This paper concerns belonging in islands. Place-belonging conjures images of feeling at home somewhere, in our case islands. Given the emotionality of belonging, we explore island belonging through emotions. More specifically, we apply the concept of the aquapelago to island belonging and refer to this as aquapelagic belonging. Bringing in emotions, embodied perceptions and mobility, we discuss how these are assembled in island-sea relations to form aquapelagic belonging. In doing so, we draw on qualitative data from fieldwork undertaken in locations where proximity to the sea and access to seaborne mobility is paramount. Our findings demonstrate how certain emotional dispositions and mobility practices emerge in processes of aquapelagic belonging, indicating that mobility is intricately entangled with island belonging. We propose that the interconnected nature of land and sea spaces co-produce emotions of belonging in island spaces. We therefore argue that the concept of aquapelagic belonging lends useful insight to understand what is particular about island belonging. Furthermore, we suggest that attention to mobility, which in this context means navigating land/sea environments, is key to understanding aquapelagic belonging. We conclude that to grasp island belonging, the notion of the aquapelago is relevant and assists in understanding the totality of island relations.
{"title":"Belonging in an aquapelago: Island mobilities and emotions","authors":"E. Hayfield, Helene Pristed Nielsen","doi":"10.24043/isj.399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.399","url":null,"abstract":"This paper concerns belonging in islands. Place-belonging conjures images of feeling at home somewhere, in our case islands. Given the emotionality of belonging, we explore island belonging through emotions. More specifically, we apply the concept of the aquapelago to island belonging and refer to this as aquapelagic belonging. Bringing in emotions, embodied perceptions and mobility, we discuss how these are assembled in island-sea relations to form aquapelagic belonging. In doing so, we draw on qualitative data from fieldwork undertaken in locations where proximity to the sea and access to seaborne mobility is paramount. Our findings demonstrate how certain emotional dispositions and mobility practices emerge in processes of aquapelagic belonging, indicating that mobility is intricately entangled with island belonging. We propose that the interconnected nature of land and sea spaces co-produce emotions of belonging in island spaces. We therefore argue that the concept of aquapelagic belonging lends useful insight to understand what is particular about island belonging. Furthermore, we suggest that attention to mobility, which in this context means navigating land/sea environments, is key to understanding aquapelagic belonging. We conclude that to grasp island belonging, the notion of the aquapelago is relevant and assists in understanding the totality of island relations.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68954647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Analyses of the Caribbean continue to divide the region based on colonial heritage, which is largely a result of the fact that it primarily consists of small islands. In this article, we demonstrate the inaccuracy of such categorizations on the basis of two sets of arguments. Based on historical as well as contemporary evidence from the Dutch Caribbean, we show that different islands that were artificially united into a single jurisdiction by colonial powers commonly experience intense inter-island rivalries and separatist tendencies. In addition, however, we show evidence pointing to frequent contacts and shared regional identities between neighboring islands belonging to different (post)colonial spheres of influence, both in the past and in the present. In sum, therefore, our interdisciplinary analysis – combining insights from history and political science – shows that small islands experience seemingly contradictory tendencies towards both island nationalism and inter-island cooperation, but that cooperation can only work if it is initiated on the terms of islands themselves, and not determined by colonial rulers or metropolitan states.
{"title":"Worlds apart: Island identities and colonial configurations in the Dutch Caribbean","authors":"Jessica Vance Roitman, Wouter Veenendaal","doi":"10.24043/isj.401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.401","url":null,"abstract":"Analyses of the Caribbean continue to divide the region based on colonial heritage, which is largely a result of the fact that it primarily consists of small islands. In this article, we demonstrate the inaccuracy of such categorizations on the basis of two sets of arguments. Based on historical as well as contemporary evidence from the Dutch Caribbean, we show that different islands that were artificially united into a single jurisdiction by colonial powers commonly experience intense inter-island rivalries and separatist tendencies. In addition, however, we show evidence pointing to frequent contacts and shared regional identities between neighboring islands belonging to different (post)colonial spheres of influence, both in the past and in the present. In sum, therefore, our interdisciplinary analysis – combining insights from history and political science – shows that small islands experience seemingly contradictory tendencies towards both island nationalism and inter-island cooperation, but that cooperation can only work if it is initiated on the terms of islands themselves, and not determined by colonial rulers or metropolitan states.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68954699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project, whose construction was halted by a 2013 judgment of the Supreme Court of India due to religious sensitivity, has become a domestic and international strategic flashpoint. The religious and epistemic conundrum around the Sethusamudram project and Adam’s Bridge is a colonial-era legacy. Without understanding how the British colonial state saw Adam’s Bridge, we may wrongly infer that today’s Indian nationalist assertions of its sacrality necessarily stem from an anticolonial praxis to restore a politics of enchantment within Indian modernity. The British colonial state adopted epistemes or modes of knowing Adam’s Bridge that were ostensibly compatible with pre-Western forms of enchantment. This is particularly important considering that nationalist voices, largely represented by the right-wing BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the Sangh Parivar in general, and liberal voices representing the Congress (Indian National Congress), or regional political voices such the DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and AIADMK (All Indian Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), have dated the origins of the proposed Sethusamudram project to the colonial era, erroneously prolonging the implication that the British government aided plans of demolishing Adam’s Bridge.
