Shima
ISSN: 1834-6057
Aquapelago Anthology
- Introduction: The Space of Aquapelago 10.21463/shima.aq.anth.int
- Aquapelagos and Aquapelagic Assemblages: Towards an integrated study of island societies and marine environments
Archipelago, aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblages, Island StudiesThe 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.
- Shima and Aquapelagic Assemblages: A Commentary from Japan
Archipelago, aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblage, shima, JapanThis 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.
- Archaeology, Aquapelagos and Island Studies
Archaeology, archipelago, aquapelago, Mediterranean, MaltaThe 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.
- Getting Wet: A Response to Hayward's concept of Aquapelagos
Archipelago, aquapelago, maritimity, ocean, seaThis 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.
- Seas As Places: Towards a maritime chorography
Aquapelago, chorography, local knowledgeThis 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.
- The Constitution of Assemblages and the Aquapelagality of Haida Gwaii
Aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblages, actants, Haida Gwaii, Gwaii HaanasAquapelagos 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.
- Naming the Aquapelago: Reconsidering Norfolk Island fishing ground names
Toponymy, fishing ground names, language aesthetics, linguistic fieldwork, toponymic ethnography, aquapelagoFishing 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.
- The Island/Sea/Territory Relationship: Towards a broader and three dimensional view of the Aquapelagic Assemblage
Aquapelagic assemblage, aquapelago, Channel Islands, Island Studies, maritories/merritoires, St-Pierre-et-Miquelon, TrinidadThrough 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.
- Skimming the Surface: Dislocated Cruise Liners and Aquatic Spaces
Cruise ships, floating, aquatic spaces, aquapelagoModern, 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.
- Career Decision Making in Island Communities: Applying the concept of the Aquapelago to the Shetland and Orkney Islands
Orkney, Shetland, aquapelago, careers, migrationGeographical 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.
- Chorographing the Vanuatu Aquapelago
Chorography, water music, aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblage, sand drawing, multiscalar, VanuatuThis 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.
- [Feature Review] Sea Otters, Aquapelagos and Ecosystem Services
Haida Gwaii, sea otter, aquapelago, aquapelagic assemblages, ecosystem servicesN.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.
- Observations on the Concept of the Aquapelago Occasioned by Researching the Maldives
10.21463/shima.11.1.05
aquapelago, performativity, amphibious history, the MaldivesIn 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.
- 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
Assemblage theory; Island Studies; multispecies ethnography; salmonStudies 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.
- On Seriality
10.21463/shima.12.1.04
Seriality, archipelagosEvans 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.
- Underground and at Sea: Oysters and Black Marine Entanglements in New York’s Zone-A
10.21463/shima.13.2.06
Zone-A, Black mariners, oysters, underground railroad, resilienceThis 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.
- Waves of Displacement and Waves of Development: Marshallese Songfest competitions and cultural diplomacy in Springdale, Arkansas
10.21463/shima.13.2.10
Marshallese, songfest, jepta, cultural diplomacy, Springdale, Pacific, diasporaThis 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.
- 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
Fishing weirs, the Interior Sea of Chiloé, sustainable fisheries, extractivismThis 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.
- 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
ningen, media-lore, aquapelagic imaginary, Japanese whalingThe 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.
- Salut Au Monde! Aquapelagic Instruction in the Red Funnel Magazine
10.21463/shima.14.1.17
Annie E. Trimble, Walt Whitman, Red Funnel Magazine, New Zealand, aquapelagityBetween 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.
- Art Islands: Ecological Thought, Underwater Sculpture and the Nature of Development in the Canary Islands
10.21463/shima.14.2.05
artificial reef, tourism, climate change, adaptation, Anthropocene, infrastructure, Lanzarote, Cesar ManriqueWhen 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.
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An Aquapelagic Evolution? Developing sustainable tourism futures in Galápagos, Ecuador
10.21463/shima.14.2.06
Galapagos, aquapelago, ecotourism, carrying capacity, path dependencyIn 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.
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The Risk of Dispossesion in the Aquapelago: A Coral Reef Restoration Case Study in the Spermonde Islands
10.21463/shima.14.2.08
Community-based conservation, corporate social responsibility, fisheries, coral restoration, dispossessionDrawing 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.
