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Tag: Islands

Water Planning

Posted on | By caparicio

“The world is full of islands” (Baldacchino, 2006, p.4). It is not surprising that, over the last decades, there has been an increased interest in island studies, attracting researchers from different disciplinary areas who, together, have been able to promote this “new” line of research, thus developing the so-called “island science”.

Island science, although young, has shown great relevance in international studies, as demonstrated by the editorial title of the journal Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie: “The coming of Age of island studies” (Baldacchino, 2004), thus proclaiming the “maturity” of island studies (King, 2010).

For Young, the island is a place of secrecy and mystery, but its isolation also conditions its historical evolution (Young, 1999, p. 2). In this sense, the insular specificity may be in correlation with the hydraulic issue? This entry intends, therefore, to make known the main trends of Hydraulics at the research level. In this sense, and with regard to island territories, the article by Paulo Espinosa and Fernanda Cravidão, in “Revista Sociedade & Natureza”, entitled “A Ciência das Ilhas e os Estudos Insulares: Breves reflexões sobre o contributo da Geografia / The Science of Islands and the Insular Studies: brief point of view about the importance of geography”, contains a set of themes to be studied and reflected upon.

All emersed lands, of greater or lesser size, are surrounded by oceans, so islands inevitably occupy an extremely important place in world life (Biagini; Hoyle, 1999, p. 1). There are facts that translate, in a synthetic way, the real value of islands worldwide, although they are often ignored by most researchers. According to Baldacchino (2007), nearly 10% of the world population, almost 600 million people, currently live on islands, occupying about 7% of the Earth’s surface. Approximately a quarter of the world’s independent states are islands or archipelagos. Furthermore, islands assume themselves as differentiated identities and spaces in an increasingly homogeneous world, as a result of the globalisation process.

Despite their value, small island spaces are often associated with a set of structural constraints since “as a consequence of their scale, small islands are limited in size, land area, resources, economic and population potential, and political power” (Royle, 2001, p. 42). Thus, it is not surprising that of the total number of sovereign countries that are not entirely insular, only two have their capital on an island, these being Denmark and Equatorial Guinea, reflecting a political and functional preference for continental areas to the detriment of territories exclusively surrounded by water.

Thus, there are many difficulties and potentialities that we can find in the islands. For this reason, these spaces are extremely rich in terms of scientific study. Lockard & Drakakis-Smith (1997) state that the themes of islands that have most attracted the attention of researchers include, apart from tourist activity, emigration and return migration, transport and accessibility, limited resources such as water, and economic development policies.

Therefore, water has always been an essential factor in establishing life, in general, and mankind in particular. The importance of this liquid has led to an evolution in the techniques of transport for human consumption over the millennia (Baptista, 2011).

Despite this evolution, verified throughout the years of existence of the human race, it was in more recent history, mainly in the 20th century, that major advances in water supply systems were verified, due to the need to respond to the population increase verified around the globe and the emergence of new materials, such as, for example, polymers. Also at the design level, a major evolution was noted due to the discovery of new hydraulic laws, which allow optimizing the supply conditions (Baptista, 2011).

In most current cases, buildings are supplied through a public network that carries drinking water. However, there are situations in which the water is supplied from wells. In these cases, it is necessary to proceed in order to guarantee the potability of the water (Baptista, 2011).

In the execution of this type of project, essential factors are taken into account, such as economy, the conditions of application and use, the routing requirements and also the chemical constitution of each material, always bearing in mind the legislation governing this type of system. It is based on the optimization of these factors that water supply networks are built (APA, 2018).

Water planning aims to ground and guide the protection and management of waters and the compatibility of their uses with their availability in order to (APA, 2018):

  1. Guarantee their sustainable use, ensuring that the needs of current generations are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs;
  2. Provide criteria for allocation to the various types of intended uses, taking into account the economic value of each one, as well as to ensure the harmonisation of water management with regional development and sectoral policies, individual rights and local interests;
  3. Set environmental quality standards and criteria for water status.

From what has been described, I can say that there is no shortage of reasons to study this issue in an island context. Regardless of the perspective used, research on islands reveals a great thematic amplitude, since they can be analysed from different angles, and the discipline of Hydraulics can contribute to the study of “island sciences”, particularly with regard to hydraulic planning.