{"title":"1 Do you believe in Ram Setu? Adam’s Bridge, epistemic plurality and colonial legacy","authors":"A. Chatterjee","doi":"10.24043/isj.405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.405","url":null,"abstract":"The Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project, whose construction was halted by a 2013 judgment of the Supreme Court of India due to religious sensitivity, has become a domestic and international strategic flashpoint. The religious and epistemic conundrum around the Sethusamudram project and Adam’s Bridge is a colonial-era legacy. Without understanding how the British colonial state saw Adam’s Bridge, we may wrongly infer that today’s Indian nationalist assertions of its sacrality necessarily stem from an anticolonial praxis to restore a politics of enchantment within Indian modernity. The British colonial state adopted epistemes or modes of knowing Adam’s Bridge that were ostensibly compatible with pre-Western forms of enchantment. This is particularly important considering that nationalist voices, largely represented by the right-wing BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the Sangh Parivar in general, and liberal voices representing the Congress (Indian National Congress), or regional political voices such the DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and AIADMK (All Indian Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), have dated the origins of the proposed Sethusamudram project to the colonial era, erroneously prolonging the implication that the British government aided plans of demolishing Adam’s Bridge.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68954726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper considers the ecofeminist geopoetics of Suzanne Césaire, developed over the course of seven essays that appeared in Martinican literary journal, Tropiques. Césaire deploys a ‘cannibalizing’ method aimed at subverting colonialist-utopian fantasies of the Antilles that cast them as inviting, penetrable spaces for European colonists and pleasure-seekers. I suggest that Césaire enlists the chaotic, often destructive forces of Caribbean climate to create a resistant geopoetics that opposes paradisal and sexualized visions of the tropics in travel literature. Yet, rather than simply activating the dystopian and disastrous antipode of Edenic paradise, Césaire diffuses the dialectical tension between utopia/dystopia, instead grounding the emergence of an unassimilated identity in the region’s geo-climatic dynamism. I argue that Césaire’s valorization of instability as a defining feature of Caribbean culture and geography impedes the reification of islands as either utopic paradises ripe for consumption or dystopian hotspots in need of technological rationalization and control. While Césaire’s work has been largely left out of studies on postcolonial theory, ecocriticism, and Caribbean women’s writing, I suggest that her essays demonstrate a latent ecofeminism, allowing her to subvert gendered, exoticized representations of Caribbean islands used to justify continued environmental exploitation, development, and neocolonial control.
