Island images and imaginations : beyond the typical tropical

Abstract

Today, ‘warm water’ islands are often the objects of what may be the most lavish, global and consistent branding exercise in human history. They present themselves—and find themselves presented—as locales of desire, platforms of luscious paradise, habitual sites of fascination, emotional offloading or spiritual and psychological pilgrimage. The association with mystery, fantasy, redemption, utopia and refuge is a long-lasting one that continues to be exploited by literature (The Swiss Family Robinson, The Mysterious Island, Lord of the Flies) and global media (consider The Blue Lagoon, The Beach). The manifestation of this interpellation of islands, by insiders and outsiders, as ‘typically tropical’ both haunts and drives island industries, and is the thrust of this chapter.