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- Convenors:
-
Marina Blagaić Bergman
(Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research)
Maja Povrzanovic Frykman (Malmö University)
- Discussant:
-
Owe Ronström
(Ethnology)
- Location:
- A123
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 23 June, -, -, Wednesday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Zagreb
Short Abstract:
The aim of the panel is to discuss life on the islands in relation to understanding islands as spaces imagined both as utopias and as productions and reproductions of everyday island experiences.
Long Abstract:
This panel welcomes papers presenting ethnographic and folkloristic research conducted on or about islands, in order to promote the contribution of this kind of research to the emerging interdisciplinary field of Island Studies.
Islands have been, and are, a realisation of utopia for some, while they remain a harsh reality of hardship for others. We invite participants to discuss the tensions between perceptions and uses, discourses and practices concerning islands from a number of socio-cultural positions, in past and present contexts. We are eager to join the discussion on whether the islands that are being researched are being placed geographically, discursively, or both, as framed in the field of Island Studies. Is islandness primarily a symbolic category that constructs the utopian imagination of islands? Can it be understood as a process constituted through the experiences of living in the context of insularity? Or is there another way of interpreting islandness?
The public fascination with heritage has impacted islands in manifold ways; we invite a discussion of the representations and commodifications of islands, especially regard to the tourist industry. We would further like to discuss different types of local engagement with heritage and the related identification processes. In which ways does the heritagisation process influence islandness and is insularity utilised in cultural and touristic representations of islands?
Both theoretical contributions and presentations of empirical research are welcome.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 23 June, 2015, -Paper short abstract:
Based on ethnographic research into the way of life of the inhabitants of the Middle Dalmatian island of Šolta during the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, this paper will discuss the contributions of ethnology and cultural anthropology to Island Studies.
Paper long abstract:
Island Studies has been developed to take into consideration the nature, dynamics and distinctiveness of islands and islanders, as well as their relation to non-island identities. It has been conceived as an interdisciplinary scientific field of deliberation on island life and presents a step towards consolidating knowledge on islands. Taking into consideration the basic assumptions and contentious issues in the field of Island Studies, but also bearing in mind the specificity of Croatian islands and the ethnographic research conducted on the island of Šolta, I will present the possible contributions of ethnology and anthropology to rethinking islandness, insularity, island sociability and mobility.
The focus of the analysis is the relationship between the economy and the social life on Šolta, an island located near the Middle Dalmatian city of Split. There are around 1,500 permanent inhabitants on the island, a few hundred weekend residents that arrive regularly and in the summer the number of inhabitants increases six fold. Through ethnographic research the impact of different livelihoods on the dynamics of everyday life has been examined, along with an emphasis on the formation of communities and gender relations, the inhabitants' mobility, and their attitude towards local heritage and related developmental policies.
The paper proposes that the basic research questions of island anthropology at the beginning of the 21st century are connected with mobility, imagery and symbolic representations. In this framework, the definitions and interdependency of concepts such as islandness, insularity and island edge are being questioned.
Paper short abstract:
The paper analyses how the idea of earthly paradise is reinvented through tourism, contributing to the ideology of consumerism and the mythology of (post-)modernity through modern narratives (tourist advertisement).
Paper long abstract:
During the middle Ages, a map not capable of locating the earthly paradise was inconceivable. The idea of an earthly paradise, although recurrent in almost all mythologies of the world, changed the map of the world, in its Christian representation, both geographical and historical. The era of the great explorations, alongside the secularization of science and society, pushed the idea of an earthly paradise exclusively in the arenas of conservative religion or fiction (e.g. James Hilton's story of Shangri-La). The development of tourism in recent decades, as well as cultural movements of "rediscovering authentic cultures", brought back a new form of earthly paradise to be consumed by people tired of "capitalist way of living life". This form of commercializing the myth of paradise in popular culture, most of these "paradises" placed on tropical islands, has a major contribution to the ideological, cultural and economic map of the world, redefining geography as a possible social science and the notion of myth as a "mappable" cultural modern category. This paper analyses the stereotypes of representing the paradise in the tourist advertisement, from various perspectives: temporal, spatial and ideological, pointing out the differences between the Christian and the advertised representations. Conversely, the paper analyses the role of myth in the ideology of consumerist society and the notion of paradise as an important part of the mythology of (post-)modernity through the "modern narratives" (tourism advertising) of earthly paradise from the perspective of tourist experiences as ritualized behaviour and pilgrimage.
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the concurrent uniformity and heterogeneity of representations of the island of Hvar in destination branding, place promotion and commodification.
