The years 2020-2022 engraved our existence with epidemiological and political monstrosities that will not be forgotten for quite some time. The COVID-19 pandemic dragged us to contemplating the possibilities of a plague that, rather than being confined to the global south’s ‘invisible’ territories of diseases, heavily affected the global north and with the prospect of wiping out a large number of the world’s population in a similar manner to that of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Governments were caught between choices to either privilege lives or economies and eugenics reared its head as a spectre from the historical past. A benign marine monster, the Amabie, a prophetic yōkai from Japanese folklore, became popular, initially in Japan and, rather rapidly on a global scale, assumed a prominent position, becoming an icon for the COVID-19 pandemic. I interrogate how people resorted to this chimeric creature from marine and historical depths to deal with existential uncertainty and abnormal lives, rendering it a chronotope that connects times and spaces. Such aquapelagic creatures frame the ambiguity of a world where political, environmental and health disasters merge.
{"title":"The Amabie: A Japanese prophetic chimera and chronotope amid political monstrosities","authors":"C. Merli","doi":"10.21463/shima.163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.163","url":null,"abstract":"The years 2020-2022 engraved our existence with epidemiological and political monstrosities that will not be forgotten for quite some time. The COVID-19 pandemic dragged us to contemplating the possibilities of a plague that, rather than being confined to the global south’s ‘invisible’ territories of diseases, heavily affected the global north and with the prospect of wiping out a large number of the world’s population in a similar manner to that of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Governments were caught between choices to either privilege lives or economies and eugenics reared its head as a spectre from the historical past. A benign marine monster, the Amabie, a prophetic yōkai from Japanese folklore, became popular, initially in Japan and, rather rapidly on a global scale, assumed a prominent position, becoming an icon for the COVID-19 pandemic. I interrogate how people resorted to this chimeric creature from marine and historical depths to deal with existential uncertainty and abnormal lives, rendering it a chronotope that connects times and spaces. Such aquapelagic creatures frame the ambiguity of a world where political, environmental and health disasters merge.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91068718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines summer vacationers’ experiences and connections with an island place on Saaremaa in Estonia. Discourse from sixteen in-depth interviews are coupled with a theoretical discussion exploring place, emotions, memory, and self through an analysis of personal narratives on individual emotional perspectives of meaningful places, memory of places elsewhere, and the materiality of the cultural landscape itself. Emotional aspects associated with verbal expressions are examined with a discussion of emergent themes of place experience via a literary narrative writing approach. The emotional dynamics of rhetorical conversation between interviewees, researcher, and place echoed through the shared materiality of people and their environment. Personal narratives of place meanings examine island environments through emotional individual experiences resulting in five themes: places desired, places remembered, lost and found, elsewhereness and home, and returns. Home, everyday, and elsewhere are intertwined impressions of island places memorised, balanced via expressions of belonging as experiences of everyday and nostalgic renderings of times lost.
{"title":"Exploring “Elsewhereland” — Places Desired, Remembered and Dwelled: Place experience of vacationers on Saaremaa Island, Estonia","authors":"Jana Raadik Cottrell, S. Cottrell","doi":"10.21463/shima.170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.170","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines summer vacationers’ experiences and connections with an island place on Saaremaa in Estonia. Discourse from sixteen in-depth interviews are coupled with a theoretical discussion exploring place, emotions, memory, and self through an analysis of personal narratives on individual emotional perspectives of meaningful places, memory of places elsewhere, and the materiality of the cultural landscape itself. Emotional aspects associated with verbal expressions are examined with a discussion of emergent themes of place experience via a literary narrative writing approach. The emotional dynamics of rhetorical conversation between interviewees, researcher, and place echoed through the shared materiality of people and their environment. Personal narratives of place meanings examine island environments through emotional individual experiences resulting in five themes: places desired, places remembered, lost and found, elsewhereness and home, and returns. Home, everyday, and elsewhere are intertwined impressions of island places memorised, balanced via expressions of belonging as experiences of everyday and nostalgic renderings of times lost.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73845887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article discusses aquatic mythologies of the Faroes with focus on the narratives about the shoveller (also called ‘the man on board’), a boat spirit nesting in deep-sea fishing ships. The aim of the article is to examine and interrogate cultural representations of the relation between sea and land in the Faroes today by means of critical reflection on and analysis of the meaning of water-related mythology and folklore: what is the role of the stories and legends about the shoveller and other supernatural beings in present-day conversation about the sea, the islands, and the future? The shoveller, the seal woman, and the others on the ‘other side’ are protagonists of the polyvalent narratives shaping the folklore of the Faroes. They continue to reappear in new settings and among new generations. The spirits, water monsters, and seal women help people envisage what lies beneath the surface, the ocean, and the evident aquapelagic landscape. The shoveller is also a metaphor for the risk and danger in life beyond the fishing vessel today — he is a figure fooling, entertaining, frightening and confusing the islander in the age of globalisation, but also a kobold instructing and guiding the precarious islander in everyday struggle at home and away.
