An Island for Everyone: Poveglia as contested public space in the Venetian Lagoon

This article focuses on the story of the proposed privatisation of Poveglia, a small uninhabited island in the Venetian Lagoon. In March 2014 the Italian State Property Office announced that a 99-year lease on Poveglia would be offered for sale in an online auction. The reaction of some citizens led to the formation of the association Poveglia per Tutti (Poveglia for Everyone), whose activists and supporters wanted the island to be preserved as a public space and blocked the acquisition. The article firstly frames Poveglia in the processes that are particular to the small islands of the Venetian Lagoon, from abandonment to tourism-related ‘land grabbing’, and then contextualises the story of this minor island in a more general discussion regarding broader ‘right to the island’ narratives and practices with reference to some other European cases. Finally, the article presents the results of a an ethnographically informed analysis of the association Poveglia per Tutti to discuss the capacity and potentialities of some small islands - as separate, limited, and identifiable spaces - to be part of territorialisation processes dealing with active citizenship, resistance to tourist monoculture and the usability of public space. In this way, Poveglia becomes a synecdoche for the whole of Venice and its lagoon, ‘condensing’, at the same time, local and global dynamics.

Island narratives in the making of Japan: The Kojiki in geocultural context

Shintō, the national religion of Japan, is grounded in the mythological narratives that are found in the 8th-Century chronicle, Kojiki 古事記 (712). Within this early source book of Japanese history, myth, and national origins, there are many accounts of islands (terrestrial and imaginary), which provide a foundation for comprehending the geographical cosmology (i.e., sacred space) of Japan’s territorial boundaries and the nearby region in the 8th Century, as well as the ritualistic significance of some of the country’s islands to this day. Within a complex geocultural genealogy of gods that links geography to mythology and the Japanese imperial line, land and life were created along with a number of small and large islands. Drawing on theoretical work and case studies that explore the geopolitics of border islands, this article offers a critical study of this ancient work of Japanese history with specific reference to islands and their significance in mapping Japan. Arguing that a characteristic of islandness in Japan has an inherent connection with Shintō religious myth, the article shows how mythological islanding permeates geographic, social, and cultural terrains. The discussion maps the island narratives found in the Kojiki within a framework that identifies and discusses toponymy, geography, and meaning in this island nation’s mythology.

From Island to Island, and Beyond

Chapter 1 examines the centrality of islands as gateways to the New World. The texts examined in it poeticize spatial experiences that oscillate between a sense of emergence and possibility and a corresponding fear of submergence and dissolution. The chapter begins by discussing accounts by immigrants passing through Angel Island and Ellis Island in the context of a long tradition of real and imaginary voyages to America. It then turns to two transoceanic island narratives. The first is Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611), which is read alongside accounts of England’s early colonial experiments on Roanoke Island. It is argued that Shakespeare’s play and the Roanoke documents negotiate an island arrival that is both hopeful and fraught with uncertainty. The second is Cecil B. DeMille’s film Male and Female (1919), which imagines a sort of fictional Ellis Island, thereby responding to a long line of island arrivals in the New World.

Studying Islands: On Whose Terms? Some Epistemological and Methodological Challenges to the Pursuit of Island Studies

The pursuit of nissology, or island studies, calls for a re-centering of focus from mainland to island, away from the discourse of conquest of mainlanders, giving voice and platform for the expression of island narratives. Yet, studying islands ‘on their own terms’, in spite of its predilection for “authenticity”, is fraught with epistemological and methodological difficulties. The insider/outsider distinction does not work all that well when it comes to islands, where hybridity is the norm. This paper seeks to extend this debate, grappling especially with the contributions of Grant McCall and Peter Hay to the sparse literature. Five dilemmas related to indigenous island geographies are presented and discussed, in a semi-autobiographical style