{"title":"Cannibalizing paradise: Suzanne Césaire’s ecofeminist critique of tourist literature","authors":"Emily Eyestone","doi":"10.24043/isj.382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.382","url":null,"abstract":"This paper considers the ecofeminist geopoetics of Suzanne Césaire, developed over the course of seven essays that appeared in Martinican literary journal, Tropiques. Césaire deploys a ‘cannibalizing’ method aimed at subverting colonialist-utopian fantasies of the Antilles that cast them as inviting, penetrable spaces for European colonists and pleasure-seekers. I suggest that Césaire enlists the chaotic, often destructive forces of Caribbean climate to create a resistant geopoetics that opposes paradisal and sexualized visions of the tropics in travel literature. Yet, rather than simply activating the dystopian and disastrous antipode of Edenic paradise, Césaire diffuses the dialectical tension between utopia/dystopia, instead grounding the emergence of an unassimilated identity in the region’s geo-climatic dynamism. I argue that Césaire’s valorization of instability as a defining feature of Caribbean culture and geography impedes the reification of islands as either utopic paradises ripe for consumption or dystopian hotspots in need of technological rationalization and control. While Césaire’s work has been largely left out of studies on postcolonial theory, ecocriticism, and Caribbean women’s writing, I suggest that her essays demonstrate a latent ecofeminism, allowing her to subvert gendered, exoticized representations of Caribbean islands used to justify continued environmental exploitation, development, and neocolonial control.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68953861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many small island communities are said to possess high levels of autonomous coping capacity, often linked to peripherality. This social resilience is dynamic rather than static, with environmental, social, and political drivers shaping local pattens of vulnerability, necessitating reflection on how choices in one area may potentially lead to new vulnerabilities or transfers of vulnerability to already sensitive groups, such as children. This article argues that a historical perspective can help shed light on these dynamics. Impacts of extreme weather and climate variability, and resultant impacts of community coping strategies, on children in early-20th-century Orkney are explored using school logbooks. It finds that extreme weather ‘shocks’ directly impact children’s ability to attend school, while adjustments to the school calendar for agricultural operations constitute an indirect impact of climate variability, with reduced recreation time an emergent effect. Contextualised amidst contemporary island scholarship, two key messages emerge. Firstly, that the mobility and/or work of children in island communities remain sensitive to climate stressors in the present day and, secondly, that the island context itself matters, as characteristics commonly associated with ‘islandness’ — such as smallness, remoteness, and high social capital — may intersect in ways that fundamentally impact children’s experiences of weather, work, and education.
{"title":"Extreme weather, climate variability, and childhood: A historical analogue from the Orkney Islands (1903–1919)","authors":"A. Foley","doi":"10.24043/isj.385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.385","url":null,"abstract":"Many small island communities are said to possess high levels of autonomous coping capacity, often linked to peripherality. This social resilience is dynamic rather than static, with environmental, social, and political drivers shaping local pattens of vulnerability, necessitating reflection on how choices in one area may potentially lead to new vulnerabilities or transfers of vulnerability to already sensitive groups, such as children. This article argues that a historical perspective can help shed light on these dynamics. Impacts of extreme weather and climate variability, and resultant impacts of community coping strategies, on children in early-20th-century Orkney are explored using school logbooks. It finds that extreme weather ‘shocks’ directly impact children’s ability to attend school, while adjustments to the school calendar for agricultural operations constitute an indirect impact of climate variability, with reduced recreation time an emergent effect. Contextualised amidst contemporary island scholarship, two key messages emerge. Firstly, that the mobility and/or work of children in island communities remain sensitive to climate stressors in the present day and, secondly, that the island context itself matters, as characteristics commonly associated with ‘islandness’ — such as smallness, remoteness, and high social capital — may intersect in ways that fundamentally impact children’s experiences of weather, work, and education.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68953890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tourism is an attractive means of economic growth for governments, private companies, and international organizations, especially in places on the periphery of world capitalism. This growth strategy goes hand in hand with the transformation of coastlines and their surrounding areas and the enclosure of common spaces. These trends are illustrated by ongoing processes in the Canary Islands. In the aftermath of the 2007–2008 economic and financial crisis, and in line with its island development model, the archipelago’s regional government boosted the urban development of rural land and the construction of new hotels along the coastline. In early 2016, a movement to prevent the construction of a hotel on the coast of La Tejita (Tenerife) was formed. This study analyzes the fight to halt the development project, together with key landmarks in the protest, and explores the hypothesis that the right to nature exists and is indeed upheld, expressed in turn as the right to the island. The analysis is based on participant observations, dialogue with activists involved in the protest, and media coverage.
