanlungan (a ‘place of refuge’) and there heard horrifying stories of terror inflicted by paramilitary units, of arbitrary arrests and of summary executions. That was too much for a people who have lived through the land and relied mainly on the forests for sustenance. I am a composer and an ethnomusicologist by profession and while my academic position in one of the most prestigious universities in the Philippines gives my praxis some degree of stature, my work both as ethnomusicologist and composer fits uncomfortably in both those fields. In looking back, ten years after my last engagement with the Iraya-Mangyan, I reflect on my praxis and the manner in which the plight of the Iraya-Mangyan informed the creation of my composition ‘Patanngis-Buwaya’, a work that attempts to give insight into the Iraya-Mangyan experience for international audiences.
11. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. The Constitution of Assemblages and the Aquapelagality of Haida Gwaii
   Philip Hayward
   Abstract Keywords
   Aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblages, actants, Haida Gwaii, Gwaii Haanas
   Aquapelagos can be defined as assemblages of the marine and terrestrial spaces of groups of islands and their adjacent waters that are generated by human habitation and activity. This article explicates the nature of an assemblage (in this context) and addresses the manner in which assemblages are constituted at particular historical points and subsequently modified due to indigenous and/or exogenous processes, influences and/or events. It outlines the parameters of these modifications and the variegation of aspects of aquapelagality. The article uses the communally constituted locale of the Haida Gwaii aquapelago as a paradigmatic example with particular regard to historical factors and particularly those related to the establishment of the Gwaii Haanas marine conservation area and Haida heritage site. Discussion of these aspects illuminates key elements of the concept of the aquapelago.
4. Naming the Aquapelago: Reconsidering Norfolk Island fishing ground names
   Joshua Nash
   Abstract Keywords
   Toponymy, fishing ground names, language aesthetics, linguistic fieldwork, toponymic ethnography, aquapelago
   Fishing ground names are an understudied taxon in toponymy. By reviewing the author's recent consideration of this toponym taxon, this article claims that an aesthetic appreciation of fishing ground names and their emplacement as linguistic and cultural ephemera is warranted within Island Studies and recent scholarship in aquapelagos.
5. Introducing Island Detentions: The placement of asylum seekers and migrants on islands
   Alison Mountz and Linda Briskman
6. Embodied Possibilities, Sovereign Geographies and Island Detention: Negotiating the 'right to have rights' on Guam, Lampedusa and Christmas Island
   Kate Coddington, R. Tina Catania, Jenna Loyd, Emily Mitchell-Eaton, and Alison Mountz
   Abstract Keywords
   Rights, asylum, island detention, embodied epistemologies
   Sixty years after the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees attempted to negotiate the problematic political relationship between states and refugees highlighted by Hannah Arendt, shifting geopolitical, legal, and sovereign geographies have exacerbated the unevenness of refugees' ability to claim the right to seek asylum. In this article, we employ a framework of embodied epistemologies to extend Arendt's insights into the role of the stateless for sovereign logics. We argue that the 'right to have rights' as an embodied possibility is not only integral to the logics of sovereignty, but also to the creation of new political spaces. Our article draws on collaborative case studies in Guam/ Northern Marianas Islands, Lampedusa, and Christmas Island. We argue that while Arendt paid singular attention to the terrain of the sovereign, there exists a far more complex geography of the state that must be negotiated to claim rights. The 'right to have rights' is necessarily an embodied possibility and practice that creates new political spaces on the grounds of and across sovereign spaces and nation-state territories.
7. Immigration Detention in Guantánamo Bay: (Not going anywhere anytime soon)
   Azadeh Dastyari and Libbey Effeny
   Abstract Keywords
   Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Immigration Detention, Migrant Operations Center
   The detention facilities at the United States' Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, 45 square miles (120 km2) of land located at the south-eastern corner of the island of Cuba, gained global notoriety since the 'War on Terror' began in 2002. It is not so widely known, however, that since 1991 the base has been extensively used as an immigration detention facility for asylum seekers and refugees. This paper is concerned with the 'Migrant Operations Center' (MOC), which is the immigration detention facility operating at the base under a cloak of relative secrecy. It places the Guantánamo Base in its historical and geographic context. It shows that the very particular imperial geography of Guantanamo Bay anticipated its use as a detention facility for 'aliens'. This paper argues that it is problematic for the US to continue the decades old policy of interdicting and detaining refugees at Guantánamo, despite its alleged, though empirically unfounded, role as a deterrence mechanism for others considering a boat journey to US shores.
8. Border Economies: Lampedusa and the Nascent Migration Industry
   Heidrun Friese
   Abstract Keywords
   Undocumented mobility, border regime, border economy, Lampedusa
   Given extensive media coverage, the island of Lampedusa became a prominent symbol of undocumented mobility in the Mediterranean. The intensification of border controls, the Schengen treaty and the externalisation of borders to the European ex-colonies in North Africa fostered informal economic activities. Moreover, mobile actors invented new strategies to adapt or to circumvent impediments to free movement. Whereas new forms of Foucault's concept of gouvernementalité have been critically scrutinised, the interplay between the informal and the formal, institutionalised border economies has escaped attention so far. Based on long-term and multi-sited anthropological fieldwork on Lampedusa and Tunisia, this addresses the border regime and the nascent migration industry that involves various local, national and supra-national actors such as the Italian Civil Defence Department, the (private-public) detention system and NGOs (such as the International Organisation for Migration, Save the Children, and the Italian Red Cross).
9. Separate and Invisible: A Carceral History of Australian Islands
   Amy Nethery
   Abstract Keywords
   Incarceration, Australia, history, Bruny Island, Norfolk Island, Palm Island, Rottnest Island
   This article examines the history of four islands used for incarceration in Australia: the 'secondary punishment' of convicts on Norfolk Island; the management and quarantine of indigenous people on Palm Island; the quarantine of all new migrants and visitors on Bruny Island; and the incarceration of enemy aliens on Rottnest Island. Incarceration has been used throughout Australia's history as a method of social and political control, targeting categories of people perceived to pose a threat to the racial composition, social cohesion, or national security of the Australian community. By providing a space both separate and invisible to the community, Australia's carceral islands served as a solution to a recurring problem for a young nation apprehensive about the composition, durability and security of its community. The human consequences of incarceration could be devastating.
10. Collateral Damage: The impact of Australian asylum seeker policy on Christmas Islanders (2001-2011)
    Linda Briskman, Lucy Fiske, and Michelle Dimasi
    Abstract Keywords
    Christmas Island, asylum seekers, community attitudes, critical events
    Since the Tampa incident in 2001, Christmas Island has been a central site where Australia's border protection and asylum seeker policies are visible This article takes four key events over a ten year period to track the impact on Christmas Islanders and on the Islanders' changing attitudes towards asylum seekers, detention and federal government policies. The views of Christmas Islanders are not often heard in public discourse about detention on the island. This article seeks to provide a platform for a snapshot of views and to call for a greater role for Islanders in decisions that profoundly affect their lives.
11. The Passage of Authority: Imagining the Political Transformation of Australia's Christmas Island, from Sovereignty to Governance
    Peter Chambers
    Abstract Keywords
    Christmas Island, immigration detention, border security, palliative communication, bureaucratic sincerity, utopia
    In 2012, Australia's Christmas Island is best known as an island of immigration detention, a key component of Australia's growing offshore border security apparatus, where interdicted boat arrivals seeking asylum are detained and processed. This article offers one account of how the Island came to be what it is, by providing two snapshots of the operable set of power relations on Christmas Island, then and now: 'Island in the Sun', and 'Tropics of Governance'. Side by side, their stark contrast reveals the passage of authority through time and place, from the embodied, unified voice of the sovereignty of the British Empire to the palliative communication and bureaucratic sincerity that characterise governance. By disclosing shifting patterns of emergence and decay and showing border security's intimate relation to governance, this article seeks to offer a deepened understanding of the current detention situation in its immanence. What can now be seen as Christmas Island's past follies also reveals the restless work of successive political imaginations, the shifting ways and means by which an island can be translated into a solution to a political problem, and how successive solutions tend toward wreck and ruin.
12. Twenty First Century Appraisals of Palm Island
    Caroline Atkinson
    Abstract Keywords
    Palm Island, historical trauma, cultural trauma, political trauma, trauma, prison colony, Aboriginal, Indigenous
    Palm Island, situated off the mid-north Pacific coast of Queensland, was established as an Aboriginal settlement in 1918. By the late 1930s close to 2,000 Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders had been forcibly interned there by Queensland authorities. The island housed a variety of Indigenous peoples with marked differences in language and cultural heritage and was a complex community that developed a new syncretic identity. With many of the internees being classed as 'disruptive', a harsh militaristic regime was maintained by white administrators and guards. The repressive regime persisted until the 1960s and it wasn't until 1986 that ownership of the island was ceded to its inhabitants. Left with little infrastructure and minimal employment opportunities, social problems and criminality rose in the 1990s leading to increasingly harsh and often insensitive policing of the island by the Queensland police. One outcome of the latter was the death-in-custody of Cameron Doomadgee, also known as Mulrunji, in 2004, an event that provoked what was labelled as 'rioting', followed by a formal investigation by the state government that delivered a report in 2005 recommending major redevelopment of the island. The events described above resulted in wide media coverage and, in particular, the publication of three books: Jeff Water's Gone for a Song (2008), Jill Watson's Palm Island: Through a Long Lens (2010) and Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man (2010). This article analyses the books, more particularly Through a Long Lens; considers Palm Island's history as an incarceration centre through a trauma-informed lens; and proposes that just as incarcerated Aboriginal men caught in the trauma vortex have insight into their own needs, so do Palm Islanders.
13. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Aquapelagos and Aquapelagic Assemblages: Towards an integrated study of island societies and marine environments
   Philip Hayward
   Abstract Keywords
   Archipelago, aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblages, Island Studies
   The loose interdisciplinary field known as 'Island Studies' has recently recognised the need to formulate an address to archipelagos in addition to the more atomised or generalised studies that have typified its first two decades of operation. While this is a significant development in itself, it also serves to identify the necessity for a more holistic comprehension and analysis of the interrelation of marine and terrestrial spaces in areas of the planet in which small fragments of land are aggregated in marine spaces. In order to focus on the character and dynamics of the latter, this paper proposes a reconceptualisation of such spaces in terms of their constituting 'aquapelagic assemblages'; a term I propose to emphasise the manner in which the aquatic spaces between and around groups of islands are utilised and navigated in a manner that is fundamentally interconnected with and essential to social groups' habitation of land.