Paper long abstract:
The tourist promotion of the island Hvar has for two centuries been based on several dominant stereotypical notions and narrations about the sunniest island of the Adriatic. The idealised and utopian Hvar is an island with only a few overemphasised and exaggerated geographic, climatologic and cultural features, and all descriptions of them are hyperbolic. Tourism being the most important and the most promising branch of the island's economy, the islanders themselves are in different ways using and toying with the stereotypical representations and discourses of tourist narrations about the island, life on it, as well as about themselves. There is no institutionalised, uniform branding of the entire island, apart from the five tourist boards which carry out the tourist promotion activities on the island. This has resulted in creating different images and representations of certain island settlements which, through the choice of particular natural, cultural and traditional elements and local identifications of their inhabitants, wish to emphasise their own distinctiveness and uniqueness. Due to mutual competition in the diversity and attractiveness of the tourist offer, depending on the perspective of the island towns or municipal centres in which tourist promotional activities are organised, different notions and narrations emerge where the entire island is concerned. As a result, a homogenous image of a utopian Hvar is being decomposed into a complex, polycentric island made out of a multitude of islands and different island identities.
Paper short abstract:
This paper considers utopia as an inherent contradiction between a fading collective memory and a multifaceted narrative cartography, with specific reference to a small insular community in the SE Aegean.
Paper long abstract:
This paper considers utopia as an inherent contradiction between a fading collective memory and a multifaceted narrative cartography, with specific reference to a small insular community in the SE Aegean.
Until very recently the community's collective memory and identity was weaved through commonly experienced life stories and supernatural encounters; these are now constantly challenged through tourism and globalisation processes.
Narratives introduce temporality into space through landmarks which recall individual and collective experiences (cf. Tilley 1994: 33) - this goes much further than the simple use of place names. In our case study the dominant trends in this local narrative tradition change over time as different stories prevail, creating layers comparable to those in an excavation. The island's oral tradition repeats universal symbols, projects them on the landscape, makes landmarks, and creates a symbolic cartography and a local mythological system with its own dominant symbols and representations. The timeline of the island's history actually represents two phases interconnected through supernatural experiences in the community's space: one mythical prehistory that links the island with the goddess Calypso, and recent history in the historical context of modernity.
This process of linking the landscape to specific narratives occurs in two distinct ways in our example; one potentially ephemeral through the mental projection of narratives upon landmarks, and one tangibly affecting it, with materially implemented symbols inducing collective memory.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses shapeshifting identity of the island of Rab, taking into account historical Romance-Slavic ethnolinguistic and cultural syncretism, as well as contemporary relations between the town itself and the islands’s rural areas, especially in the context of global tourism.
Paper long abstract:
The authors present their research of the complex Romance-Slavic identity on the island of Rab with special attention paid to the historical background, as well as its contemporary cultural manifestations notable in the relationship between the town and rural areas. Centuries-old Romance-Slavic cultural symbiosis on the island clearly reflects ethnolinguistic and cultural syncretism that shaped the specific cultural identity of Eastern-Adriatic region. The field research conducted in the fall of 2014 attempted to examine contemporary cultural processes on the island. Special emphasis was placed on the relationship between the town and its rural surroundings. Taking into account synchronic and diachronic perspective, the identity of the town has been shaped with regards to the Romance historical heritage, architectural uniqueness or urban space and culture perceived as unique and special. Despite the idealized image of the urban identity which derives its strength from the romanticized images of the past, the emergence of tourism in the recent decades transformed the uniqueness of urban culture due to depopulation of the old part of the town and relocation of most of residents to the newly built part of the town. The analysis of the identity narratives shows that contemporary manifestations of Romance-Croatian cultural and linguistic syncretism manifest itself as a syncretism at a distance. The paper will highlight the complexity of the island's identity, which is characterized by the idealized image of the island's history superimposed on contemporary cultural practices. Such complexity is an example of dynamism and contemporary manifestations of syncretism at a distance.
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses the ways in which identities of a former fishing community are tied to the concept of islandness that is undergoing transformation due to recent economic and environmental change.
Paper long abstract:
The paper is based on the study of a former fishing community located on a suburban peninsula. It discusses the ways in which identities of local inhabitants are tied to the concept of islandness that is central to construction of the meaning of the place. It entails customary combination of geographical isolation, exposedness to water, close social ties, and occupational specifics (fishing). Also, linguistic aspect is of importance, as the name of the locality (Mangaļsala) contains the word "island" (sala). Recent economic, environmental and social change, caused by the decline of fishing industry and development of the Riga Seaport infrastructure, is accompanied by nostalgic talk on several grounds, one of them being the vanishing insular characteristics of the place.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper I analyse different experiences and expectations of female married migrants that live on the Croatian island of Korčula.
Paper long abstract:
Marriage-related migration forms a distinct and recognizable group in the study of foreign born population on the Croatian island of Korčula. The presence of this type of migration to the island is by no means a new phenomenon and can be explained: i) since a significant number of Korčulan men are traditionally employed on ships, or are working in foreign countries, coming back home often implies coming back with a "foreign" spouse, ii) the beginning of an (international) love affair that eventually leads to marriage with islanders (more often involving men than women) is made possible through tourist visits, since the island itself is a well-known tourist destination. In this paper, I intend to focus on some aspects related to migrant brides and their life on the island (everyday practices and relationships with the local community), their first impressions upon arrival to the island as well as future plans and aspirations concerning possible relocation. This paper is based on 12 semi-structured interviews and is part of a broader study that investigates different groups of newcomers to the island of Korčula in Croatia.