{"title":"Commodification or the right to the island: The struggle against the construction of a hotel in La Tejita (Tenerife)","authors":"Fernando Sabaté-Bel, Alejandro Armas-Díaz","doi":"10.24043/isj.386","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.386","url":null,"abstract":"Tourism is an attractive means of economic growth for governments, private companies, and international organizations, especially in places on the periphery of world capitalism. This growth strategy goes hand in hand with the transformation of coastlines and their surrounding areas and the enclosure of common spaces. These trends are illustrated by ongoing processes in the Canary Islands. In the aftermath of the 2007–2008 economic and financial crisis, and in line with its island development model, the archipelago’s regional government boosted the urban development of rural land and the construction of new hotels along the coastline. In early 2016, a movement to prevent the construction of a hotel on the coast of La Tejita (Tenerife) was formed. This study analyzes the fight to halt the development project, together with key landmarks in the protest, and explores the hypothesis that the right to nature exists and is indeed upheld, expressed in turn as the right to the island. The analysis is based on participant observations, dialogue with activists involved in the protest, and media coverage.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68953936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Carlos Chan Santana, Saverio Francesco Bertolucci, Cecilie Bremer Sloth, Alberte Egholm, Marc Ingvorsen
This qualitative research paper investigates the role of transport infrastructure for community and tourism development in emerging island destinations. The Faroe Islands, a trending tourism attraction, have lately become pioneers in subsea tunnel construction. Their innovative and avant-garde road system is replacing cross-sea ferry links and providing users with shorter travel times across the country, part of a national plan which aims to unite the entire archipelago under one main network. Local actors interviewed through ethnographic fieldwork convey that Faroese subsea tunnels are undisputable, active signs of infrastructure development and can potentially play a key role for the growth and prosperity of tourism across the islands. However, the findings also suggest that policymakers are underestimating the system’s tourism potential. Overall, building underwater is expensive and time-consuming and presents opportunities as well as threats for the destination. This paper encourages Faroese authorities to consider tourism development as an inevitable phenomenon and a potential additional challenge for the small, vulnerable territory. In this context, governmental entities need to understand local dynamics and make the most of the unique features of the destination to create tailored and effective policies which allow the archipelago to benefit from its assets while minimising the risk of socio-economic and environmental issues.
{"title":"The potential of disruptive transport infrastructure for tourism development in emerging island destinations: Research project in the Faroe Islands","authors":"Carlos Chan Santana, Saverio Francesco Bertolucci, Cecilie Bremer Sloth, Alberte Egholm, Marc Ingvorsen","doi":"10.24043/isj.387","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.387","url":null,"abstract":"This qualitative research paper investigates the role of transport infrastructure for community and tourism development in emerging island destinations. The Faroe Islands, a trending tourism attraction, have lately become pioneers in subsea tunnel construction. Their innovative and avant-garde road system is replacing cross-sea ferry links and providing users with shorter travel times across the country, part of a national plan which aims to unite the entire archipelago under one main network. Local actors interviewed through ethnographic fieldwork convey that Faroese subsea tunnels are undisputable, active signs of infrastructure development and can potentially play a key role for the growth and prosperity of tourism across the islands. However, the findings also suggest that policymakers are underestimating the system’s tourism potential. Overall, building underwater is expensive and time-consuming and presents opportunities as well as threats for the destination. This paper encourages Faroese authorities to consider tourism development as an inevitable phenomenon and a potential additional challenge for the small, vulnerable territory. In this context, governmental entities need to understand local dynamics and make the most of the unique features of the destination to create tailored and effective policies which allow the archipelago to benefit from its assets while minimising the risk of socio-economic and environmental issues.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68953990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Legal socialization is the process by which individuals obtain their attitudes and beliefs about formal social control mechanisms such as the police, including how these are formed through domains of social life. These attitudes and subsequent beliefs toward the police, whether positive or negative, have been found to impact individuals’ compliance with the law and cooperation with legal authorities. Despite research advancements on legal socialization, the theoretical hypotheses drawn from this perspective have not been tested in the Caribbean context, a high crime and violence setting where the police are often viewed as corrupt, untrustworthy, and ineffective. This study uses data from 4,293 youths to examine the effect of socializing agents (i.e., family, school, and peers) on youth perceptions of the police in three nations – Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia – and whether these perceptions impact delinquency. We find that legal socialization domains and perceptions of the police are important factors that influence delinquency in the Caribbean. Implications are discussed in light of future research and policy.