4. Shima and Aquapelagic Assemblages: A Commentary from Japan
   Juni'chiro Suwa
   Abstract Keywords
   Archipelago, aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblage, shima, Japan
   This commentary is a response to Hayward's article about aquapelagos elsewhere in this issue (2012), mainly elaborating on his passages concerning Japan by providing a response from that national context and adding some theoretical considerations pertinent to his concept of 'aquapelagic assemblages'. In order to bridge the two parts, I re-introduce and re-characterise the spatial idea of shima, which I initially proposed in an earlier article in this journal (Suwa, 2005), as a type of aquapelagic assemblage.
5. Archaeology, Aquapelagos and Island Studies
   Helen Dawson
   Abstract Keywords
   Archaeology, archipelago, aquapelago, Mediterranean, Malta
   The burgeoning concept of the aquapelago is reviewed here in general terms and specifically in light of its applicability to archaeology, where a comparable debate has been taking place over the development of an archaeology of the sea to match that of the islands. The study of the sea in its own right is a promising approach, nonetheless we should still aim to address the continuum formed by islanders, land and sea.
6. Getting Wet: A Response to Hayward's concept of Aquapelagos
   Godfrey Baldacchino
   Abstract Keywords
   Archipelago, aquapelago, maritimity, ocean, sea
   This brief rejoinder explores some of the nuances of the archipelago as they connect and contrast with Philip Hayward's suggestions (elsewhere in this issue). In particular, it charts three sets of navigational forays into the implications of a stronger appreciation of the marine in island(er) lives.
7. Seas As Places: Towards a maritime chorography
   Ian Maxwell
   Abstract Keywords
   Aquapelago, chorography, local knowledge
   This short response to Hayward's proposal of the concept of aquapelagos elsewhere in this issue provides a context for such re-imaginings of place and human occupation and identifies chorography as a potential model for further exploration.
8. Risky Places: Climate change discourse and the transformation of place on Moch (Federated States of Micronesia)
   Christine Pam and Rosita Henry
   Abstract Keywords
   Micronesia, climate change, risk and uncertainty, local knowledge
   Scientific predictions of climate change that place small islands 'at risk' from sea-level rise and an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events are well accepted by Small Island States. This paper discusses responses to climate change discourse on Moch Island, a coral atoll in the Mortlock Islands of Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia. We examine climate change discourse in terms of how it contributes to the constitution of 'risky environments', and focus on how the concept of 'risk' contributes to the way that people currently engage with and understand their island places. Whilst a past history of human resourcefulness in response to social and environmental change in the Pacific is well documented in the literature, the contemporary discourse of climate change introduces a notion of risk that stifles people's agency and trust in the effectiveness of their own knowledge and practices.
9. Negotiating Turnour Island: Diaspora, memories and contemporary land claims in British Columbia
   Jon Corbett and Zach Romano
   Abstract Keywords
   Tlowitsis Nation, place-based memory, community-based research, British Columbia Treaty Process, aboriginal community
   The territory of the Tlowitsis Nation spans the coastal area of Northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Seasonal travel routes, food processing spots, burial and cultural sites and other named places extend across the entire territory. Since the turn of the 20th Century Karlukwees, located on remote Turnour Island, became a central settlement for the Tlowitsis Nation. In the early 1960s the Nation was displaced from Karlukwees; this has led to community members becoming culturally, as well as physically, removed from their traditional territories. A rising urban population with little attachment to these lands has reduced the opportunity and ability for members to take an active and informed role in their community. This paper describes the Tlowitsis relationship to its island-based homeland. Further, it explores how contemporary efforts to reclaim territories and mobilise the community within the context of the Canadian government land claims negotiations help to shape the ideal of what their island's past means for the future of the Nation.
10. North of Hollywood North: Bowen Island and screen production networks
    Rebecca Coyle
    Abstract Keywords
    Bowen Island, screen production, Hollywood North, network analysis
    Bowen Island is located close to the British Columbian metropolis of Vancouver, in southwest Canada. Its proximity to Vancouver's audiovisual studios and screen production services has enabled several professional screen industry workers to reside on the island and commute for employment. At the same time, the island attracts film and television productions from the Vancouver-based 'Hollywood North' due to its convenient location and highly attractive land and sea environments. These productions offer some social and financial benefits to islanders, while creating portraits of island life that are disassociated from locals' experiences. Meanwhile, resident screen producers (and other cultural workers) create their own productions that utilIse the island's features and show aspects of life on Bowen Island. This article draws on a network analysis to investigate the interrelated factors of island geography, transport and communications, screen industries and cultural production. It explores various audiovisual representations of the island and how they are informed by internal and external flows of people, services and products.
11. Home And Away: Constructions of place on Stewart Island
    Arianne Carvalhedo Reis
    Abstract Keywords
    Cold water islands, hunting, hiking, tramping, place, space, tourism, host-guest relationship
    Located south of the South Island of New Zealand, separated by Foveaux Strait, Stewart Island is the southern-most of New Zealand's three main islands. Stewart Island's magnificent landscapes and wildlife provide excellent opportunities for hiking and hunting. The nature of these experiences, however, is quite distinct from one another. The vast majority of hikers visiting the island are international tourists and first- time visitors, while most hunters are New Zealanders, who have been visiting the island for several years. This difference in background facilitates experiences of place that are distinct from one another, and the performances of these visitors are highly modulated by how place is constructed by themselves and by others with whom they share their experiences. This article explores these constructions of place and the production of a space that allows for these distinct experiences to occur simultaneously and in the same location. It investigates the roles a remote island destination plays in the experience of visitors/tourists, and how these roles are constructed and subsequently performed.
12. Cultural Events and Tourism in Jersey
    Brychan Thomas and Simon Thomas
    Abstract Keywords
    Jersey, Cultural Events, Tourism, Channel Islands
    The paper considers the importance of cultural events for the development of tourism in the Island of Jersey. In recent years there has been a decline in tourism that appeared to take effect in the 1980s with the changing tourism market. A number of research methods have been used, including consideration of secondary data, to assess the development of tourism and a historical analysis of the development processes of the tourism industry. The research has been carried out in three distinct stages. The first stage assessed the historical development of the tourism industry in the 20th and 21st centuries. It draws primarily on archival material, existing research and secondary data sources. The second stage considered the role of cultural events in the modern development of the tourism industry. The third stage examined the nature and importance of the events in terms of the recent development of the industry. This has involved both internal (island) and external (international) influences on evolution. From this, a summary of the salient issues arising from trends has been made enabling direct analysis of the importance of cultural events.
13. The Geography of the Psyche: In Wayne Johnston's 'The Story of Bobby O'Malley' and Alistair MacLeod's 'The Boat' and 'The Lost Salt Gift of Blood'
    Laurie Brinklow
    Abstract Keywords
    Islandness, boundedness, resilience, identity, Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island
    Just as islands have physical boundaries that mark where they begin and end, so too do people have boundaries that define them—physical, psychological or emotional, and societal. Often these boundaries are shaped in early childhood. How porous these psychological boundaries are can determine how resilient individuals are. Are they adaptable enough to let emotions flow through and around them like the tides? Or are they vulnerable to being flooded by everything life throws at them? Or are they trapped inside an emotional shoreline that does not allow anything in or out? This paper explores the theme of islandness and, in particular, the emotional boundedness that can result from living on an island. It looks at the role family plays in shaping characters in Wayne Johnston's 'The Story of Bobby O'Malley' and Alistair MacLeod's 'The Boat' and 'The Lost Salt Gift of Blood', and at how islands imprint themselves on the psyche at an early age—both negatively and positively. This can result in an emotionally bounded personality, or a more porous person who can connect with his or her island and grow up to be more resilient. All are a part of islandness and contribute to the creation of a strong island identity.
14. Kellerman: EXPANDED. A Live Audio-Visual Performance in the Whitsundays
    Grayson Cooke
    Abstract Keywords
    Annette Kellerman, live cinema, Whitsundays, VJ, performance
    'Kellerman: EXPANDED' was a live audio-visual performance and improvisation, specially produced for the Seventh International Small island Cultures Conference in the Whitsundays (June 2011). It was a 'live cinema' remix project, in which footage from films featuring and about Australian champion swimmer and silent film star Annette Kellerman was mixed live against a soundtrack made up of songs about the Whitsundays and tracks by sound artist Mike Cooper. Annette Kellerman was an Australian performer who achieved fame as a synchronised swimmer in the London and New York Hippodromes in the 1910s and, later, as a silent film star. She spent a year in the Whitsundays in 1933/34, performing at resorts and appearing as a mermaid in a series of quasi-documentary films about coral reefs. In this performance, undersea footage was mixed in with the Kellerman films to produce an undersea fantasia, a meditation on the expanded temporality and fantasy of the island paradise. Audience members were invited to interact live with the performance, by submitting silent-film inter-titles as blog comments, which were mixed into the performance via RSS feeds.
15. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction
4. L'identité Par Les Racines Or, Saying 'Indigenous' in Tahiti: The term Mā'ohi
   Bruno Saura
   Abstract Keywords
   Mā'ohi, indigenous, behaviour, ethnic term, representation, land, identity
   This article reflects upon the rise of the word mā'ohi since the 1980s as a term by which (French) Polynesians refer to themselves. Some older people believe the term unsuitable for humans and restrict it to plants and animals. This contrasts with contemporary identity discourses that see the term mā'ohi as articulating an indigenous condition and intrinsically conveying the concept of dignity. These differing interpretations express conflicting representations relating to land, praised by contemporary nationalists but sometimes perceived by older people as tainted. A comparative linguistic analysis of the term mā'ohi shows that it does not always express the idea of purity or dignity, even if it is often used in other Polynesian islands to designate humankind.
5. Norman Languages of the Channel Islands: Current situation, language maintenance and revitalisation
   Julia Sallabank
   Abstract Keywords
   Channel Islands, indigenous languages, endangered language revitalisation, Norman French, symbolic identity
   The Channel Islands have been self-governing dependencies of the British Crown since 1204, but their geographical location, indigenous languages and older cultural traditions are much closer to Normandy (north-west France). However, acculturation to English language and customs has accelerated in the last 200 years, and is now pervasive. This paper examines the situation of the indigenous languages of the islands, which are now highly endangered: practically all native speakers are aged over 70. The island varieties of Norman have traditionally had low status, which contributed to their decline, but in recent years there have been attempts to raise their status and to raise awareness of their imminent disappearance; these attempts have borne fruit with a degree of support from the islands' governments. The paper first describes some of the linguistic features of Channel Island Norman, and then discusses efforts to preserve this aspect of island culture. The outcomes of the various revitalisation measures are also considered.
6. Insularity, Political Status and Small Insular Spaces
   Francois Taglioni
   Abstract Keywords
   Insularity, political status, typology, human development, determinism
   This article focuses on islands and archipelagos around the world and considers their field of study. It aims first to trace the outline of the geographical object and its limits. Rather than attempting to provide a positive definition of an island, the article posits a category of small insular spaces. Next, by providing a thorough analysis of the notion of insularity, the study demonstrates the limits of certain physical determinisms. I propose a typology of insularities in order to open lines of inquiry and provide indications as to the levels of development and integration of small insular spaces in a world economy. However, the trends laid out in this typology should by no means be expanded into rules or laws relating to the relative influence of insularity. The position of islands in the world system does not take precedence over their relative position in relation to the main island or an industrialised home country. The influence of political status on the levels of development will also be examined.
