Introduction: Towards an Expanded Concept of Island Studies

Abstract

In one sense, islands are easy to characterise, the working definition being that they are areas of land wholly surrounded by water. But the edges of that definition are blurred. Complexities arise when we consider areas of sand, rock or coral that are covered at high tide, or that are connected to other land areas at low tide (by sand spits etc.), or that are connected to other land areas by bridges or causeways. Areas submerged at high tide are generally not regarded as islands. Areas linked to others at low tide are an awkward, intermediate category. And areas that have been bridged or linked by causeways are often regarded as having been significantly ‘de-islanded’ by human engineering. Island Studies has operated with these complexities during its first two decades of operation (taking the establishment of the International Small Islands Studies Association [ISISA] in 1992 as a disciplinary starting point) and has sought to clarify some of its parameters (see, for instance, Baldacchino [ed] [2007] on the issue of bridged islands). But the blurred edges of the definition have been one element that has allowed various critics of Island Studies as a coherent (or, even, worthwhile) field of endeavour to identify that islands share many important characteristics with coastal locations such as ports, estuaries and peninsulas (reflected in the inclusivity of the title and project of the Journal of Marine and Island Cultures, for instance) and/or remote communities in general. These observations are all the more pertinent given that many (especially, but not exclusively) larger islands possess interiors which have highly land-orientated ecosystems, agricultural systems, livelihood networks, infrastructures, social structures and socio-cultural identities.

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