{"title":"Boat Spirits, Sea Monsters and Seal Women: Fishermen and hidden aquatic dangers in the Faroe Islands","authors":"Firouz Gaini","doi":"10.21463/shima.162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.162","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses aquatic mythologies of the Faroes with focus on the narratives about the shoveller (also called ‘the man on board’), a boat spirit nesting in deep-sea fishing ships. The aim of the article is to examine and interrogate cultural representations of the relation between sea and land in the Faroes today by means of critical reflection on and analysis of the meaning of water-related mythology and folklore: what is the role of the stories and legends about the shoveller and other supernatural beings in present-day conversation about the sea, the islands, and the future? The shoveller, the seal woman, and the others on the ‘other side’ are protagonists of the polyvalent narratives shaping the folklore of the Faroes. They continue to reappear in new settings and among new generations. The spirits, water monsters, and seal women help people envisage what lies beneath the surface, the ocean, and the evident aquapelagic landscape. The shoveller is also a metaphor for the risk and danger in life beyond the fishing vessel today — he is a figure fooling, entertaining, frightening and confusing the islander in the age of globalisation, but also a kobold instructing and guiding the precarious islander in everyday struggle at home and away.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82841653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Colonialism produces monsters thriving in island ecologies, but without a structural/historical treatment of how island monsters are created, how the agential relation between colonisers and natives accentuates the dynamics of interpellation, the island would reveal nothing of its past, the reusable trace that can be interpellated in the present. In the modern-day Philippines, a former colonial object to three foreign aggressions (Spanish, American and Japanese) that spanned almost half a millennium, such reusable trace has recently entered the international streaming platform Netflix. Trese (2021), a Philippine-made anime, navigates the myth of aswang, one of the dominant features of Filipino folklore, which centres on the image of a female, vampire-like monster. This image traces its iterative root in the lost history of the babaylans (female shamans) amid the creation of folk Christianity and diffracted engagements with the Christian indoctrination of the islands. This article navigates this subject and how Trese, among other actants in this play of figuration, is itself interpellated by traces of historical, geographical, and non-human ecologies that, in turn, reflect the fundamental role of liquidity in monster-creation as a material-semiotic intervention. As the discussions expand on the two most essential concepts in Island Studies today, the archipelagic and the aquapelagic, the article deploys the concept of detourning, a critical rhetorical arc that binds the article’s multi-faceted discussions, connections, and combinations, from human to the non-human, thus completing its assessment of the dynamics of islands being interpellated by traces.
{"title":"Monster-producing Islands: Prospects for island detourning in contemporary times","authors":"Virgilio A. Rivas","doi":"10.21463/shima.169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.169","url":null,"abstract":"Colonialism produces monsters thriving in island ecologies, but without a structural/historical treatment of how island monsters are created, how the agential relation between colonisers and natives accentuates the dynamics of interpellation, the island would reveal nothing of its past, the reusable trace that can be interpellated in the present. In the modern-day Philippines, a former colonial object to three foreign aggressions (Spanish, American and Japanese) that spanned almost half a millennium, such reusable trace has recently entered the international streaming platform Netflix. Trese (2021), a Philippine-made anime, navigates the myth of aswang, one of the dominant features of Filipino folklore, which centres on the image of a female, vampire-like monster. This image traces its iterative root in the lost history of the babaylans (female shamans) amid the creation of folk Christianity and diffracted engagements with the Christian indoctrination of the islands. This article navigates this subject and how Trese, among other actants in this play of figuration, is itself interpellated by traces of historical, geographical, and non-human ecologies that, in turn, reflect the fundamental role of liquidity in monster-creation as a material-semiotic intervention. As the discussions expand on the two most essential concepts in Island Studies today, the archipelagic and the aquapelagic, the article deploys the concept of detourning, a critical rhetorical arc that binds the article’s multi-faceted discussions, connections, and combinations, from human to the non-human, thus completing its assessment of the dynamics of islands being interpellated by traces.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"10 4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88588309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article analyses the ethnic and linguistic world vision of the peoples of Russia with the aim of revealing the most representative mythologemes connected with swamps and defining their meaning and place in the cultural landscape. Swamps are dangerous areas for humans and, at the same time, they are also a source of food and biological diversity. In the boreal and circumpolar areas, swamps are seen as a separate world that has been perceived as a chaos that exists beyond the control of human beings. The range of meanings of the swamp manifests itself in the archaic pagan world picture as a primordial space. Swamps can be seen as chthonic or liminal spaces on the threshold of the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ worlds, providing connection between them. In the Christian – and partly in the Muslim – world pictures, the swamp is infernal space where the deities of the ancient world live disguised as devils. The city dwellers who travel to the countryside to pick berries and mushrooms or to go hunting reveal an archaic tendency to depersonalise swamp spirits and other natural forces by avoiding names and precise definitions.