7. One Island, Two Landscapes Or, How does Otherness manifest itself on Other Sides of the Border? (Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten & Haiti/Dominican Republic)
   Marie Redon
   Abstract Keywords
   Borders, divided islands, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten
   This article investigates the impacts and implications of the imposition of national boundaries across islands that were unified and homogenous prior to political partition by western colonial powers. The article explores these aspects with regard to two politically divided Caribbean islands: Quisqueya (shared between Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and the Island of Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten (whose different spellings reflect the French and Dutch ownership of separate parts of the Island). The article examines the creation of 'Otherness' on either side of the borders and the manner in which territorial 'Others' sharing the same island space develop mechanisms for both separation and interaction.
8. Accessibility Challenges Facing Mauritius and La Réunion
   M-Annick Lamy-Giner
   Abstract Keywords
   La Réunion, Mauritius, island, accessibility, transport, tourism
   Mauritius and La Réunion, two islands located in the South West Indian Ocean, could not be more different. One, a highly ambitious island state striving to maintain its position on the international chessboard, contrasts with the other, an island endowed with greater resources and controlled by a powerful state. However, both islands are isolated and far away from mainland centres. In their determination not to remain isolated from the international community they have forged sea and air links with the rest of the world. Mauritius seems to have been more successful at this than its neighbour. Nevertheless, sea and air transportation not only contributes to their extroversion but also reflects their extra-regional dependency and shared interests. However, accessibility is not only about developing links with the outside world but relates to domestic mobility and alternative forms of transport to tackle the traffic congestion on both islands.
9. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. 'Lundy's Hard Work': Branding, Biodiversity and 'A Unique Island Experience'
   Susie Khamis
   Abstract Keywords
   Lundy, branding, biodiversity, North Devon
   Over the last 15 years, the island of Lundy has become increasingly associated with important conservation projects, particularly in regards to its biodiversity. At the same time, the island's appeal continues to be channeled through a well-worn discourse of 'untouched', 'unspoiled' islandness — or a generic charm that is popularly attributed to small islands (Grydehoj, 2008). This article shows that this perception is highly misplaced, and fails to take stock of the considerable effort that goes into managing Lundy. If anything, Lundy's growing profile constitutes effective place branding (Anholt, 2008), whereby various stakeholders strive towards a cohesive and coherent strategy. This article considers the history of Lundy as well as decisions made by seminal individuals and organisations, particularly the Landmark Trust, and shows that Lundy's management carefully acknowledges tourism opportunities and environmentalist objectives. The Lundy brand is thus an ideal example of small-island branding in the 21st Century as its marketing both acknowledges and incorporates principles of sustainable development.
4. Jersey & Guernsey: two distinct approaches to cross-border fishery management
   Christian Fleury
   Abstract Keywords
   Jersey, Guernsey, France, fishing agreements, insularity, marine borders, sea appropriation conflicts
   The Channel Island bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey have a land area of 196 km2 and, together with their surrounding waters, cover a total surface area of approximately 5000 km2 within the Normand-Breton gulf. The bailiwick of Jersey comprises its main island and the uninhabited, rocky shelves of the Minquiers and the Ecrehous. The bailiwick of Guernsey comprises the inhabited islands of Alderney, Sark, Herm and Brecqhou in addition to its main island and a number of uninhabited offshore islets. Emphasising the autonomy of the two bailiwicks, each has a significantly different relationship with France over the issue of coastal fisheries; with Guernsey having had no dialogue with France over access issues and related disputes since the mid-1990s whereas Jersey has developed a relationship based on trust, as manifest in the Joint Advisory Committee of the Bay of Granville, which is part of the proceedings set up within the framework of an international treaty signed between France and the United Kingdom in July 2000. The following text will describe the stakes, strategies and convergent and divergent views between these parties over the issue of access to regional fisheries.
5. Multi-ethnic coexistence in Kilwa island, Tanzania: The basic ecology and fishing cultures of a Swahili maritime society
   Ryo Nakamura
   Abstract Keywords
   Multi-ethnic coexistence, basic ecology, fishing culture, Swahili, Kilwa Island, Tanzania
   This article examines the socio-cultural structure of a Swahili maritime society in which many ethnic groups continue to live together. The focus of the article is on Kilwa, a Swahili island off the south coast of Tanzania famous for the prosperity it secured from Islamic Indian Ocean trade in the era of the medieval Kilwa Kingdom. By analysing the exploitation and sharing of natural resources particular to the sea surrounding this island, the article details how Bantu people and those of Arab descent have managed to live together in such a small area. The three ecological zones that make up the maritime environment of Kilwa are home to two general types of fisheries, each of which is largely practiced by one of the main ethnic groups. Fishers of Arab descent use expensive keeled boats for gillnet fishing in the open sea while Bantu fishers gather marine products using a dugout canoe, a flat-bottomed boat, or on foot in the shallow inland sea1 and coral pools. By occupying different maritime zones and targeting different species, the two fishing cultures of Kilwa Island enjoy a harmonious coexistence. Because each zone has different products, the catches for the two ethnic groups are different. Thanks to the diversity of the marine resources around Kilwa Island, each ethnic group can monopolise its own fisheries, thus reducing conflict between fishing activities. This contributes to maintaining a peaceful and harmonious multi-ethnic coexistence on the island.
6. The Mitigation of Vulnerability: Mutiny, resilience and reconstitution - a case study of Pitcairn Island
   Maria Amoamo
   Abstract Keywords
   Vulnerability, social capital, sustainable livelihood, resilience
   Over the past few decades the Pacific region has undergone much change through decolonisation and postcolonial (re)adjustment. Political change in new and existing Pacific nations is marked by efforts to re-conceptualise identities, histories and futures. Descriptions of islands as fragile, small, peripheral and dependent are often taken for granted; reiterated within a discourse of 'vulnerability'. Such rhetoric sets up a perception of what constructs 'islandness' or island societies. This article uses a case study of Pitcairn Island, the last remaining British Overseas Territory in the Pacific, to argue for a theorisation of social capital as a counter-narrative to such discourse. It contends that an understanding of the historical trajectories of sustainable livelihoods (SL) show that strengths emerge from livelihood strategies specifically adapted to such isolated places. This moves beyond the spatial rhetoric of colonial and postcolonial theory by showing how the materiality of place and people are fundamental parts of colonial and postcolonial formations in the present.
7. The Geopark as a Potential Tool for Alleviating Community Marginality: A case study of Langkawi Geopark, Malaysia
   Sharina Abdul Halim, Ibrahim Komoo, Hood Salleh and Mustaffa Omar
   Abstract Keywords
   Sustainable livelihood, tourism, geopark, community development, social marginality
   This study has three main purposes. The first is to examine the planning and implementation processes involved in Langkawi's development - particularly since its establishment as an international tourist destination - providing a brief account of the stages of its development from a duty-free island (1987) to Global Geopark (2007). The second purpose is to identify Langkawi's degree of marginality in terms of its livelihood assets, particularly its human, social and financial capital. The third focus of study addresses the issue of whether Geopark status has the potential to enhance livelihoods and the sustainability of island communities. Case studies of three locations on Langkawi (Padang Mat Sirat, Kilim and Pulau Tuba) are used to illustrate marginalisation in different types of locality. The results confirm that at local levels, the trickle-down effect of growth that benefits and reaches poor and vulnerable groups takes time due to the degree of accessibility of groups to resources, social and physical infrastructures and achievement in education and technical skills. In fact, the unemployment rate was significantly high for these areas, especially for Pulau Tuba due to its location off the main island. Regarding local participation based on types of employment, the results confirm little movement in terms of upward mobility. Hence, investment efforts, either by government or the private sector, are needed to revive the present economic activities with diversified concepts that are appropriate for the local community. The challenge to ensure effective participation and sustainability is a multifaceted one which requires commitment from individuals, the community and development agencies such as LADA and the District Office, to channel suitable socio-economic-driven projects to improve local livelihoods and to encourage bottom-up participation among locals by empowering them in the development and planning processes.
8. Listening for The Past: A composer's ear-lead approach to exploring island culture past and present in the Outer Hebrides
   Cathy Lane
   Abstract Keywords
   Outer Hebrides, sound, composition, recording, history
   The landscapes of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland are littered with the visual remnants of a turbulent past but can past events be said to leave sonic as well as visual traces? This article discusses three aspects of a practice-based research project. The first is the author's exploration of these islands and their history through sound in order to try to find elusive sonic traces of the past. The second concerns the issues and problems of finding and recording sound in the Outer Hebrides. The third is the artistic challenge of communicating something about history and memory, related to the Outer Hebrides, through the medium of composed sound using a mixture of monologues, field recordings and interviews collected during a number of trips to the islands as well as material from oral history archives.This article refers specifically to two finished compositions, 'Tweed' and 'On the Machair', which are both freely available to listen to online. 'Tweed' is available as part of 'Playing with Words: an audio compilation' at: http://www.gruenrekorder.de - and 'On the Machair' is available as part of Autumn Leaves at: http://www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=218
9. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. The Giantess as a Metaphor for Shetland’s Cultural History
   Andrew Jennings
   Abstract Keywords
   Shetland, Norway, Scotland, folklore, giantess
   This paper examines the giantess figure in the traditions of Shetland. Debate continues in Shetland about the extent to which the cultural heritage of the archipelago can be described as Norse or Scottish. There is widespread popular belief in the existence of an extensive Norse cultural inheritance, a view that is not always borne out by scholarship. However, this study of the traditions surrounding the giantess, known by various reflexes of the Old Norse word gýgr, will show that in the field of intangible cultural heritage, the Norse cultural component is strong. Indeed, if the giantess can be seen as a synecdoche for cultural tradition in general, Shetland’s traditions are primarily Norse, but with a Scottish admixture.
4. Defining the Archaeological Resource on The Isle Of Harris: An assessment of the impact of environmental factors and topography on the identification of buried remains
   Kevin Colls and John Hunter
   Abstract Keywords
   Western Isles, Scotland, archaeology, new discoveries, culture
   Recognition of the richness and diversity of Scottish coastal archaeology has been one of the most important developments in the study of the archaeology of Scotland during recent times. The Isle of Harris, however, has been left behind. Perhaps due to its lack of upstanding archaeological monuments, or because of its harsh terrain — steep mountains, secluded valleys and deep machair (blown sand) dunes — little research has been undertaken to characterise the archaeological resource of the island and how this might be integrated into the wider trends of past human activity in the Western Isles. This paper introduces some of the preliminary results from a long-standing archaeological research project on Harris and offers a new insight into the archaeological and cultural resource of this island. The unique geological, topographical and geomorphological characteristics will be outlined and explored, with particular reference to how these factors have impacted upon the recognition of buried archaeological remains. The results from key sites will be summarised and the importance of this new dataset within local and regional studies of the development and history of the Western Isles archipelago outlined. Key themes within the discipline of island archaeology will be discussed, focusing upon the reaffirmation of the need to understand fully the cultural and archaeological development of each individual island before expanding into inter-island studies.
