Guest editorial introduction : islanding cultural geographies

Abstract

Islands allure imagination, thought and affect. Imagination, thought and affect conjure islands. Literary imaginations create islands more than any other geographical form.1 Metaphorically, we use concepts of bounded and contained islands to think with, to an extent not commonly recognized. 2 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.3 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’.4 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.