Guest editorial introduction: Islanding cultural geographies
(2013) In Cultural Geographies 20(2). p.129-134- Abstract
- Islands allure imagination, thought and affect. Imagination, thought and affect conjure islands. Literary imaginations create islands more than any other geographical form. Metaphorically, we use concepts of bounded and contained islands to think with, to an extent not commonly recognized. Emotions and desires are moved by and commonly move us towards or away from islands. Relatedly, in a deeper time scale, islands have played a central role in the evolution of life forms, spawning biocultural diversity. Torsten Hägerstrand recognized this in identifying the ‘dilemma which arises from expanding over given boundaries while remaining sheltered [as] the eternal theme of first biological evolution and then cultural’. Islands bind and shelter,... (More)
- Islands allure imagination, thought and affect. Imagination, thought and affect conjure islands. Literary imaginations create islands more than any other geographical form. Metaphorically, we use concepts of bounded and contained islands to think with, to an extent not commonly recognized. Emotions and desires are moved by and commonly move us towards or away from islands. Relatedly, in a deeper time scale, islands have played a central role in the evolution of life forms, spawning biocultural diversity. Torsten Hägerstrand recognized this in identifying the ‘dilemma which arises from expanding over given boundaries while remaining sheltered [as] the eternal theme of first biological evolution and then cultural’. Islands bind and shelter, for better or worse, by design or imposition. Commonly associated today with escape – from tedious, stressful and mundane everyday lives; from financial regulation and taxation; from the chaos, destruction and chemical cocktails of modern society – islands serve a host of other purposes on the maps of higher authorities: for locating military outposts, incarcerating political foes, dumping waste, expanding markets or engineering sites of social experimentation. If islandness is a particular state or condition of being, there is a corresponding action in islanding. We propose island as a verb, islanding as an action. With this collection of papers, we wish to contribute to the islanding of cultural geographies, most definitely not in the sense of bounding off and isolating, but rather in the sense of bringing the stream of cultural and social theory into communication with alternative currents, byways and eddies created by islands. We believe that the islanding – in this sense – of cultural geographies is underway, and that there are new spatial understandings that can be brought into play from the island perspective. Finally, we hope this collection will encourage your participation in islanding cultural geographies. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/3630703
- author
- Clark, Eric LU and Baldacchino, Godfrey LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2013
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- connection, cultural geography, islanding, human geography, isolation
- in
- Cultural Geographies
- volume
- 20
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 129 - 134
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000317700000001
- scopus:84875667304
- ISSN
- 1474-4740
- DOI
- 10.1177/1474474012469594
- project
- LUCID - Lund University Centre of Excellence for Integration of Social and Natural Dimensions of Sustainability
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- a5e41078-de34-4064-bed4-2d52679c794a (old id 3630703)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 10:32:31
- date last changed
- 2022-03-19 21:44:31
@article{a5e41078-de34-4064-bed4-2d52679c794a,
abstract = {{Islands allure imagination, thought and affect. Imagination, thought and affect conjure islands. Literary imaginations create islands more than any other geographical form. Metaphorically, we use concepts of bounded and contained islands to think with, to an extent not commonly recognized. Emotions and desires are moved by and commonly move us towards or away from islands. Relatedly, in a deeper time scale, islands have played a central role in the evolution of life forms, spawning biocultural diversity. Torsten Hägerstrand recognized this in identifying the ‘dilemma which arises from expanding over given boundaries while remaining sheltered [as] the eternal theme of first biological evolution and then cultural’. Islands bind and shelter, for better or worse, by design or imposition. Commonly associated today with escape – from tedious, stressful and mundane everyday lives; from financial regulation and taxation; from the chaos, destruction and chemical cocktails of modern society – islands serve a host of other purposes on the maps of higher authorities: for locating military outposts, incarcerating political foes, dumping waste, expanding markets or engineering sites of social experimentation. If islandness is a particular state or condition of being, there is a corresponding action in islanding. We propose island as a verb, islanding as an action. With this collection of papers, we wish to contribute to the islanding of cultural geographies, most definitely not in the sense of bounding off and isolating, but rather in the sense of bringing the stream of cultural and social theory into communication with alternative currents, byways and eddies created by islands. We believe that the islanding – in this sense – of cultural geographies is underway, and that there are new spatial understandings that can be brought into play from the island perspective. Finally, we hope this collection will encourage your participation in islanding cultural geographies.}},
author = {{Clark, Eric and Baldacchino, Godfrey}},
issn = {{1474-4740}},
keywords = {{connection; cultural geography; islanding; human geography; isolation}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{129--134}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Cultural Geographies}},
title = {{Guest editorial introduction: Islanding cultural geographies}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474012469594}},
doi = {{10.1177/1474474012469594}},
volume = {{20}},
year = {{2013}},
}