5. Isolation and Interaction Cycles: Small Central Mediterranean Islands from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age
   Valentina Copat, Michela Danesi And Giula Recchia
   Abstract Keywords
   Interaction, exchange, small islands, prehistory
   This article considers cycles of interaction and isolation within the small islands of the central Mediterranean. It analyses these holistically, reflecting the manner in which the cycles appear to have been influenced by processes and historical phenomena that operated beyond the island groups. Available data on interaction from the different islands is compared and fluctuations in exchange networks between the 6th and 2nd millennium BC are identified. The article highlights similarities and differences in patterns of interaction between islands and mainlands and, particularly, changing demands for raw materials, the diverse motives for interaction and the shifting directions of such interaction. It is argued that cyclic patterns of interaction occurred and that small islands played a vital role in central Mediterranean exchange networks at particular periods.
6. Opportunities for Tourism and Dialogue Between Civilisations: Rums’ Religious Fairs on the Islands of Gökçeada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos), Turkey
   Vedat Çalişkan
   Abstract Keywords
   Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), religious fair, faith tourism, dialogue between civilizations
   This study concerns religious fairs that, in Turkey, are mainly limited to the islands of Gökçeada and Bozcaada. Continued by the resident Greek minorities (Rums), these traditional fairs attract the interest of not only off-island Rum communities but also of the Turkish public in general. Recently, the fairs’ religious, social, and cultural aspects have developed economic and political dimensions. Besides providing new opportunities for faith tourism in these small-economy islands, the fairs also prepare the ground for cultural and economic partnerships between Greece and Turkey. The cultural characteristics of Gökçeada and Bozcaada could set a global example for developing dialogue between civilizations. The centuries-old Greek Orthodox tradition of island fairs could function as a bridge between neighbouring civilizations today. These two Turkish islands in the North Aegean await the world’s interest and continue to contribute to positive relations between Greece and Turkey.
7. A Case of Geocide: The Political and Cartographic Erasure of the Island Cache (British Columbia
   Mike Evans and Stephen Foster
   Abstract Keywords
   Urban Aboriginal communities, historiography, Island studies, British Columbia
   In this photo and text essay we chronicle the disappearance of an Island community of marginalised Aboriginal people. This disappearance is the result of changes in both the landscape (rendering the Island itself part of the mainland) and landscape memory (erasing the historiographic markers of the former insular community). The essay alerts us to the various ways that Islands are transformed in the context of relations with powerful neighbours.
8. Salvage and Regeneration: Stories of Regeneration and Loss from two North East American Barrier Islands
   Rob Snyder
   Abstract Keywords
   Ocracoke, Portsmouth Island, North Carolina Barrier Islands, regeneration
   The unifying aspects of island life become clearer when leaving one archipelago to experience and hear the stories of another. The following reflection resulted from an invitation to participate in a seminar entitled ‘Island People: Island Culture’ conducted on Ocracoke Island by the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching in the winter of 2010. I was invited to listen and to share thoughts about the challenges and solutions to sustainability facing Maine’s island communities. As I listened, I recalled reading Margaret Rodman’s Houses Far From Home (2001) where she recorded the movements of the pieces of a home she built decades earlier on Vanuatu. This memory blended with my own experiences on Maine’s islands over the past eight years. I was moved to capture stories of salvage and regeneration, loss and longing, of successes both small and large, and of the physicality of life on two north eastern US barrier islands.
9. The Ambon Statement (On small islands, coral reefs, archipelagos and related marine ecosystems)
   Abstract Keywords
   Small islands, coral reefs, archipelagos, marine ecosystems
   The International Conference on Small Islands and Coral Reefs (ISI-C) was held on August 3rd-5th 2010 in Ambon City, Indonesia. The conference was organised to share knowledge, information and experiences about the management and academic study of coral reef ecosystems. Within this, its main focus was on the effort needed to ensure sustainable small island development in balance with ecosystem health and social justice for island communities. An additional objective was to ensure that action plans were established that could respond to the impact of climate change on small islands, a priority identified at the World Ocean Conference in Manado (north Sulawesi) in May 2009. During ISI-C, the nature of archipelagos and archipelagic planning arose as key factors in debates. Reflecting these elements of discussion, the following statement was drafted during and formerly presented at the conclusion of the conference.
10. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction
4. Grey Areas in Past Maritime Identity?: The case of Final Neolithic-Early Bronze Age Attica (Greece) and the surrounding islands
   Margarita Nazou
   Abstract Keywords
   Attica, mainland-island interaction, exchange, maritime networks, situational approach to cultural identity
   This article explores the issue of archaeological construction of maritime identity in the region of Attica and the surrounding islands (Greece) during the Final Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age. By investigating the theoretical implications of a situational approach to ethnicity and cultural identity, it is argued that maritime identity in the region was fluid, formed and transformed to meet social circumstances. Archaeological evidence indicates a change through time in maritime exchange networks within communities in the region. The exchanged materials, for example pottery and metals, played an important role in these networks. In addition, burial habits in the coastal zone of Attica and Euboea have many similarities to those of the neighbouring communities in the Cyclades but they are in fact a unique combination of ‘mainland’ and ‘island’ cultural traditions. Maritime networks in the region would have operated along with other overland networks. Finally, mainland- island interaction is only a part of the cultural practices underway at the time.
5. Re-capturing the Sea: The Past and Future of ‘Island Archaeology’ in Greece
   Ina Berg
   Abstract Keywords
   Island Archaeology, Greece
   Research into past and present islands and coastal communities in Greece has long remained steeped in biogeographical concepts. An overview of relevant surface survey publications highlights their focus on landscape investigations, such as settlement patterns, mortuary landscapes, land use, soil analysis, botanical reconstructions and terracing. If mentioned, the sea occurs in the context of sea level changes or trade contacts. The new comprehensive agenda for an inclusive ‘island archaeology’ put forward by Broodbank (2000) and Rainbird (2007) has not yet been implemented. With the theoretical agenda clearly formulated, it is hoped that the potential of such a new, more outward-reaching survey design will soon be realised.
6. Expanding the Horizons of Island Archaeology - Islandscapes Imaginary and Real, Ely: the case of the Dry Island
   David A. Barrowclough
   Abstract Keywords
   Island archaeology, islandscape, insularity, dry island, Ely, mappa, cognitive map
   This paper takes as its starting point a definition of islands that goes beyond geographical isolation to consider islands as social constructs insofar as they reflect feelings of isolation, separateness, distinctiveness and otherness. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of the ‘dry’ island, an island that although once surrounded by water has long since lost its physical isolation due to changes in sea level and drainage patterns. Taking the Isle of Ely in the fens of East Anglia in the United Kingdom between AD 1200-1600 as a case study, and utilising archaeological evidence for diet and for the local Ely ware pottery, it is possible to reconstruct a cognitive mappa, which describes the perception of islandness amongst the island’s medieval inhabitants.
7. Islands, Islets, Experience & Identity in the Outer Hebridean Iron Age
   Rebecca Rennell
   Abstract Keywords
   Experience, identity, Scottish islands, Outer Hebrides, Iron Age
   This paper is concerned with exploring aspects of experience and the creation of place within the Iron Age landscapes of the Atlantic islands of the Outer Hebrides as a means of addressing questions of social identity. These prehistoric landscapes are defined primarily by monumental domestic roundhouse sites, brochs, duns and wheelhouses, which are typically found on the low-lying west coast of the islands or on small islets within freshwater lochs. In this paper the evidence for varying scales of island experience and identity in the Outer Hebridean Iron Age is explored. It is argued that the island, and the islet dwelling, more specifically, were central to the everyday experiences of these Iron Age communities, albeit in varying guises; and was a key component in the creation of domestic places and a mechanism for expressing and reinforcing social identity within this Iron Age society.
8. The Past in the Prehistoric Channel Islands
   Paul Driscoll
   Abstract Keywords
   Reuse, Bronze Age, Channel Islands, identity, interaction
   This article examines Bronze Age activity at Neolithic and Chalcolithic monuments in the Channel Islands. It shows that during the Middle Bronze Age the use of monuments was focused upon funerary structures of the Neolithic, but that by the Late Bronze Age the appropriation of these sites had diminished. Such a change, it is argued, was the result of a transition in the way the past was viewed at a time when ritual practices themselves were changing away from monuments and towards mobile material culture. What emerges from this paper is that the monuments chosen for reuse were primarily coastal, reflecting connections to the sea at a time of increased maritime movement.
9. “One, None, and a Hundred Thousand”: Settlements and identities in the prehistoric Mediterranean Islands
   Helen Dawson
   Abstract Keywords
   Identity, island, settlement, ‘sense of place’, colonisation, abandonment
   This paper explores the relations between island settlement, identity and sense of place in the prehistoric Mediterranean. It uses modern examples and archaeological case studies to discuss the effects of colonisation and abandonment on island communities and the creation of distinctive identities as a form of cultural resistance. Abandonment had a homogenising effect on prehistoric cultures, as the resulting movement of people encouraged cultural exchange. At the same time, however, certain traits were maintained, reflecting people’s sense of place and community affiliation. This homogeneity therefore is only superficial, masking different layers of identity constructed through cultural interaction. Time and space are critical factors in the creation of different cultural identities, which are not fixed but in continuous transformation.
10. “Our Struggle” - Mauritius: an Exploration of Colonial Legacies on an ‘Island Paradise’
    Krish Seetah
    Abstract Keywords
    Mauritius, ethnicity, cultural diversity, national identity
    It is unlikely that anyone reading this article can say that they have not been affected in some way by past colonial activity. Whether through diasporas, interaction with new cultural attitudes or the exposure of our taste buds to new foods, one thing is certain: no one remains unaffected. However, for some, the colonial experience is one that is very present in day-to-day life. This article examines Mauritius, an island ‘created’ in its modern guise by colonialism. It juxtaposes the colonial legacies of Europe with the ideals of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, former Prime Minister of Mauritius and unequivocal père de la nation, as laid out in his (co-authored) book Our Struggle (1992). The book outlines the ‘epic struggle’ of a colonial island, under British rule, to achieve a peaceful transition to independence. For an island foreshadowed by doom in the years following independence, how has ‘islandness’ and isolation helped it to become a rare economic success story? By finding an equilibrium between the turbulence of its past and the needs of its future, Mauritius has used the colonial experience to shape the modern island and in so doing develop a sense of nationhood. That sense of cultural heritage, currently defined through literature, could undergo a dramatic transformation as an archaeological perspective is added to the historic.
