The island as a political interstice

Abstract

Islands are often defined with respect to their physicality, namely small pieces of land surrounded by water. One inherent assumption is that islands can be defined distinctly from other geographic entities, such as the often-presumed dichotomies of island-mainland and land-water. This vocabulary is imbued with political meaning, especially that the opposite of an island is apparently the “main land”. Island studies challenges these notions, reinterpreting them in contemporary political domains, with one framing being interstitiality. From this baseline and drawing on some political geography work, this paper argues that the interstitial island is principally a political construction. Islands are, or at minimum can be, multiple forms of interstices, but they are very much created as such—whether inadvertently, deliberately, or a combination—making the island a political interstice. This paper follows this line of reasoning by selecting two characteristics discussed in island studies and geography with respect to islandness: separation and connection. The result is to explore separation and connection as interstitial, demonstrating that politics infuses the discussions, conceptualisations, and practicalities of the interstitial island, although this situation is not necessarily detrimental. Philosophically and practically, many advantages result from constructing the island as a political interstice, suggesting that island interstitiality has far more political than physical value.

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