The following articles published in other journals also contribute to development of the concept of the aquapelago:
- The Minquiers and Écréhous in spatial context: Contemporary issues and cross perspectives on border islands, reefs and rocks
border islands, British Isles, Channel Islands, Écréhous, France, islands inbetween, Jersey, liminality, Minquiers.The Minquiers and Écréhous reefs are located in different parts of the Gulf of St Malo between the British island of Jersey and the French mainland. As a part of the Bailiwick of Jersey, they are geographically very close to the international sea border between Jersey and France, and have had a history of disputed sovereignty. Due to their respective geographical locations and histories, the Minquiers and Écréhous are important sites for the field of Island Studies because of their existence as “border islands”. This article offers a study of these reefs in their spatial context of land and sea, discussing contemporary issues, including fishing, environmentalism and tourism, and offering cross perspectives in terms of their political, economic and cultural connections with Jersey and France. They exist in a context of immense spatial change with substantial tidal ebbs and flows, and between mainlands and historically contested maritime terrains. Such a study helps show how the Minquiers and Écréhous occupy an inbetween space (land, sea and nations), which resulted in international agreements in 2000 that confirmed both the maritime boundary separating France and Jersey, and the areas agreed on as common waters for fishing purposes within Jersey’s jurisdiction. In this setting, this paper offers a critical discussion on the nature of “islands inbetween” (including all the Channel Islands), where land and sea are interconnected as a result of nature, politics, historical fishing rights and leisure activities.
- The Aquapelago and the Estuarine City: Reflections on Manhattan
10.20958/uis.2015.5
Manhattan, Mannahatta, New York, aquapelago, sea-level rise, oystersOver the last decade there have been a number of attempts to both imagine Manhattan’s pre-colonial past and to envisage new ways in which the metropolitan island (and the greater New York area) might more productively relate to its location within a major estuarine environment. Rising sea levels associated with global warming have given a particular focus, not to say sense of urgency, to this enterprise. This essay reviews several of the aforementioned projects and discusses their conceptual parameters with reference to recent debates in Island Studies concerning the concept of the aquapelago. Consideration is given to aspects of the cultural imagination of place and conceptions of the integration of human/urban and natural ecosystems. Drawing on these discussions, the essay outlines the manner in which established analyses of aquapelagic assemblages can be expanded to embrace metropolitan island environments.
- Sounding the Aquapelago: The cultural-environmental context of ni-Vanuatu women's liquid percussion performance
10.1558/prbt.v15i2.23972
This article reviews the cultural-environmental context of the Leweton community’s liquid percussion practice and the production of the Vanuatu Women’s Water Music (henceforth VWWM) DVD with regard to the conceptual framework of the aquapelago. The latter has contended that human societies closely interacting with marine environments can be characterized as inhabiting an aquapelago by virtue of their activities creating an aquapelagic assemblage of terrestrial and marine elements. Following a summary discussion of aspects of the aquapelago, the article first considers the nature of the Leweton community’s liquid percussion practice in its traditional context and then addresses the contemporary developments that led to the production of the DVD, with particular regard to aspects of community livelihood and cultural transition. Drawing on these, the article posits the practices as quintessentially aquapelagic.
- Aquapelagic Assemblages: Performing Water Ecology with Harmattan Theater
10.1353/wsq.2017.0021
“Aquapelagic assemblage” is a term proposed by Phillip Hayward to identify processes of transformation along aquatic ecologies at the interface of human sociality and marine environments. The performance work of Harmattan Theater has involved a persistent inquiry into the junctures between colonial history, coastal landscapes, island ecologies, and human sociality. Drawing on the idea of “aquapelagic assemblage” as an aesthetic practice, in this essay, Harmattan founding artistic director May Joseph and associate director and performer Sofia Varino explore three Harmattan performances as working experiments toward a praxis of aqua-pelagic assemblage.