11. Te Mwaneaba Ni Kiribati - The Traditional Meeting House of Kiribati: ‘A Tale of Two Islands’
    Tony Whincup
    Abstract Keywords
    Status, nexus, identity, material culture, inter-generational continuity, agency
    Te mwaneaba (the traditional meeting-house) is central to social existence on the isolated coral atolls that form Kiribati. It is a place of tradition and ritual, changing only slowly since the establishment of “the original prototype maneaba of Tabontebike” around 1650 (Maude, 1977: 10). In te mwaneaba the seating positions of the old men of the village (unimwane) demonstrate their hierarchy. It is also a place of formal decision- making and significant social events. This paper developed from an initial photographic documentation of mwaneaba in 2008. The images revealed recent changes in building materials and construction techniques which, it is argued, have a significant effect upon social practices and the symbolic status of mwaneaba. It is further proposed that te mwaneaba acts as an agency for either change or inter-generational continuity in relation to the use of imported or local materials in its construction. Mwaneaba on the islands of Tarawa and Tabiteuea North form the primary sites for this examination.
    
    Text and image are constructed to form a dialectical relationship, maximising one another’s potential and sharing an equally important role in the dialogue. The photographs provide both specific detail and general contextualisation of the subject, while the written text adds to and builds upon the imagery.
12. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Orality and Mā’ohi Culture: An Introduction to Flora Devantine’s ‘Orality: Written Tradition, Oral Tradition, Literature, Fiuriture’
   Kareva Mateata-Allain
   Abstract Keywords
   Mā’ohi literature, Orality, Flora Devatine, French Polynesia
   For many Mā’ohi people - the Polynesians indigenous to the Oceanic area known as French Polynesia - transitioning from an oral culture to transcribing the fluidity of spoken words and contexts onto the etched landscape of a page is a challenging passage. For Mā’ohi writers, writing often becomes a tool to merge oral and personal histories that are a major component of a local cultural identity that grounds Mā’ohi writing. In a colonised society such as French Polynesia in which people have traditionally remained silent, there is a general understanding that they do so. Consequently, in order for Mā’ohi writers to overcome stumbling blocks with writing, academics and traditional societies must intrinsically recognise the important contributions of Orality to modern discourses and creative production. As Flora Devatine, a Mā’ohi scholar, writer, editor, and purveyor of Mā’ohi culture contends, Orality can be a vehicle to expand one’s consciousness and place in the world. Devatine’s (2002a) article, ‘Orality, Written Tradition, Oral Literature, and Fiuriture’, was originally written in French with reo Mā’ohi insertions. She crafts her essay in a poetic style that mirrors a Mā’ohi ‘orero, a traditional Polynesian oratory. In this extended ode, she stresses how Orality is an ever-expanding, forever innovative concept that shifts and evolves with indigenous consciousness amidst pervasive global change.
4. Written Literature, Oral Tradition, Oral Literature, Fiuriture
   Flora Devantine
   Abstract Keywords
   Orality, Oral Literature, nana’oture and nene’iture, oral writing, fiuriture and French Polynesian Literature
   Traditionally, Orality characterises a human society that does not write and that has no recourse for transmitting cultural traditions, or inscribing the reflections, thoughts, and emotions of its members. Further, each of the members of such a society is responsible for perpetuating Orality and its memory. From this point of view, Orality is the restitution of memory transmitted through diverse expressions of voice or words of a culture. Similar to reproduction by language, sounds and images are transported through a particular level of creation and expression. This happens especially with oratory arts, in which Orality, with its other contexts, also touches upon the liberation of memory and the re-creation of culture.
5. But the Language has Children now: Manx Language revitalisation
   Gary Wilson
   Abstract Keywords
   Reversing Language Shift; language revitalisation; education planning; Bunscoill Ghaelgagh
   This article examines the revitalisation of Manx Gaelic, the indigenous language of the Isle of Man, through acquisition or through education planning (which is one of a number of planning strategies used to preserve and promote endangered languages). Language scholars argue that the key to ‘Reversing Language Shift’ is to encourage language development in the domestic sphere (in the home and community) rather than (solely) in the education system. In the Isle of Man, however, the specific emphasis on education planning initiatives was a response to the dearth of fluent speakers and a complete absence of native speakers1. This break in intergenerational continuity necessitated the development of a solid cohort of younger speakers before revitalisation could even begin to take place in the domestic sphere. While the creation of a Manx medium primary school in 2001, as well as other educational initiatives at the pre- school, primary, secondary and adult levels have instigated a revival of Manx, providing opportunities for the growing cohort of Manx speakers to use the language outside of school remains contentious and will pose the single biggest challenge for the linguistic revitalisation process in the future.
6. Jersey and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon
   Christian Fleury
   Abstract Keywords
   Jersey, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, insularity, border, cultural resurgence
   Despite their obvious differences, comparisons of Jersey and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon are pertinent and informative due to their respective institutional statuses and locations. Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, situated close to the Canadian island of Newfoundland, is fully included within the French Republic but does not belong to the European Union. It thereby has room for manoeuvre beyond the scope of standard regions within the national context. Jersey, a dependency of the British Crown, lies 24 kilometres off the Cotentin Peninsula, part of the French region of Basse-Normandie. Not included within the United Kingdom and, by extension, out of the European Union, it has been able to develop a set of skilled activities, mainly in the financial sector.
   
   At their different levels and temporalities, these island-border territories are institutional and geographical margins that have tended to develop dematerialised activities within extended spatial systems. In addition to addressing this aspect, the article also stresses a second aspect of the islands’ relational pattern that has - in recent years, at least - led them to remember and revive former (and largely forgotten) cultural links with their continental vicinities. The phenomenon of local resurgence is prevalent in Jersey, where it operates in something of a counterbalance to global drifts in the finance industry and in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, with particular regard to the reactivation of its historical links to Acadia.
7. Islands and Archaeological Research in Western France
   Marie-Yvane Daire
   Abstract Keywords
   Archaeology, islands of Western France, heritage, environments, sea level, vulnerability
   The Brittany region corresponds to the largest peninsula of France, including hundreds of isles and small islands. Almost all of these contain remains of ancient human occupation dating from Prehistoric times and historical periods: megalithic monuments, Neolithic and Metal Ages settlements, Stone Age tool deposits, pre-Roman salt production workshops, early Christian hermitages and chapels, fish traps built in various periods etc. This article presents a collaborative research project dedicated to island archaeological research in Western France. The geographical, cultural and historical background throws light on the genesis and development of the collaborative research carried out over the past two decades by the AMARAI Association1; the objectives, methods, content and main results of the research projects are summarised, along with a short presentation of the plans and prospects that aim at opening up new perspectives on coastal and island archaeology in Western France.
8. Mummers on Trial: Mumming, Violence and the Law in Newfoundland
   Joy Fraser
   Abstract Keywords
   mumming, violence, Newfoundland, criminal trials
   This paper investigates the violence surrounding the custom of Christmas mumming as practised in the urban centres of Conception Bay on Newfoundland’s northeast coast, and in the island’s capital, St. John’s, in the mid-19th Century. Until recently, few contemporary accounts have come to light between the first known description of mumming-related violence in this area in January 1831 and the alleged murder of Isaac Mercer by mummers in the town of Bay Roberts in December 1860. This paper argues that the proceedings of several criminal trials involving mummers recently uncovered at the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador provide significant new evidence of a close relationship between mumming, violence and the law in Conception Bay and St. John’s during this period. The paper also explores the insights that the trial proceedings offer into the practice of mumming itself, the backgrounds of participants and the motivations underlying the violent incidents. In light of this new evidence, I argue for the need to re-examine the links that have been posited between mumming-related violence and the wider social, ethnic, religious and political tensions that affected life in mid-19th Century urban Newfoundland.
9. Wandering Rocks: Island Politics in the Offshore Locales of James Joyce
   John D. McIntyre
   Abstract Keywords
   Ireland, Aran Islands, Isle of Man, representation, House of Keys
   This article addresses the representation of islands within the fiction of the 20th Century writer James Joyce. It is argued that Joyce reveals how islands and concepts of islandness can be made to serve varying political, historical, and literary ends. Writing in the immediate aftermath of Irish independence and partition, Joyce used the island settings of the Aran Islands and the Isle of Man in order to comment on the implications of those recent historical developments. While contemporary writers like Yeats and Synge valued the Aran Islands for their inculcation of traditional Irish values, Joyce rejected that vision as parochial and outmoded. Instead, Joyce drew attention to important comparisons and contrasts between Ireland and the Isle of Man. In Ulysses (1922) Joyce contrasted Ireland’s long and bloody struggle for independence with Man, whose legislature, the House of Keys, presented a dramatic counterexample of legitimate Home Rule. For both Joyce and his characters, Man was associated with familiar island stereotypes, including self-sufficiency and wholeness.
10. Development or Despoilation? The Andaman Islands under colonial and postcolonial regimes
    M.V Krishnakumar
    Abstract Keywords
    Andaman Islands, forestry, development, environmental change, Andaman tribes
    The last quarter of the 19th Century marked an important watershed in the history of the Andaman Islands. The establishment of a penal settlement and an Imperial forestry service, along with other radical changes in the islands’ traditional economy and society, completely transformed the basic pattern of their forest resource use and entire system of forest management. These colonial policies, directly or indirectly, had a drastic impact on the indigenous population and island ecology. This article analyses the sources of environmental change in the Andaman Islands by examining the general ecological impacts of the state initiated development programmes. It also analyses the ‘civilising missions’ and forestry operations undertaken by British colonial administrators as well as the Indian state’s development initiatives under the ‘Five Year Plans’ that followed Indian independence in 1947.
11. Naming The Sea: Fishing Ground Place names on Norfolk and Pitcairn islands
    Joshua Nash
    Abstract Keywords
    Norfolk Island, Pitcairn Island, place names, offshore fishing ground names
    Pitcairn Island and Norfolk Island place names depict a colourful aspect of the history of the islands. This paper presents and develops an undocumented facet of esoteric and unofficial place-naming on both islands namely locating and naming offshore fishing grounds and argues that this taxon is an important component of the place name landscape as well as the cultural history of the islands. A list of 10 Pitcairn fishing ground names and a list of 10 Norfolk fishing ground names are analysed considering (1) the nature of the place name lexicon, (2) the spatial aspect of locating and talking about the fishing grounds, and (3) the similarities between naming and locating of fishing grounds on Pitcairn and Norfolk. Data elicitation techniques are also described. The results suggest that the names of these offshore locations form a type of sea-based cognitive map especially important in the isolated island situation and argues that the implications of this research and field methods to other island environments should not be underestimated.
12. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction: Islands of Risk, Islands of Hope
   Ilan Kelman & J-C Gaillard (Issue Editors)
4. An Island Characteristic: Derivative vulnerabilities to indigenous and exogenous hazards
   James Lewis
   Abstract Keywords
   Vulnerability, indigenous and exogenous hazards
   Island development policies need to take account of recurrently high proportional impacts of natural hazards that are set to increase. Assistance could best be considered as expiatory measures against perpetrations of former world powers; the occupation and exploitation of islands in history having played a part in present-day vulnerabilities of communities to an impressive variety of indigenous hazards. Exogenous hazards of invasion and appropriation cannot be regarded only as past events because, for some islands, they are continuing, and because aspects of past exploitations continue for today’s occupiers as derivative vulnerabilities. One islander describes the heightened significance of events in places of geographic smallness: For the people in a small place, every event is a domestic event... eventually they absorb the event and it becomes a part of them, a part of who and what they really are, and they are complete in that way until another event comes along and the process begins again...To the people in a small place, the division of Time into the Past, the Present and the Future does not exist. An event that occurred one hundred years ago might be as vivid to them as if it were happening at this very moment. (Kincaid, 1988: 52-54).
5. Shaken, but not stirred: The 2004 Eruption of the Tristan volcano
   Vicky Hards
   Abstract Keywords
   Tristan da Cunha, volcanic eruption, earthquake, vulnerability, natural hazards
   Overnight on 29—30 July 2004, Tristan da Cunha, a remote volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, was shaken by an intense earthquake swarm. The tremors felt by many of the island’s population evoked memories of events leading up to the 1961 volcanic eruption and the subsequent evacuation of the whole island. Shortly after this, fresh pumice was found floating near the island. Concern was immediate, and the population watched the site of the 1961 eruption, known locally as “the volcano”. Administrator Mike Hently sought advice from the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office — Tristan is a dependency of the UK Overseas Territory of St. Helena — requesting a scientific assessment of the situation. It was in direct response to this request that the author visited the island in September 2004. Events were reconstructed from the islanders’ accounts and, following requests from the local community, reassurance and advice were given. Both direct observations and subsequent analysis of seismic data are consistent with a small parasitic eruption having occurred on the lower (submarine) flanks of the Tristan volcano, whilst the sub-aerial portion of the volcano had not stirred. This event reiterates the responsibility of the scientific community to provide meaningful advice on potential hazards and hazard mitigation to those living with active volcanoes. It also illustrates the disproportionate vulnerability of small, remote island communities to natural hazards.
6. Institutional and Social Responses to Hazards related to Karthala Volcano, Comoros
   Part 1: Analysis of the May 2006 Eruptive Crisis
   Julie Morin, Franck Lavigne, Patrick Bachelery, Anthony Finizola & Nicholas Villeneuve
   Abstract Keywords
   Crisis management, Karthala volcano, Grande Comore Island
   This paper aims at understanding the failure of the crisis management system during the 2006 eruption of Karthala volcano on Grande Comore Island. Since 2005, the eruptive activity of Karthala volcano had increased, with higher intensity and frequency. These changes should have led Grande Comore to be better prepared for confronting a volcanic threat. But the following analysis demonstrates that the country remained unprepared to face even a minor eruptive event. The weaknesses that led to poor crisis management are detailed and analysed and suggestions for improvement are made.
7. Institutional and Social Responses to Hazards related to Karthala Volcano, Comoros
   Part 2: The deep-seated root causes of Comorian vulnerabilities
   Julie Morin & Franck Lavigne
   Abstract Keywords
   Volcanic hazards, vulnerability, risk perception, Karthala volcano, Grande Comore Island, Comoros
   Although Karthala volcano in Grande Comore Island has erupted four times since 2005, the government and the local population still remain unprepared for a major eruptive crisis. The reasons for this lack of preparation lie in a deep tangle of political, socio-economic, cultural, and environmental factors. Consequently, the population accepts the volcanic threat in different ways and to different levels. The ways in which Comorians deal with this threat lead to important changes in their society (eg social links evolving, exposure to volcanic hazards in exchange for some improvements in daily life, and easier access to resources). On a national scale, deep structural adjustments are required in order to reduce vulnerability sustainably.
8. Experimental use of participatory 3-dimensional models in island community-based disaster risk management
   Emmanuel Maceda, Jean-Christophe Gaillard, Elodie Stasiak, Virginie Le Masson & Iwan Le Berre
   Abstract Keywords
   Participatory 3-Dimensional Model, Mapping, Community-Based Disaster Risk Management, Philippines, Divinubo
   This article documents an attempt to integrate Participatory 3-Dimensional Models (P3DM) into Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM). It particularly focuses on the islet of Divinubo, located off the island of Samar on the Pacific edge of the Philippine archipelago. The P3DM methodology proved to be useful for many reasons — it facilitates the participation of the population; raises people's awareness of their territory; allows the 3-dimensional mapping of natural and other hazards, threatened assets, vulnerabilities and capacities; better enables CBDRM to be integrated into the larger development framework; proves very useful in marginalised areas like small islands; is cheap to set up and easy to reproduce; and may provide valuable data for scientists interested in disaster research. There are several issues that turned out to be instrumental in the successful implementation of such a methodology, since neither the scientists nor the sole NGO sector were able to achieve the best results with the community on their own but had to work together. The article also emphasises that it is critical to complete a long-term confidence-building stage before attempting to implement the project.
9. Islandness: Vulnerability and Resilience in Oceania
   John Campbell
   Abstract Keywords
   Pacific islands, vulnerability, traditional disaster reduction
   Pacific and other islands have long been represented as sites of vulnerability. Despite this, communities on many Pacific islands survived for millennia prior to the intrusion of people from Europe into their realm. An examination of traditional disaster reduction measures indicates that traditional Pacific island communities coped with many of the effects of extreme events that today give rise to relief and rehabilitation programmes. Key elements of traditional disaster reduction were built around food security (production of surpluses, storage and preservation, agro-ecological biodiversity, famine foods and land fragmentation), settlement security (elevated sites and resilient structures) and inter- and intra-community cooperation (inter-island exchange, ceremony and consumption control). Many of these practices have been lost or are no longer employed, while other changes in the social and economic life of Pacific island communities are increasing the level of exposure to natural extremes. Pacific islands, and their inhabitants, are not essentially or inherently vulnerable. They were traditionally sites of resilience. Colonialism, development and globalisation have set in place processes by which the resilience has been reduced and exposure increased.
10. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. A Different Land: Heritage Production in the Island of Gotland
   Owe Ronström
   Abstract Keywords
   Gotland, Visby, heritage, tradition, islands
   In the early 1980s a massive heritagisation of Gotland and of Visby, the island’s capital and only city, began and in 1995 UNESCO awarded Visby World Heritage status. This article considers how the immediate success of the heritagisation of Gotland can be explained. I argue that an important explanation lies in the differences between the new heritage mindscape and that of the older, traditional peasant society of the 16th and 17th centuries. In the final part of the article I discuss heritage production in relation to island production and argue that ‘islanding’ is a process closely related to heritagisation. The concept of heritage seems to work especially well in remote and islanded places. For Gotland, heritage production has led to an intensified ‘islanding’, which, in turn, has led to a booming tourist industry. Precisely that which made islands central to previous times makes islands peripheral and marginal to the present world. Heritage is both an expression of, and an instrument for, that marginality.
4. Sailing To An Island: Contemporary Irish Poetry visits the Western Islands
   Kim Cheng Boey
   Abstract Keywords
   Irish islands, poetry, Aran, Blaskets, Heaney
   The islands off the west of Ireland have always been regarded as a sanctuary of Irish identity. Having escaped the worst of Cromwellian despoliation, and untainted yet by what Yeats calls the “modern filthy tide” (1974: 196), the Gaeltacht or Irish-speaking areas are invoked by the Literary Revivalists as a site of Irish authenticity. But they seem like another country and are irreducibly other, their alterity testing the coherence of the mainland. My paper explores the trope of the island in the work of contemporary Irish poets. Although rejecting the nationalist appropriation of the western landscape, these poets are drawn to what MacNeice calls “island truancies” (1949:28). If the islands are no longer emblems of origins, they provide the distance from which to survey the twin issues of self and home. Physically and psychologically, the crossing to the islands is a journey into another country. In visiting these satellites that seem so much like home and yet are formidably alien, the tourist-poet negotiates the threshold between home and abroad, inside and outside, self and other.
5. From Marginality To Resurgence: The case of the Irish Islands
   Stephen A. Royle
   Abstract Keywords
   Islands, Ireland, population, tourism, culture
   The islands off the coast of Ireland declined after the Irish famine of the 1840s. The number inhabited and the size of the population on those that remain populated both fell dramatically, faring worse collectively than the Irish mainland to which they were marginal in every sense. The reasons for this decline are examined. In the early 20th Century there are some signs of resurgence. The article considers that this might be put down to the efforts of islanders themselves, coupled with state and European Union support. There is an interest in and regard for the islands associated with their being seen as repositories of Irish culture and heritage. This has had positive benefits regarding the attitude of the state agencies and also for tourism, which is an important factor in many contemporary island economies. In fact, some of the resurgence as measured by population totals can be put down to people having holiday cottages on the islands rather than an increase in the size of traditional communities.
6. Nothing But A Shepherd And His Dog: The Social and Economic Effects of Depopulation in Fetlar, Shetland
   Adam Grydehøj
   Abstract Keywords
   Fetlar, Shetland, Depopulation, Economic Development
   Fetlar, one of the peripheral islands in the Shetland archipelago, is blessed with rich soil, a local shop, frequent ferry connections and a strong sense of community. Nevertheless, it is an island at risk, its population having dropped to just 48 individuals. This article compares the situation in Fetlar with those of Shetland’s other peripheral islands, some of which are now home to stable, economically successful communities and others of which are social disaster zones, with dwindling populations riven by feuding. Taking into account social, political, and economic factors, the article analyses why Fetlar has proven particularly vulnerable to depopulation. With the help of ethnological fieldwork, the article looks at how Fetlar’s problems have affected the local community, how members of this community are coping with their island’s decline, and what they are doing in an attempt to reverse it. Finally, the article argues for more focused and sensitive investment into the community by the municipal authorities.