{"title":"On the Borderline of the Worlds: Swamps in the mythopoetic world picture of the peoples of Russia","authors":"O. Lavrenova","doi":"10.21463/shima.168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.168","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the ethnic and linguistic world vision of the peoples of Russia with the aim of revealing the most representative mythologemes connected with swamps and defining their meaning and place in the cultural landscape. Swamps are dangerous areas for humans and, at the same time, they are also a source of food and biological diversity. In the boreal and circumpolar areas, swamps are seen as a separate world that has been perceived as a chaos that exists beyond the control of human beings. The range of meanings of the swamp manifests itself in the archaic pagan world picture as a primordial space. Swamps can be seen as chthonic or liminal spaces on the threshold of the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ worlds, providing connection between them. In the Christian – and partly in the Muslim – world pictures, the swamp is infernal space where the deities of the ancient world live disguised as devils. The city dwellers who travel to the countryside to pick berries and mushrooms or to go hunting reveal an archaic tendency to depersonalise swamp spirits and other natural forces by avoiding names and precise definitions.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73916174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economic transitions from fishing into coastal tourism are common in many contemporary coastal communities globally, and particularly in the case of China. Drawing on interviews from a village in Liaoning province in Northeastern China, we use a political economy framework to more systematically understand the drivers and outcomes associated with the transition from fishing to tourism. We find that while state policies and market forces have encouraged shifts away from fishing and into tourism, tourism is currently governed largely by informal institutions informed by social relations and culture. Our findings emphasise how economic transitions from fishing to coastal tourism are mediated by these inter-related and shifting relationships between state, society, and markets.
{"title":"From a Fishing Village to Tourist Destination: Hongjia Village in Northeastern China","authors":"H. Sa, M. Fabinyi","doi":"10.21463/shima.173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.173","url":null,"abstract":"Economic transitions from fishing into coastal tourism are common in many contemporary coastal communities globally, and particularly in the case of China. Drawing on interviews from a village in Liaoning province in Northeastern China, we use a political economy framework to more systematically understand the drivers and outcomes associated with the transition from fishing to tourism. We find that while state policies and market forces have encouraged shifts away from fishing and into tourism, tourism is currently governed largely by informal institutions informed by social relations and culture. Our findings emphasise how economic transitions from fishing to coastal tourism are mediated by these inter-related and shifting relationships between state, society, and markets.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88944250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the 1550s Florence’s water supply was upgraded through the construction of a new aqueduct. Prior to that, water needs were supported by the remnants of a Roman aqueduct and by wells and cisterns. The new infrastructure increased the amount of available water and allowed for the construction of fountains in the city’s main squares, with themes principally derived from Greek and Roman mythologies. In 1641 the twin Mostri Marini (‘Marine Monsters’) fountains designed by Pietro Tacca were installed in the Piazza dellaSantissima Annunziata. The bronze and stone statues presented fantasy creatures whose flexuous shapes suggested moving fluid. But while these statues complemented the square, they were not originally planned for the location, having been intended for placement in the main Tuscan harbour town of Livorno. This study draws on high-resolution photogrammetry to analyse the structures with this specific digital survey being presented for the first time.
