Author Archives: Institute of Island Studies

NEWS: Island Lecture Series – April 2021 – Celebrating Poetry Month with Laurie Brinklow, Bren Simmers, and Richard Lemm

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ISLAND LECTURE SERIES | APRIL 2021
Celebrating Poetry Month:
Laurie Brinklow and Bren Simmers in conversation with Richard Lemm

Tuesday, April 27, 2021 · 7:00pm – 8:00pm ADT (UTC-3)

Our April instalment of the Island Lecture Series celebrates National Poetry Month and features two Prince Edward Island poets in conversation with a third. Laurie Brinklow and Bren Simmers will read from their new books, My Island’s the house I sleep in at night (Island Studies Press, 2021) and If, When (Gaspereau Press, 2021), in a conversation hosted by Richard Lemm. Topics will range from the role of story, place, and history in their poetry to their own poetic practices, with an opportunity for questions from the audience.

This virtual event is free to attend and all are welcome! For more details and to reserve your spot, go to islandstudies.com/events/islandlectureseries-april2021

NEWS: Latest reports from the COVID-19 Island Insights Series: Lesvos and Croatia

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April 13, 2021—

The latest instalment of the COVID-19 Island Insights Series shares insights from the Croatian Islands and Lesvos, Greece.
How have these islands in the Adriatic and Aegean Seas responded to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and what do their recovery plans hold for future resilience and sustainability? Check out this week’s Insights reports to find out!

With thanks to our authors:
· Croatia: Prof. Ivana Marčeta Frlan and Prof. Nenad Starc (Institute of Economics, Zagreb)
· Lesvos: Efstratios Sentas and Prof. Thanasios Kizos of University of the Aegean

The COVID-19 Island Insights Series is a collaborative project between the Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance (SCELG), the Institute of Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), and Island Innovation. For more information about the Series and to read all of the reports so far, visit islandstudies.com/island-insights-series

NEWS: “Who’s your mother? Bringing Women’s work to the fore on Prince Edward Island” – Panel presentations at the 5th International St. Magnus Conference, April 2021

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April 12, 2021—

The Institute for Northern Studies at the University of Highland and Islands will be hosting the 5th International St. Magnus Conference from April 14–16, 2021. Originally scheduled to take place in Shetland in 2020, this three-day conference will be taking place virtually via Webex. This year’s theme is ‘Island Histories and Herstories’ and explores the contribution of women and men in island communities from before the Viking age to the present, revealing the experiences of island life through research and storytelling.

As part of this conference, there will be a PEI-focused panel session on Wednesday, April 14th, from 11:30am-1:00pm ADT (UTC-3), featuring Dr. Laurie Brinklow and MAIS student Marlene Chapman.

PANEL DETAILS:

Who’s your mother? Bringing women’s work to the fore on Prince Edward Island

Ever since European immigrants chose to settle in Canada nearly four centuries ago, the economy of Atlantic Canada has been rooted in traditional ways of making a living: agriculture and the fishery. Prince Edward Island is no different, with its ‘islandness’ intensifying the social structure associated with each industry, resulting in conservative yet – seemingly paradoxically – cosmopolitan societies. Women have played fundamental roles in the types of work associated with these industries, often sharing responsibility or taking the lead out of necessity.
This panel takes its title from the common expression used when Prince Edward Islanders meet someone new – “Who’s your father?” – used to emplace you in the patrilineal “tribe” that is Prince Edward Island. We turn it on its head, documenting how PEI has often been at the forefront of what we now call ‘feminism’ in the fishery and the arts – and attributing much of this empowerment to the intensity that comes with island living. 

Presentation ABSTRACTS:

Raising the glass ceiling in the Prince Edward Island fisheries
Marlene Chapman

Lobster fisher and Master of Arts in Island Studies student, UPEI

In Prince Edward Island, interest in women’s roles in the fishing industry is rising like the tide. Already in 2019, an island fishing community instituted an annual award to recognise women, and the provincial government launched a survey to figure out how to reduce barriers in the industry for females. This paper looks at this changing role of women and wonders aloud what this might mean for sustainability of the island’s fisheries.