7. Localising Jersey Through Song: Jèrriais, Heritage and Island Identity in a Festival Context
   Henry Johnson
   Abstract Keywords
   Jersey, Jèrriais, language, song, La Fête Nouormande, identity
   This study is about the use of a local language in music. It shows how music is used in Jersey as a tool to propagate the local language, Jèrriais, to maintain heritage and to create culture and community. In this context, some island activists, and especially local institutions within the heritage industry, are campaigning for the survival of Jèrriais through social, cultural and political means. As a study that is grounded in the field of ethnomusicology, this research looks at the sources, methods and findings of studies of songs using Jèrriais. Within this framework, the sources of tradition are investigated, giving particular attention to a recently instigated (invented) tradition of a Norman fête held annually at a Norman location. The paper shows the use of a minority yet highly significant language in the realm of music making that has the aim of helping sustain cultural heritage in the contemporary age. Music is engaged with the language of the locale, and in contexts that are enmeshed with meanings relating to local heritage, Jèrriais is foregrounded through song as a way of maintaining and developing identity.
8. We Are Fiji: Rugby, Music and the Representation of the Fijian Nation
   Jennifer Cattermole
   Abstract Keywords
   Fiji, sport, music, nation-making, representation, national identity
   This article uses the DVD version of Daniel Rae Costello’s song We Are Fiji as a case study in which to explore the sonic and visual construction of Fijian nationhood. It addresses how Fijian national symbols (for example, the national flag and national anthem) as well as a national sport (rugby sevens in this example) are used to forge a sense of national identity between members of its geographically dispersed and multicultural population. This article also examines who is being included/excluded in this representation of the Fijian nation, and how particular sounds (for example, the use of particular languages and musical instruments) and images (those of the physical environment and its inhabitants) are used selectively to reify existing power relationships between Fiji’s cultural groups. We Are Fiji thus provides an insight into Fijian nation-making processes — a topic that is particularly salient given the political tensions that currently exist between (and within) Fiji’s cultural groups.
9. Through A Glass Darkly: A Video Essay on Artscape Nordland and the cultural milieu of the Lofoten Islands
   Jeremy Welsh
   Abstract Keywords
   1. Introduction
   2. Video Essay
   Lofoten, Public Art, Landscape
   The Lofoten and adjacent Vesterålen islands are located off the north western coast of Norway inside the Arctic Circle. Despite the islands possessing marine hazards such as the notorious maelstrom caused by the Moskenes tidal stream in the outer islands, Lofoten has been the centre of the Norwegian cod fisheries since the Middle Ages and, in particular, the centre for production of stockfish (dried, salted cod) which has been Norway's most important export product for centuries The islands are also a place of outstanding and unique natural beauty and were nominated for UNESCO world heritage listing in 2002 by the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment on the strength of the “unique qualities associated with its marine resources, geology, plant and animal life, cultural monuments and exciting scenery”. The video essay addresses the latter aspects, looking at a series of public artworks in the landscape and featuring interviews with key figures within the thriving cultural milieu of the Lofoten islands.
10. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. When Islands Lose Dialects: The case of the Ocracoke Brogue
   Walt Wolfram
   Abstract Keywords
   Sociolinguistics, dialect, language endangerment, language change, Ocracoke
   The transformation of many small islands from isolated, subsistence-based economies into well-known and desired tourist sites is often accompanied by significant language change and recession in ancestral island communities, a growing topic of concern in the field of sociolinguistics. This discussion considers language change and recession on the island of Ocracoke, a small barrier island located off the coast of North Carolina in the US. It demonstrates how language change is related to shifting social and economic factors and intra- and inter-community relationships on the island. In the process, it also challenges the accepted definition of language endangerment in mainstream linguistics and argues on theoretical, historical, and cultural grounds for the inclusion of minority dialects threatened by dominant, mainstream varieties of English in the endangerment canon.
4. Pacific Festivals as Dynamic Contact Zones: The case of Tapati Rapa Nui
   Dan Bendrups
   Abstract Keywords
   Pacific festivals, Tapati Rapa Nui, dynamic contact zones
   In the contemporary Pacific, cultural festivals provide important points of contact between people at local, national, colonial and global levels, contributing to the complex processes by which issues of identity and indigeneity are explored and mediated. This article presents new ethnographic research concerning the annual Tapati Rapa Nui festival of Easter Island (Rapanui). Now into its fourth decade, Tapati Rapa Nui is one of very few public contexts in which ancient Rapanui traditions are re-enacted for a contemporary audience. This article employs historian Mary Pratt’s conceptualisation of “contact zones” (1992) to describe the specific characteristics of Tapati Rapa Nui as a nexus between indigenous, colonial and international cultures. It examines the relationship between cultural performance and international tourism in the contemporary Pacific, arguing that festivals like Tapati Rapa Nui are able to cater to the cultural heritage needs of islander communities as well as satisfying the curiosity of outsider audiences.
5. Trains of Thought: Railways as Island Antitheses
   Godfrey Baldacchino
   Abstract Keywords
   Railways, islands, dysfunctionality, transport infrastructure, scale economies
   This article discusses the impacts of railways on islands, and of islands on railways. It argues that railways constitute a development logic that may work well on sprawling mainlands with industrialised economies and large enough populations residing in high-density clusters but they are hard pressed to achieve viability in service-driven island jurisdictions where there are critical mass constrains in terms of both potential passengers and freight, at times even in spite of relative affluence or high population densities. Thus, the mere existence, or even the improvement, of transport infrastructure does not guarantee economic and social progress. Many railways and their histories have now been somewhat accommodated within the service industry of various islands. However, the ‘fatal attraction’ they have provided to investors, elites and politicians in the past may recur in relation to other, mesmerising technologies, with their promise of serving as development panaceas.
6. Economic Development Options for Island States: The case of Whale-Watching
   Brendan J Moyle and Mike Evans
   Abstract Keywords
   Development, ecotourism, noncommunicable disease, Tonga, whale-watching, whaling
   This paper explores the consequences of whale-watching tourism with reference to the Kingdom of Tonga. Whale-watching tourism has been proposed as a viable development option for small island states. This proposal is frequently linked to permanent cessation of what is, in many cases, traditional whale hunting. This article critiques some earlier work on the economic impact of whale-watching and explores the consequences of whale-watching using biometric models in an attempt to inform policy and debate concerning the economic benefits of switching from whale hunting to watching. Ecotourism generally, and whale-watching specifically, have some development risks and these risks are elaborated.
   
   For small island states on the periphery of the whale-watching industry, the profitability of an exclusive whale-watching strategy is threatened by increased competition elsewhere. We contend that economic returns from whale resources can be maximised by retaining a whale hunting option for cases where resource populations rise above that necessary for ecological sustainability and tourism activities. By eliminating the prospects of a diversified use of whale stocks for the somewhat more uncertain gains from whale-watching, small island states expose themselves to potential shocks. Such states have a lesser ability to absorb such shocks; hence the elimination of hunting options is an ill-advised development route for humans.
7. Filmmaking and the Politics of Remoteness: The Genesis of the Fogo Process on Fogo Island, Newfoundland
   Stephen Crocker
   Abstract Keywords
   Fogo Process, subject generated media, media and remote populations, National Film Board of Canada, Newfoundland
   The Fogo Process was an early project in participatory media first developed on Fogo Island, Newfoundland in the late 1960s. Through a series of experiments in the political uses of interactive film and video Fogo islanders resisted resettlement of their island community and an imposed, top-down ‘modernisation’ of its way of life. Today, these early experiments with remote island populations raise interesting questions about the politics of media. In an age of subject generated media, when anyone anywhere can produce and distribute video, what is the relation between political collectivity and our ability to ‘cognitively map’ our place in the larger geo-political system?
8. Murder and Cultural Construction in 19th Century Prince Edward Island
   Douglas Malcolm
   Abstract Keywords
   Prince Edward Island, murder, culture, folklore, Isle of Skye
   The transformational possibilities of an island’s culture are both shaped and constrained by its totalised physical boundary, helping to create a culture composed paradoxically of both intimacy and separation. Cultural construction occurs through a dialectic between symbolic systems that are put at risk through practice and thus subject to change. Island inhabitants preserve the social and physical boundaries imposed by geography because boundaries make it tolerable to live at close quarters in a community over many years. The policing of borders thus engenders a culture that promotes collectivity and elides whatever contests it. The unsolved rape and murder of Ann Beaton in May of 1859 in Rear Settlement, Prince Edward Island significantly problematised the isolated Scots culture of which she was a part and prompted its followers to construct new narratives that were one step in their integration into the larger Island society. Responses to the murder were, and have continued to be, apparently designed to circumvent evidence and to develop explanatory narratives that did not endanger the community.
9. Feature Review — Subantarctica: the Auckland Islands and Joan Druett’s Island of the lost
   Bernadette Hince
   Abstract Keywords
   Shipwrecks, subantarctic islands, Auckland Island, Robinsonade
   The subantarctic is a little-known region with fluid boundaries. Its islands, once obscure and undesirable places, have conservation protection today for their distinctive plants and animals, spectacular landscapes and scientific value. In reviewing Island of the lost (2007), Joan Druett’s popular account of two 1864 shipwrecks on Auckland Island, this article explores the notion of a continuing culture of the subantarctic in the absence of permanent settlement.
10. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Transperipheral Networks: Bullfighting and Cattle Culture in Japan’s Outer Islands
   Sueo Kuwahara, Takahiro Ozaki and Akira Nishimura
   Abstract Keywords
   Amami, bullfighting, transperipheral networks
   Organised fights between trained bulls have been staged in several locations in Japan, Korea, and China for several hundred years (Ishii, 1990a). This article analyses the manner in which a group of Japanese islands have played a prominent part in this activity and now form part of inter-regional networks linking disparate, non-metropolitan communities across the region. These linkages are characterised and discussed as constituting a transperipheral network.
4. Gourmet and Green: The Branding of King Island
   Susie Khamis
   Abstract Keywords
   King Island, food, branding, tourism
   In less than thirty years, King Island - in Australia’s Bass Strait - has become popularly synonymous with quality foods and unspoilt beauty. The marketing success of King Island Dairy, in particular, has helped orient much of the island’s activities towards particular services and goods. They benefit from a general perception that, for reasons both coincidental and contrived, King Island is singularly blessed for premium produce. This article traces the rise this image, and considers its irony in light of the various vulnerabilities that have otherwise hindered King Island’s development. From the hazardous winds of the ‘Roaring 40s’, to the sporadic investment in its infrastructure, King Island’s history is dotted with obstacles and setbacks. In turn, it is argued that, insofar as the King Island brand now relies on certain associations for effectively marketing both its export commodities and its tourist attractions, islanders must address if not resolve a range of issues and/or inadequacies that undermine the brand’s integrity.