- Tanka Transitions: Shrimp Paste, Dolphins and the Contemporary Aquapelagic Assemblage of Tai O
Tai O, Tanka, food heritage, aquapelagic assemblage, fisheriesTai O, located off the northwest coast of Hong Kong’s Lantau Island, has a distinct socio-economic and cultural character premised on its position at the centre of an aquapelagic assemblage within the broader Pearl River Delta area. The area is well known as a centre for cultural heritage tourism within which culinary heritage, and particularly shrimp paste production, is a key element. Recent developments in Hong Kong fisheries policy have curtailed shrimp fishing around the island and required its shrimp paste operation to realign its production and manufacturing operations. In tandem with these changes, the island has recently developed as a centre for dolphin-watching tourism. The article examines the nature of Tai O’s contemporary use of marine resources, the nature of community adjustments to external circumstances and the likely longevity of its livelihood activities and distinct culinary products.
- Seasteads and Aquapelagos: Introducing Nissology to Speculative-Fiction Studies
aquapelago, seasteading, utopia, climate change, island studies, speculative fictionExamining fictional seasteading through the lens of the “aquapelago” acts as a bridge between the fields of island studies and speculative-fiction studies. Island studies as an interdisciplinary field of scholarly inquiry has drawn attention to the complex interactions between the maritime, terrestrial, and human aspects of island societies, moving away from “land-biased” research. The “aquapelago” has been devised to better understand islands as assemblages that may wax, wane, and change over time. Examples of seasteading within speculative fiction reveal that such floating settlements are not necessarily aquapelagic societies; some are more representative of ocean-skimming cruise liners. Such fictive examples frequently represent seasteading as floating refuges borne of necessity in a dystopian world affected by environmental or societal catastrophe rather than as planned utopias.
- Belonging in an aquapelago: Island mobilities and emotions
10.24043/isj.399
aquapelago, belonging, Denmark, emotions, Faroe Islands, mobilityThis paper concerns belonging in islands. Place-belonging conjures images of feeling at home somewhere, in our case islands. Given the emotionality of belonging, we explore island belonging through emotions. More specifically, we apply the concept of the aquapelago to island belonging and refer to this as aquapelagic belonging. Bringing in emotions, embodied perceptions and mobility, we discuss how these are assembled in island-sea relations to form aquapelagic belonging. In doing so, we draw on qualitative data from fieldwork undertaken in locations where proximity to the sea and access to seaborne mobility is paramount. Our findings demonstrate how certain emotional dispositions and mobility practices emerge in processes of aquapelagic belonging, indicating that mobility is intricately entangled with island belonging. We propose that the interconnected nature of land and sea spaces co-produce emotions of belonging in island spaces. We therefore argue that the concept of aquapelagic belonging lends useful insight to understand what is particular about island belonging. Furthermore, we suggest that attention to mobility, which in this context means navigating land/sea environments, is key to understanding aquapelagic belonging. We conclude that to grasp island belonging, the notion of the aquapelago is relevant and assists in understanding the totality of island relations.
- An Ecocritical Look at Flint's Water Crisis and Afro-Gothic Liquidity
10.1215/26923874-9930283
Flint, Michigan, Pope.L, Wangechi Mutu, Drexciya, waterIn 2014, as a cost‐saving measure, Flint, Michigan, switched its water supply to the Flint River — the unofficial toxic waste disposal site for meatpacking plants, car factories, and lumber and paper mills, as well as the city's depository of agricultural and urban runoff and untreated raw sewage. In what may be viewed as the Gothic trope of the “poisoned well,” the Flint water crisis has directly affected a mostly African American population where 45 percent of Flint's residents are living below the poverty line. This essay positions the Flint water crisis in conversation with artist Pope.L, who in 2017 created an installation/performance/marketplace in which he bottled the noxious water shuttled to Flint residents and sold it to willing buyers. I consider the aesthetics and performativity of Pope.L's Flint Water Project alongside the nautical world‐building of Drexciya and the aquatic hybrid figures in Wangechi Mutu's work. This assembly offers a speculative approach to an Afro‐Gothic liquidity through an understanding of black geophysics as an embodiment of alluvial monstrosities and aquatic refusals.
- Aquapelagic Malolos: Island-Water Imaginaries in Coastal Bulacan, Philippines (From the book Hydrohumanities) 10.1515/9780520380462-011