A photo of Laurie Brinklow smiling

Women making art on Prince Edward Island
Dr. Laurie Brinklow

Institute of Island Studies, UPEI

Recently the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, hosted an exhibition entitled ‘Who’s your mother? Women Artists of P.E.I., 1964 to the Present’, showcasing PEI women’s art and correcting a gap in the Centre’s acquisitions to better reflect today’s ‘artistic scene that by now arguably produces more female than male artists’. This paper asks the question: how has being ‘islanded’ affected women’s acceptance in a profession that was dominated by males on what has generally been considered a conservative island?

For more information about the 5th International St. Magnus Conference, the full program, and to register to attend, visit uhi.ac.uk/en/research-enterprise/cultural/institute-for-northern-studies/research/conferences/stmagnus2021

[Press Release] COVID-19 Island Insights for Prince Edward Island now available

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For Immediate Release
Charlottetown, PEI (April 6, 2021) —

COVID-19 Island Insights for Prince Edward Island now available

The COVID-19 Island Insights Series entry for Prince Edward Island is now available online. The series aims to bring together critical assessments of how specific islands around the world have performed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the extent to which their recovery plans are able to promote long term resilience and sustainability.

Prince Edward Island is one of twenty-five islands around the world participating in this project. Like many islands, PEI has been able to reduce the spread of the virus better than many mainland states and jurisdictions. The international group of researchers behind the project hope it can be a tool for policy makers and island stakeholders. 

The Institute of Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island is a partner in this collaboration, which recently released papers focusing on COVID-19 responses in PEI, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Iceland. The COVID-19 Island Insights Series provides understanding grounded in local knowledge and has been released in sets of two or three periodically since November 2020, with a total of seventeen Island Insights now available online.

“While the entire series will not be complete and published until May, we can already see patterns emerging that we believe could help inform island policy makers here and elsewhere,” said Dr. Jim Randall, the project lead at UPEI. “When islands have the autonomy to craft their own responses, when they have the capacity to limit access, and when their residents are conscientious, they have been more successful in preventing the spread of the virus.” 

In May 2021, the Island Insights project team will be hosting online workshops where policy makers and researchers will come together to identify key lessons. The findings will be shared at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), taking place November 1–12 in Glasgow, Scotland. 

The COVID-19 Island Insights Series is an initiative led by the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI and Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law & Governance (SCELG) at Glasgow’s University of Strathclyde, in collaboration with Island Innovation, a social enterprise which seeks to drive sustainable change across islands and rural areas around the world. 

To read the Prince Edward Island COVID-19 Island Insights paper, and the others in the series, visit islandstudies.com/island-insights-series.

Media contact:
Dave Atkinson, UPEI
(902) 620-5117, datkinson@upei.ca

MAIS News: Student Awards

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March 30, 2021 —
MAIS Student wins UPEI Faculty Association Master’s Medal

Congratulations to Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) student Joyce Ferguson for winning this year’s UPEI Faculty Association’s Master’s medal for her work on “Prince Edward Island and Renewable Energy: The Preconditions for a Sustainable Future.” The thesis, with co-supervisors Drs. Jean Mitchell and Udo Krautwurst, examines the relationship between energy policy and community in her home province of PEI through a case study of the wind farm expansion controversy in eastern Kings County.

ABOUT JOYCE
Joyce Ferguson graduated from UPEI with an Honours BA in Sociology, where she was on the Dean’s Honours List, and received one the Ambrose Kwok-Yau Lee Awards for 2018-19, the Roderick Stirling MacDonald Scholarship, and the Dr. Satadal Dasgupta Memorial Award. She was awarded a Future Prosperity Scholarship when she entered the MAIS program and has since received a Canada Graduate Master’s Scholarship from SSHRC. Joyce and her family live in Rustico and she is the very proud mother of nine-year-old Leo.