5. Norfolk Island: Thanatourism, History and Visitor Emotions
   Megan Best
   Abstract Keywords
   Norfolk Island, thanatourism, emotions, convict settlement, history, heritage, tourism
   An increasingly popular tourism niche involves visits to sites of death and human suffering. This form of travel has become known as ‘thanatourism’ and its study is a research field that has emerged from studies of war and battlefield tourism (Seaton, 1996, 1999). Although considered to be a highly emotional experience for visitors, little remains known about thanatourists’ emotions during visits (Austin, 2002). To begin to fill this research gap, the current study explored tourists’ emotions whilst visiting Norfolk Island’s convict sites and attractions. Norfolk Island is a self-governing external territory of Australia, located in the South-West Pacific. It is rich in history and culture; a heritage that remains the nucleus of the islands primary industry - tourism. Study findings are drawn from arrival and departure visitor questionnaires and follow-up, in-depth, post-travel interviews. The findings indicate that viewing convict sites produces a multitude of emotions, all of which impact on visitor experiences in some way. The study utilises Fredrickson’s (1998) Broaden and Built Theory of Positive Emotions to explore how visitors’ thought-action repertoires are broadened throughout their emotional encounters. Findings build upon current knowledge of thanatourism and Norfolk Island’s history and heritage. In doing so, the study has developed a greater understanding of the role of emotions in visitor experiences.
6. Reinventing ‘Springs’: Constructing Identity in the Fiddle Tradition of the Shetland Isles
   Meghan Forsyth
   Abstract Keywords
   Shetland Isles, fiddle, contemporary tradition, identity construction, representation
   The relative isolation of the Shetland archipelago until the beginning of the 20th Century promoted the development of a fiddle tradition distinct from either that of neighbouring Scandinavia or mainland Scotland. Contemporary Shetland fiddling reveals changing perceptions of space, in relation to generational differences and the dichotomy of traditional/contemporary, and constructions of place, in terms of individual interpretations of islandness and individuals’ ties to their environment. This paper focuses on recent and current fiddling in the Shetland Isles in the context of identity construction and representation. I consider changes to Shetland fiddling since the development of the contemporary tradition in the 1970s, and explore how Shetland fiddlers construct their identities as Shetlanders through their individual interpretations of the tradition. Moreover, I examine how they choose to represent Shetland fiddling in the contemporary global market.
7. “The Spell of Sarnia”: Fictional Representations of the Island of Guernsey
   Peter Goodall
   Abstract Keywords
   Guernsey, Channel Islands, Hugo, Edwards, Peake, religion
   Although there is nothing that resembles a comprehensive literary history of Guernsey, or of any of the islands of the English Channel, Guernsey has been the subject of many interesting representations in fiction. Two great novels dominate this tradition: Victor Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la mer (Toilers of the Sea) (1866) and G. B. Edwards’s The Book of Ebenezer Le Page (1981), and these novels have a powerful intertextual relationship. One or two novels written in between are major works of literary art, for example Mervyn Peake’s Mr. Pye (1953), but most of the other eighty or so novels are works of popular fiction in a variety of genres and modes, especially the historical romance and the adventure story. On the whole, these novels rehearse a limited number of common themes: a romantic conception of Guernsey’s history, the physical beauty of the island coupled with a sense of the dangers of its dramatic coastline and the sea that surrounds it, and the prominence of religion in island society, in terms of both Christian sectarianism and the underground presence into modern times of paganism and witchcraft.
8. On the Margins: Torres Strait Islander Women Performing Contemporary Music
   Katelyn Barney
   Abstract Keywords
   Torres Strait Islanders, women, contemporary music, marginalisation
   Despite the increasing number of Torres Strait Islander musicians who are now recording their contemporary music, and aside from the work of a few notable exceptions (eg Beckett 1981; Neuenfeldt, 2002; Magowan and Neuenfeldt, 2005), Torres Strait Islander performers continue to remain marginalised in academic discourse. Further, what has been written about contemporary Indigenous Australian performance is largely about male performers—the voices of Torres Strait Islander women are noticeably absent. With reference to feminist theories of marginalisation and difference and drawing on first-hand interviews, this paper examines how Torres Strait Islander women negotiate issues of marginalisation, differentiation and identity through their music. It also considers what it means to Torres Strait Islander women to perform on the margins and the ways that contemporary music performance functions in this context as a site for resistance and affirmation of their Torres Strait Islander identities.
9. Feature Review — Western Edges: Evil Aliens and Island Otherness in British Cinema
   Philip Hayward
   Abstract Keywords
   British islands, cinema, Horror, Wales
   The British film Evil Aliens (2005), directed by Jake West, offers a vivid representation of a western British island as a place of liminal otherness. It builds on a British cinematic tradition of representing such locations as places of difference and transition and provides a new inflection through a mix of current film genres that allows full reign to humour and thematic invention. The following analysis identifies the significance of the island location to Evil Aliens’ narrative and reflects on the continuing sense of western liminality present in a 21st Century imagination of Great Britain’s island fringe.
10. About The Authors

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. An Introduction To Island Culture Studies
   The Shima Editorial Board
4. The Space of Shima
   Jun'ichiro Suwa
   Abstract Keywords
   Amami (Japan), landscape, imagination, performance, human security
   Drawing on a discussion of the Japanese/Ryukyuan concept of shima, this paper attempts to reconsider a fundamental aspect of Island Studies: the cultural dimensions of islands. The term shima, denoting ‘island’, is interesting in that it embodies a dual meaning - islands as geographical features and islands as small-scale social groups where cultural interactions are densely intermeshed. The Amami Islands of southwestern Japan are marked by their population’s deep attachment to their own shima, as enacted through various practices and performances of demarcation. Each shima is a work of territorial imagination, an extension of personhood and a ‘cultural landscape’. In this sense, a shima is a sanctuary, in that the natural environment and social space are articulated by the performative in such a way that one imagines them as a totality. Islands are both the ground and product of cultural practices and threats to their viability can thereby be construed as threats to human security more generally.
5. When Islands Create Languages - or - Why Do Language Research with Bonin [Ogasawara] Islanders?
   Daniel Long
   Abstract Keywords
   Japan, Ogasawara, Bonin, Chichijima, language contact, Mixed Language, creoloid
   This paper examines the role that the geographical and social factors of isolation (from the outside world) and intense contact (within the community) commonly associated with small island communities can play in the development of new language systems. I focus on fieldwork studies of the creoloid and Mixed Language of the Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands.
6. One Foot on Either Side of the Chasm: Cape Breton Singer Mary Jane Lamond’s Gaelic choice
   Heather Sparling
   Abstract Keywords
   Gaelic, Cape Breton, popular music, language, reception
   Mary Jane Lamond has recorded five albums of Scottish Gaelic songs known and sung in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. Yet fewer than 500 native Gaelic speakers are estimated to remain in Cape Breton. Song lyrics are central to traditional Gaelic performance and aesthetics and yet the majority of Lamond’s audience is a mainstream, non-Gaelic speaking one. Reviewers of Lamond’s albums mention her powerful vocals but can only draw meaning from the sound of her voice, rather than from the words themselves. Lamond’s language choice identifies her as a Cape Breton Gael to both local and inter/national audiences, but the ways in which her lyrics are considered meaningful vary. Lamond is a cultural activist who has deep respect for the Cape Breton Gaelic tradition. But is it possible to bridge the chasm between traditional and popular Gaelic music audiences when language is central to the former, but incomprehensible to the latter?
7. Te Wa: The Social Significance of the Traditional Canoes of Kiribati
   Tony Whincup
   Abstract Keywords
   1. Introduction
   2. Photo Essay
   Micronesia, canoe, Kiribati, cultural artefact, self-definition
   Through the vehicle of the photographic essay, a “thick description” (Geertz, 1973: 3-30) incorporating participant quotations, reflexive writing and photographic images, this article examines the roles of magic, gender, sport, skill, ownership and the pragmatics of survival in relation to te wa, the traditional canoe of Kiribati. It is stressed that something that is made reaches deeply into cultural beliefs and strategies for self-recognition and self-definition. In Kiribati, knowledge is closely guarded. Skills associated with the canoe, such as construction, navigation, magic and sailing, will be passed on only to close and trusted family members. A sense of self is recognised not from material possessions but rather as the guardian of unique cultural practice. The canoe is an expression of these complex and fundamental human social concerns. This visual work explores the deeply rooted traditional values and practices which mirror those enduring qualities that remain at the heart of what it is to be I-Kiribati.
8. Mangyan Internal Refugees from Mindoro Island and the Spaces of Low-Intensity Conflict in The Philippines
   Jonas Baes
   Abstract Keywords
   Mangyan, Mindoro Island, Internal refugees, conflict, Iraya-Mangyan CD
   In 2002 and 2003, groups of disparate Mangyan [upland indigenous] peoples from Mindoro island sought refuge in nearby provinces to escape escalating military operations in the island. The Armed Forces of the Philippines stepped-up their operations as part of a ‘clean-up’ drive on insurgency, following the US-led ‘Global War on Terrorism’. The low-intensity nature of the operations has had cataclysmic effects on those residing in the island, most especially the indigenous peoples living in the central highlands. This has entailed absorption into a national body politic and a global world order. It also raises the possibility of exploring avenues for the regeneration of culture among peoples like the Mangyan, caught in the mainstream of change and marginal conditions in the country.
9. Jersey: The Development of an Island Cultural Strategy
   Adam Riddell
   Abstract Keywords
   Jersey, Cultural Strategy, Channel Islands
   In 2005 Jersey’s government approved a ‘Cultural Strategy’ document. This paper traces how the Cultural Strategy document was developed and offers an analysis of what its contents mean for Jersey’s cultural identity and cultural organisations. The author looks at the problems that were encountered in the development of the Cultural Strategy and offers his views on where these problems originated, suggesting that some of the difficulties arose from Jersey’s island status. An acute awareness of the Island’s own traditions, heritage and cultural values together with its often complex relationships with what lies beyond its shores, (ie ‘the external’), are some of the concepts discussed. By referring specifically to the various cultural organisations, the paper also offers an overview of Jersey’s cultural sector. The practical manifestations of the Cultural Strategy document are analysed in terms of what they might indicate for the future development of Jersey’s cultural sector.
10. Romance, Insularity and Representation: Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love and Hong Kong Cinema
    Giorgio Biancorosso
    Abstract Keywords
    Hong Kong, Hong Kong cinema, Wong kar-wai, Self-Representation
    Wong Kar-wai’s film In the Mood for Love (2000) is set in Hong Kong in the early 1960s and explores the predicament and reactions of a female character (So Lai-chen) who experiences a personal crisis at a time of political turmoil. Like that other great film about passion and solipsism, Nagisa Oshima’s Ai no corrida (1976), In the Mood for Love poses as a mere love story only to open up, in a brilliantly off-handed fashion, a scenario of political devastation against which romance becomes all but impossible. For all its casual tone, the backdrop of the 1966 riots is a shivering revelation of the social and political conditions that have made possible the protagonists’ solipsistic absorption in their feelings as well as the fragility of Hong Kong’s status as a geographical and political island. This article discusses these elements of the film in the context of contemporary Hong Kong society and cinema.
11. About The Authors