In Behalf of 'In Behalf of the Fool'

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2023

Islandness is a contested concept, not just between disciplines but also cultures, entangled with what islands, island studies, and island identity are understood to be. The purpose of this article is to explore some of these different meanings, without necessarily unifying or reconciling them, with the aim of keeping multiple understandings of islandness in creative tension. We begin by considering islandness as smallness, recognizing that though many entry points into island studies relate to size in some way, what constitutes small is dependent on both context and worldview. Next, we consider islandness as culture, and the concept of island identity, which is expressed in varied forms. Finally, we consider framings of islands as others, and the extent to which contemporary narratives linked to islands are really inherent to islands or not. Ultimately, we conclude that although there is much to be gained from appreciating differing understandings of islandness, these multiple meanings make it critical to reflect on context wherever the term is used, and exercise care in assigning attributes and outcomes to islandness. Key Words: identity, islandness, islands, island studies, narratives.

QIL - Questions of International Law, 2018

2009

This thesis focuses on one of the most problematic aspects of the international law of the sea-the question of how to deal with islands with respect to claims to maritime jurisdiction and the delimitation of maritime boundaries. Issues related to islands are at the root of numerous disputes around the world. These disputes fall into two broad categories: sovereignty disputes over islands and disputes concerning their capacity to generate maritime jurisdictional claims. Both types of dispute have implications for the delimitation of maritime boundaries between States. The research examines maritime jurisdictional issues, including an overview of the development and codification of the law of the sea, and provides analysis of the fundamental issues of baselines and the maritime jurisdictional claims that are measured from them. The critical importance of islands to the generation of claims to maritime zones on behalf of States is highlighted. In this context, the study explores why sovereignty over or the classification of, frequently small, remote, and often uninhabited islands is contested among States. The research reviews and critically analyses the regime of islands in international law. Types of insular features and their capacities to generate maritime claims are distinguished and potential sources of clarification for these distinctions are identified. The role and treatment of islands in the delimitation of maritime boundaries is analysed and emerging trends in both State practice and international jurisprudence on this issue are assessed with particular reference to key decisions of the International Court of Justice. The study also examines the potential impacts for islands and the maritime claims generated from insular features, arising as a consequence of sea-level rise. The research offers practical guidance as to policy options to address the complex legal and geotechnical problems identified. iii

Cea Critic, 2017

Island Studies Journal 10.1, 2015

Some preliminary thoughts were penned in 1991, on the founding of an academic journal devoted to the study of the world’s islands. This collated contribution is an opportunity to look back critically at what was advised then, and what has actually come to pass through Island Studies Journal. Russell King’s prescient report from 1991 is followed by a series of candid reflections by members of ISJ’s International Editorial Board.

Praxis, 2014

We share a common space-time with everything that we interact with in our world. An island universe would be a spatiotemporally interrelated segment of reality that is isolated from the rest of reality; it would be part of our world but something that we cannot interact with. Spatiotemporal interrelatedness plays an important role in a number of metaphysical theories concerning possible worlds. Here I discuss four problems surrounding the possibility of island universes. I contend the most troubling of these problems gives us good reason to think that island universes are possible; metaphysical theories that cannot make sense of the possibility of island universes end up having bizarre implications about alternate possible worlds.

2012

Natural language grammars would probably be simpler if there were no island constraints. They are obscure, often complex, and they present a potentially daunting challenge for language learners, since it is far from clear how children could correctly figure out the details of island constraints based on the limited input that they receive. It probably does not help that island constraints apply to constructions that are already somewhat complex, raising the danger that children might misanalyze the input.

Island Studies Journal, 2013

This paper argues for a shift in the focus of island-themed scholarship away from theories of islandness toward an engagement with psychologies of island experience. The former project has become mired in intractable dilemmas. The present paper pursues two linked lines of observation. First, it is maintained that integral to any coherent notion of islandness is a psychology that simultaneously assimilates containment with remoteness and isolation (the latter not to be equated with disconnectedness). In some of its manifestations this psychology is pathological in character, conducive to despair, cultural and economic stagnation, and a xenophobic conservatism. In others it is enabling, conducive to resilience, resourcefulness, cultural dynamism and a can-do economics. It may also make islands unusually relevant, rather than unimportant backwaters, in the search for workable modes of living on a small and fraught planet. Second, it is contended that, if there is enough in the notion o...

The Littoral Zone: Australian Writers and their Contexts: Nature, Culture and Literature 04, 2007

This chapter investigates the impact of literary tropes on island topography. The survey approach of island literature is abandoned in favour of ecocritical praxis, examining instead the literature of selected temperate islands (with populations varying from 2 to 20,000). Cattle farming, ideological disjunction, and mortality are explored in two settler autobiographies set in "paradise" (Three Hummock Island); "descent with modification" is traced in the text and farming practices (sealing, Soldier Settlement pastoral, and salvage) in a work of fiction based in "Eden" (King Island); and in the final work (indigenous autobiography and myth set on North Stradbroke Island), the politics of the "land ethic" and land rights confront a sea country pastoral.

Island Studies Journal, 2008

Island Studies Journal, Vol. ... life moving back and forth over illusory geographical boundaries and struggling to come to terms with competing identities. ... hopefully help to refine the current state of 'island studies', while energizing and provoking a now overdue discussion about its ...