Learn more about the Master of Arts in Island Studies Program

COVID-19 ISLAND INSIGHTS SERIES: Iceland, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Prince Edward Island

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March 22, 2021 —
COVID-19 ISLAND INSIGHTS SERIES:
Iceland, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Prince Edward Island

The latest installment of the COVID-19 Island Insights Series features insights from Iceland, Newfoundland & Labrador, and right here on Prince Edward Island and discusses how these island regions have responded to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the extent to which their recovery plans are able to promote long term resilience and sustainability.

Click here to read more

Island Lecture Series – March Event

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March 16, 2021 —
ISLAND LECTURE SERIES MARCH EVENT

Learning from Financial Crisis: Towards Sustainable Island Futures for Iceland and Newfoundland and Labrador
Professor Mark Stoddart and Dr. Ásthildur Elva Bernharðsdóttir
Tuesday, March 30, 2021 · 1:00pm – 2:00pm ADT
Press release | More details and registration

[Press Release] What Newfoundland and Labrador can learn from Iceland’s financial crisis

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For Immediate Release

Charlottetown, PEI (March 15, 2021) —
What Newfoundland and Labrador can learn from Iceland’s financial crisis

UPEI’s Institute of Island Studies hosting free virtual event Tuesday, March 30th, 2021 featuring researchers from Newfoundland & Labrador and Iceland. More here

A Stella’s Circle building in St. John’s, shown
in the spring of 2020, carries a message of hope.
Source: The Canadian Press.


As cold-water islands with a shared history, Newfoundland and Labrador and Iceland are often compared. This time researchers are looking at what one island can learn from the other about getting through a financial crisis. They will be sharing their findings at a free, online, public event on Tuesday, March 30th at 1:00 pm ADT, hosted by the Institute of Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI).

While the financial catastrophe in Newfoundland and Labrador and the 2008 banking crisis in Iceland both seemed to happen suddenly, this study shows they both had deep roots. “Neither government heeded warnings before their crisis and both had poor communications throughout their crisis,” explains one of the researchers, Mark Stoddart of Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. “In Iceland however, public outrage created a turning point that we haven’t yet seen in Newfoundland and Labrador.”

This research undertaken by Professor Stoddart and Dr. Ásthildur Elva Bernharðsdóttir, an independent research scholar at ReykjavíkAkademían in Iceland, is a part of the Sustainable Island Futures project being coordinated by Dr. Jim Randall, the UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability at UPEI. The project aims to develop a better understanding of the sustainable development practices and potential of small islands and is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

For more information and to register for the event, visit islandstudies.com/islandlectureseries-march2021.

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Media contact:
Dave Atkinson, UPEI
(902) 620-5117, datkinson@upei.ca

Event contact:
Maggie Henry, Institute of Island Studies, UPEI
mjhenry@upei.ca

Island Studies Journal moves to new institutional home

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March 15, 2021 —
Island Studies Journal moves to new institutional home

The Institute of Island Studies is grateful to have been the founding institutional home of Island Studies Journal (ISJ), which has grown over the past 15 years to become an internationally recognized journal of great repute. We look forward to continuing to support ISJ as it embarks on this new chapter at its new institutional home of Fróðskaparsetur Føroya/University of the Faroe Islands, and congratulate Executive Editor Adam Grydehøj and the ISJ editorial board for their hard work and continued dedication to the study and discussion of conditions and issues impacting islands and island life.
Click here for full announcement

COVID-19 Island Insights Series: Jamaica & Barbados

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March 9, 2021 —
COVID-19 ISLAND INSIGHTS SERIES:
Jamaica & Barbados
What does COVID-19 recovery look like for tourism-reliant islands in the Caribbean?
The latest reports in our COVID-19 Island Insights Series come from Jamaica and Barbados, two island nations that are shifting towards more resilient, equitable, and sustainable tourism models. 

Click here to read more