{"title":"Fantastic Marine Creatures From the Late Renaissance: Pietro Tacca’s fountains in Florence’s Piazza della Santissima Annunziata","authors":"G. Verdiani, Paolo Formaglini, Filippo Giansanti","doi":"10.21463/shima.165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.165","url":null,"abstract":"In the 1550s Florence’s water supply was upgraded through the construction of a new aqueduct. Prior to that, water needs were supported by the remnants of a Roman aqueduct and by wells and cisterns. The new infrastructure increased the amount of available water and allowed for the construction of fountains in the city’s main squares, with themes principally derived from Greek and Roman mythologies. In 1641 the twin Mostri Marini (‘Marine Monsters’) fountains designed by Pietro Tacca were installed in the Piazza dellaSantissima Annunziata. The bronze and stone statues presented fantasy creatures whose flexuous shapes suggested moving fluid. But while these statues complemented the square, they were not originally planned for the location, having been intended for placement in the main Tuscan harbour town of Livorno. This study draws on high-resolution photogrammetry to analyse the structures with this specific digital survey being presented for the first time.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82827068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Disasters and their aftermath can leave an enduring, negative impact on the image of tourism destinations. This paper presents research conducted in relation to Giglio (site of the January 2011 Costa Concordia shipwreck) and Ustica (associated with the June 1980 crash of Itavia Flight 870) in order to study the impact of these two disasters on the tourism industry of these two small Italian islands. Methods employed include content analysis of articles published online and interviews with tourism stakeholders including operators, government officials and park managers. Findings suggest that disaster news coverage may initially have helped to increase the international visibility of both islands, however, even after several years, references made to the islands in the press continue to be related to such disasters. Little acknowledgement is made to the islands as tourism destinations or to the nature-based attractions that they offer. In this regard, a counter-engagement with the media and marketing efforts, including the use of social media platforms, is key to ensure that the enduring image of the islands is corrected and better reflects the characteristics of the islands.
{"title":"What’s in a Name? The Impact of Disasters on Islands’ Reputations: The cases of Giglio and Ustica","authors":"Karl Agius, G. Baldacchino","doi":"10.21463/shima.171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.171","url":null,"abstract":"Disasters and their aftermath can leave an enduring, negative impact on the image of tourism destinations. This paper presents research conducted in relation to Giglio (site of the January 2011 Costa Concordia shipwreck) and Ustica (associated with the June 1980 crash of Itavia Flight 870) in order to study the impact of these two disasters on the tourism industry of these two small Italian islands. Methods employed include content analysis of articles published online and interviews with tourism stakeholders including operators, government officials and park managers. Findings suggest that disaster news coverage may initially have helped to increase the international visibility of both islands, however, even after several years, references made to the islands in the press continue to be related to such disasters. Little acknowledgement is made to the islands as tourism destinations or to the nature-based attractions that they offer. In this regard, a counter-engagement with the media and marketing efforts, including the use of social media platforms, is key to ensure that the enduring image of the islands is corrected and better reflects the characteristics of the islands.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"131 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77767472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Every individual who has not been born on an island is a foreigner, an intruder. Consequently, the construction of human island identity involves a contrast with the other, the non-islander. The objective of this study is to ascertain the historical origin of the identity of the Macaronesian islander. The island areas that are being addressed are conditioned by their geographical location in relation to their surrounding territories. That is, their proximity to Africa, their link to America and their dependence on Europe. In short, social, economic and cultural development is determined by the related dynamic ocean environment, i.e., the Atlantic. This research analyses the fluid contacts, complementarity and historical dependencies between the Macaronesian islands that promoted not only a feeling of belonging to supranational Iberian monarchies, but also a sense of belonging to the same region formed by a Portuguese and Spanish population of extra-peninsular origin with its nexus being its insularity.
{"title":"The Historical Origin of the Atlantic Identity of the Islands of Macaronesia","authors":"Javier Luis Álvarez Santos","doi":"10.21463/shima.160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.160","url":null,"abstract":"Every individual who has not been born on an island is a foreigner, an intruder. Consequently, the construction of human island identity involves a contrast with the other, the non-islander. The objective of this study is to ascertain the historical origin of the identity of the Macaronesian islander. The island areas that are being addressed are conditioned by their geographical location in relation to their surrounding territories. That is, their proximity to Africa, their link to America and their dependence on Europe. In short, social, economic and cultural development is determined by the related dynamic ocean environment, i.e., the Atlantic. This research analyses the fluid contacts, complementarity and historical dependencies between the Macaronesian islands that promoted not only a feeling of belonging to supranational Iberian monarchies, but also a sense of belonging to the same region formed by a Portuguese and Spanish population of extra-peninsular origin with its nexus being its insularity.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82272571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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