Sérgio Lousada

References

APA. (2018). Políticas, Água, Planeamento. Obtido de Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente: https://www.apambiente.pt/index.php?ref=16&subref=7&sub2ref=9#

Baptista, F. P. (2011). Sistemas Prediais de Distribuição de Água Fria. Lisboa: IST. Obtido de https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/downloadFile/395142730852/Tese.pdf

Baldacchino, G. (2004). The Coming of Age of Island Studies. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geographie. V. 95, n. 3, pp. 272-283. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9663.2004.00307.x

Baldacchino, G. (2006). Extreme Tourism: Lessons from the world cold water. Oxford: Elsevier, p. 4.

Baldacchino, G. (2007). Introducing a world of islands. In: Baldacchino, G. (Ed.). A World of Islands. Charlottetown: University of Prince Edward Island, Institute of Island Studies, p. 1-29.

Biagini, E. & Hoyle, B. (1999). Insularity and Development on an Oceanic Planet. In: Biagini, E. & Hoyle, B. (Eds.). Insularity and Development: international perspectives on islands. London: Pinter, p. 1.

King, R. (2010). A geografia, as ilhas e as migrações numa era de mobilidade global. In: Fosnseca, M. L. (Ed). Actas da Conferência Internacional – Aproximando Mundos Emigração e Imigração em Espaços Insulares. Lisboa: Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, p. 27-62.

Lockhart, D. & Drakakis-Smith, D. (1997). Island Tourism: Trends and Perspectives. London: Mansell, 320 p.

Royle, S. (2001). A Geography of Islands: Small Island Insularity. London: Routledge, p. 42.

Young, L. B. (1999). Islands: Portraits of Miniature Worlds. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, p. 2.

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Islandness

Posted on | By caparicio

At present, there are two prevailing views of what islandness is, and which is the difference between this term and its relative term, insularity. The first perspective adopts the narrative that islandness is somewhat an academic evolution of insularity and the second suggests that insularity is a standard feature like small size, remoteness and isolation, special experiential identity and rich and vulnerable natural and cultural environment. Adding to the public discussion that relates to how sciences view islands and consequently how islands are managed through public policies, it is crucial to shed light to islandness as a contemporary term.

As Conkling (2007, 200) argues, islands are most fundamentally defined by the presence of often frightening and occasionally impassable bodies of water that create a sense of a place closer to the natural world and to neighbors whose eccentricities are tolerated and embraced. Given this affirmation, he argues (Conkling 2007, 200) that “islandness is often considered as a metaphysical sensation deriving from the heightened experiences that accompany the physical isolation of island life, […] as an important metacultural phenomenon that helps maintain island communities in spite of daunting economic pressures to abandon them”. He briefly describes islandness as “a construct of the mind, a singular way of looking at the world”. It is either being on an island or not. 

In any case, given that both concepts (insularity and islandness) communicate, islandness is also assumed to include four main characteristics/aspects: boundedness, smallness, isolation and littorality (Kelman 2020, 6). Boundedness describes the borders and the physical limits of islands. Smallness refers to land area, population, resources and livelihood opportunities. Isolation stands for distance, marginalization and separation from other land areas, people and communities. Last but not least, littorality, refers to land-water interactions, coastal zones and intersections of achipelagos and aquapelagos (Kelman 2020, 7).

Additionally, Baldacchino (2004, 278) from another more practical perspective, argues that “islandness is an intervening variable that does not determine, but contours and conditions social and physical events in distinct, and distinctly relevant, ways”. He underlines that “this is no weakness or deficiency; rather, therein  lies the field’s major strength and enormous potential” (Baldacchino 2006, 9). He also makes an interesting suggestion about the link between islandness and insularity: “researchers and practitioners should be aware of how deep-rooted and stultifying the social consequences of islandness can be and this specific feature can actually be called insularity” Baldacchino (2008, 49). So, he assumes that islandness is not a synonymous of insularity, but the latter is one of many features of islandness that describes a specific condition that characterizes island communities. Insularity can be regarded as a brief term to describe insular remoteness which can include three types of remoteness: the physical, the imaginative and the politico legal (Nicolini and Perrin 2020).