{"title":"Legal socialization, police, and delinquency in three Caribbean nations","authors":"Hyunjung Cheon, Kayla R. Freemon, C. Katz","doi":"10.24043/isj.407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.407","url":null,"abstract":"Legal socialization is the process by which individuals obtain their attitudes and beliefs about formal social control mechanisms such as the police, including how these are formed through domains of social life. These attitudes and subsequent beliefs toward the police, whether positive or negative, have been found to impact individuals’ compliance with the law and cooperation with legal authorities. Despite research advancements on legal socialization, the theoretical hypotheses drawn from this perspective have not been tested in the Caribbean context, a high crime and violence setting where the police are often viewed as corrupt, untrustworthy, and ineffective. This study uses data from 4,293 youths to examine the effect of socializing agents (i.e., family, school, and peers) on youth perceptions of the police in three nations – Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia – and whether these perceptions impact delinquency. We find that legal socialization domains and perceptions of the police are important factors that influence delinquency in the Caribbean. Implications are discussed in light of future research and policy.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68954337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Chand, Maureen Karan, Pariniappa Goundar, N. Reddy
The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global health security concern (World Health Organization, 2020), and governments have called upon police agencies to assist control the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This study looks at the new roles performed by police agencies in the context of the Fiji Islands. This study addresses two main research questions. Firstly, what are the issues and challenges faced by police officers when carrying out their COVID-19 duties? Secondly, what is the public perceptions of police officers’ effectiveness in enforcing COVID-19 health protocols? This study has utilized a mixed-method approach based on qualitative interviews with police officers and a quantitative survey of the public. The police officers' interviews reveal that police performed new health duties and ground-level police faced several challenges. The public survey findings reveal that most people were happy with police performance. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of our findings on police practice and the agenda for future comparative research in small island countries so that SIDs can learn from each other.
{"title":"Policing the COVID-19 pandemic: Police and public perceptions of enforcement of health protocols in the Fiji Islands","authors":"A. Chand, Maureen Karan, Pariniappa Goundar, N. Reddy","doi":"10.24043/isj.410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.410","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global health security concern (World Health Organization, 2020), and governments have called upon police agencies to assist control the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This study looks at the new roles performed by police agencies in the context of the Fiji Islands. This study addresses two main research questions. Firstly, what are the issues and challenges faced by police officers when carrying out their COVID-19 duties? Secondly, what is the public perceptions of police officers’ effectiveness in enforcing COVID-19 health protocols? This study has utilized a mixed-method approach based on qualitative interviews with police officers and a quantitative survey of the public. The police officers' interviews reveal that police performed new health duties and ground-level police faced several challenges. The public survey findings reveal that most people were happy with police performance. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of our findings on police practice and the agenda for future comparative research in small island countries so that SIDs can learn from each other.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68954462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
New Caledonia and Puerto Rico are two non-sovereign island territories of France and the United States respectively. Both territories have historically centered their political debate on the definition of their political status and have done so by implementing numerous referendums. Of the two territories, however, only New Caledonia has managed to establish a binding referendum on political status. This raises the following question: How has New Caledonia managed to obtain a binding referendum on its political status while Puerto Rico has failed to do so? One variable present in New Caledonia, but not in Puerto Rico, was the convening of both the metropolitan and territorial political elite with regards to the territory’s change in political status as well as the definition of each status option. While elite theory has been used as a theoretical framework to explain democratization, this article discusses the role of elite settlements with regards to changes in political status among non-sovereign island jurisdictions. I focus on two key events in both case studies. In New Caledonia, I focus on the signing of the Matignon and Nouméa Accords, 1988 and 1998 respectively, while in Puerto Rico I focus on the Plebiscitary Process of 1989-1991.
{"title":"Elite settlements in island territories: The road to a binding political status referendum in New Caledonia and Puerto Rico","authors":"Alberto M. Burgos-Rivera","doi":"10.24043/isj.398","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.398","url":null,"abstract":"New Caledonia and Puerto Rico are two non-sovereign island territories of France and the United States respectively. Both territories have historically centered their political debate on the definition of their political status and have done so by implementing numerous referendums. Of the two territories, however, only New Caledonia has managed to establish a binding referendum on political status. This raises the following question: How has New Caledonia managed to obtain a binding referendum on its political status while Puerto Rico has failed to do so? One variable present in New Caledonia, but not in Puerto Rico, was the convening of both the metropolitan and territorial political elite with regards to the territory’s change in political status as well as the definition of each status option. While elite theory has been used as a theoretical framework to explain democratization, this article discusses the role of elite settlements with regards to changes in political status among non-sovereign island jurisdictions. I focus on two key events in both case studies. In New Caledonia, I focus on the signing of the Matignon and Nouméa Accords, 1988 and 1998 respectively, while in Puerto Rico I focus on the Plebiscitary Process of 1989-1991.","PeriodicalId":51674,"journal":{"name":"Island Studies Journal","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68954605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}