Previous Issues

v3n2

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]
   Keywords: Mā’ohi literature, Orality, Flora Devatine, French Polynesia
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Orality, Oral Literature, nana’oture and nene’iture, oral writing, fiuriture and French Polynesian Literature
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Reversing Language Shift; language revitalisation; education planning; Bunscoill Ghaelgagh
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Jersey, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, insularity, border, cultural resurgence
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Archaeology, islands of Western France, heritage, environments, sea level, vulnerability
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: mumming, violence, Newfoundland, criminal trials
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Ireland, Aran Islands, Isle of Man, representation, House of Keys
   Abstract: 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]
    Keywords: Andaman Islands, forestry, development, environmental change, Andaman tribes
    Abstract: 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]
    Keywords: Norfolk Island, Pitcairn Island, place names, offshore fishing ground names
    Abstract: 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

v3n1

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]
   Keywords: Vulnerability, indigenous and exogenous hazards
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Tristan da Cunha, volcanic eruption, earthquake, vulnerability, natural hazards
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Crisis management, Karthala volcano, Grande Comore Island
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Volcanic hazards, vulnerability, risk perception, Karthala volcano, Grande Comore Island, Comoros
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Participatory 3-Dimensional Model, Mapping, Community-Based Disaster Risk Management, Philippines, Divinubo
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Pacific islands, vulnerability, traditional disaster reduction
   Abstract: 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

v2n2

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. A Different Land: Heritage Production in the Island of Gotland
   Owe Ronström
   [Abstract] [Keywords]
   Keywords: Gotland, Visby, heritage, tradition, islands
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Irish islands, poetry, Aran, Blaskets, Heaney
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Islands, Ireland, population, tourism, culture
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Fetlar, Shetland, Depopulation, Economic Development
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Jersey, Jèrriais, language, song, La Fête Nouormande, identity
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Fiji, sport, music, nation-making, representation, national identity
   Abstract: 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
   a. Introduction
   b. Video Essay
   [Abstract] [Keywords]
    

   Through A Glass, Darkly - Video Essay by Jeremy Welsh

    
   Keywords: Lofoten, Public Art, Landscape
   Abstract: 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

v2n1

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. When Islands Lose Dialects: The case of the Ocracoke Brogue
   Walt Wolfram
   [Abstract] [Keywords]
   Keywords: Sociolinguistics, dialect, language endangerment, language change, Ocracoke
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Pacific festivals, Tapati Rapa Nui, dynamic contact zones
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Railways, islands, dysfunctionality, transport infrastructure, scale economies
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Development, ecotourism, noncommunicable disease, Tonga, whale-watching, whaling
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Fogo Process, subject generated media, media and remote populations, National Film Board of Canada, Newfoundland
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Prince Edward Island, murder, culture, folklore, Isle of Skye
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Shipwrecks, subantarctic islands, Auckland Island, Robinsonade
   Abstract: 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

v1n2

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]
   Keywords: Amami, bullfighting, transperipheral networks
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: King Island, food, branding, tourism
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Norfolk Island, thanatourism, emotions, convict settlement, history, heritage, tourism
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Shetland Isles, fiddle, contemporary tradition, identity construction, representation
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Guernsey, Channel Islands, Hugo, Edwards, Peake, religion
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Torres Strait Islanders, women, contemporary music, marginalisation
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: British islands, cinema, Horror, Wales
   Abstract: 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

v1n1

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]
   Keywords: Amami (Japan), landscape, imagination, performance, human security
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Japan, Ogasawara, Bonin, Chichijima, language contact, Mixed Language, creoloid
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Gaelic, Cape Breton, popular music, language, reception
   Abstract: 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]
   a. Introduction
   b. Photo Essay
   Keywords: Micronesia, canoe, Kiribati, cultural artefact, self-definition
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Mangyan, Mindoro Island, Internal refugees, conflict, Iraya-Mangyan CD
   Abstract: 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]
   Keywords: Jersey, Cultural Strategy, Channel Islands
   Abstract: 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]
    Keywords: Hong Kong, Hong Kong cinema, Wong kar-wai, Self-Representation
    Abstract: 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