There is sufficient evidence that islands – small islands in particular – are distinct enough sites, or harbour extreme enough renditions of more general processes, to warrant their continued respect as subjects/objects of academic focus and inquiry. There is a debate within the nissology framework, i.e. the study of islands in their own terms, about the uniqueness of islands. Still others find islands ‘living labs’, central to understanding what happens subsequently on mainland territory. Islands are often viewed as places that need to be saved and treated differently from the mainland to reach dominant continental standards. Indeed, islands have always been a bone of contention, either seen as paradise or hell. 

Cross-disciplinary research on the essence of islands and what constitutes the insular condition within a growing framework of “nissology”, has reinforced the need to distinct insularity from islandness.  No island is insular, meaning “entire to itself”. An approach that is based on the argument that islands need to be studied on their own terms which is also aligned with a more politically correct usage of relative terminology, has gradually substituted insularity with islandness. Insularity as a term, has been extensively used in academia and public speaking to describe expresses ‘objective’ and measurable characteristics, including small areal size, small population (small market), limited resources, isolation, and remoteness, as well as unique natural and cultural environments, that synthesize an insular condition. However, it also involves a distinctive ‘experiential identity’, which is a non-measurable quality expressing the various symbols that islands are connected to (Spilanis et al. 2011, 9). The term “insularity” has unwittingly come along with a sematic baggage of separation and backwardness. This negativism does not mete out fair justice to the subject matter (Baldacchino 2004,272).

And it is of great importance that islandness and all four dimensions mentioned above, needs to be more closely examined trough various discipline lenses. The core of  “island studies” is the constitution of “islandness” and its possible or plausible influence by the traditional subject uni-disciplines (such as archaeology, economics or literature), subject multi-disciplines (such as political economy or biogeography) or policy foci/issues (such as governance, social capital, waste disposal, language extinction or sustainable tourism) (Baldacchino 2006, 9). The evolution in terminology that relates to islands is only one of the signs that affirms that islands are indeed loci for major issues and developments in the 21st century, which their being studied in their own terms considered to be one of the most fundamental epistemic challenges today.

Mitropoulou Angeliki & Spilanis Ioannis

References

Baldacchino, G. 2004. The coming of age of island studies. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 95(3) : 272-283.

—. 2006. Islands, island studies, island studies journal. Island Studies Journal, 1(1): 3-18.

—. 2008. Studying islands: on whose terms? Some epistemological and methodological challenges to the pursuit of island studies. Island Studies Journal, 3(1): 37-56.

Conkling, P. 2007. On islanders and islandness. Geographical Review, 97(2): 191-201.

Kelman, I. 2020. Islands of vulnerability and resilience: Manufactured stereotypes?. Area, 52(1): 6-13.

Nicolini, M., & Perrin, T. 2020. Geographical Connections: Law, Islands, and Remoteness. Liverpool Law Review, 1-14.

Spilanis, I., Kizos, T., Biggi, M., Vaitis, M., Kokkoris, G. et al. (2011). The Development of the Islands – European Islands and Cohesion Policy (EUROISLANDS). Final report. Luxemburg: ESPON & University of the Aegean. Available at: https://www.espon.eu/sites/default/files/attachments/inception_report_full_version.pdf (Accessed: 07 December 2020)

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Islands and the Anthropocene

Posted on | By caparicio

Today, it is increasingly argued, humans have changed the planet to such an extent that we have moved from the past 11,700 years of the Holocene to the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene. ‘Anthropos’, the human, has become such a significantly active force that it has transformed a wide range of planetary conditions; from global and local weather patterns, to the chemical constituency of the earth and the oceans. Here, islands are not only the most high-profile markers of the Anthropocene; of rising seas, global warming, the fallouts of mainland consumerism, continued colonialisms, nuclear testing and fallout, ecological degradation, and many other negative forces associated with the legacies of modernity. More proactively, work with islands, island cultures and conceptually thinking with ‘islandness’, is today broadly understood as highly generative for the development of distinct alternatives to the modern, ‘mainland’ reasoning which is widely said to have caused the Anthropocene. In particular, contemporary work with islands is seen as important for the stimulation of alternative ways of thinking about being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology) which challenge the very foundations of modern reasoning – those modern human/nature, mind/body, subject/object divides which enabled humans to rise above, command and control ‘nature’, with terrible consequences. Central to this rise in the power of island work is how, across Western academic disciplines and in popular culture, islands have long been understood as key alternative sites for thinking through the complex relational entanglements between humans and nature. From the paradigm shifting work of Charles Darwin, to the defining anthropology of Margaret Mead and Marilyn Strathern, to highly influential work on colonialism by Édouard Glissant and Epeli Hau‘ofa, islands have long been considered as central places for the development of alternatives to modern reasoning. For Darwin, islands show us, or amplify, how all life differentiates and is adaptive to its environment, as in his famous branching trees, not in the way of modern linear progress. For Mead and Strathern, many island cultures do not split the world into ‘humans’ and ‘nature’, but rather have a more relationally entangled and attuned understanding of being. For Glissant and Hau‘ofa, islands demonstrate how there is no ‘past’ or ‘away’, as in the linear telos, fixed grids of space and time, of modernity. Rather, island life and cultures powerfully register and hold the ongoing legacies of mainland modernity and colonialism. Thus, today, as ‘relational entanglement’ emerges as the key trope or problematic of the Anthropocene, it would be inevitable that certain geographical forms, like islands, would rise to the surface of consciousness for the development of alternative, ‘relational’, ways of thinking about being and knowing which both register and challenge those of modernity. The development of new modes of thinking and approaches associated with the Anthropocene does not emerge in the abstract, existing only in people’s heads, but by engaging the world, turning to particular geographies and geographical forms, such as islands, which are widely held to enable us to think problems through more effectively. This is why islands have risen to the surface in the development of contemporary Anthropocene thinking which seeks to move against the legacies of modern reasoning across mainstream policymaking, the arts, activism, sciences, social sciences and humanities. From the emergence of the highly influential ‘resilience’ paradigm which draws heavily upon a Darwinian understanding of (island) life as inherently adaptive; to island ecologies and cultures as emblematic ‘sensors’ for the rest of the world to learn from, the ‘canaries in the coal mine’ of transforming planetary conditions; to prevalent developments across critical and colonial theory, art and activism which foreground island and islander life as powerfully disrupting the neat boundaries, top-down command and control of modernity’s human/nature divide, islands are at the fore of Anthropocene thinking. In this sense, the contemporary turn to islands in Anthropocene research, policy, practice and activism was always in some way overdetermined. Today, as the problematics of relational sensitivities, relational ways of being and knowing, come to the fore in debates about the Anthropocene, so do geographical forms like islands, long held to be productive sites for thinking these problematics through. This is the generative power and lure of working with islands for Anthropocene thinking.

Jonathan Pugh

References

Barad, Karen. “After the End of the World: Entangled Nuclear Colonialisms, Matters of Force, and the Material Force of Justice.” Theory & Event 22.3 (2019): 524–550.

Chandler, David, and Jonathan Pugh. “Islands and the Rise of Correlational Epistemology in the Anthropocene: Rethinking the Trope of the ‘Canary in the Coalmine.’” Island Studies Journal (2021). [doi:10.24043/isj.119]

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth M. Allegories of the Anthropocene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. [ISBN: 9781478005582]

Jetñil-Kijiner, Kathy. “*Bulldozed Reefs and Blasted Sands: Rituals for Artificial Islands[https://www.kathyjetnilkijiner.com/bulldozed-reefs-and-blasted-sands-rituals-for-artificial-islands/]*.” Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner (blog), 2 July 2019.

Kanngieser, Anja. *Listening to Ecocide[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh1Cs4G7mxk]*. Sonic Acts 2020.

Morton, Timothy. “Molten Entities.” In New Geographies 08: Island. Edited by Daniel Daou and Pablo Pérez-Ramos, 72–76. Cambridge, MA: Universal Wilde, 2016. [ISBN: 9781934510452]

Perez, Craig Santos. Habitat Threshold. Oakland, CA: Omidawn, 2020. [ISBN: 9781632430809]

Pugh, Jonathan. “Relationality and Island Studies in the Anthropocene.” Island Studies Journal 13.1 (2018): 93–110.

Pugh, Jonathan, and David Chandler. Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds. London: Westminster University Press, 2021. [doi:10.16997/book52] Download complete book for free here https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book52/

Sheller, Mimi. Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. [ISBN: 9781478010128]

Spahr, Julianna. This Connection of Everyone with Lungs: Poems. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. [ISBN: 9780520242906]

Watts, Laura. Energy at the End of the World: An Orkney Islands Saga. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018. [ISBN: 9780262038898]

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