The latest news and updates from the Institute of Island Studies (IIS) at the University of Prince Edward Island.
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The latest instalment of the COVID-19 Island Insights Series shares critical insights from St. Helena and Fernando de Noronha. How have these South Atlantic islands 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!
Megan Lane MacDonald, a thesis student enrolled in the Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) program at UPEI, was recently awarded the Canadian Federation of University Women Graduate Studies Scholarship in Arts or Education, offered to female UPEI graduates enrolled in or applying to a full-time Masters or PhD program at a Canadian university. Megan’s research is focused on the poetry of PEI Women throughout history, and analyses themes of nature, modernization, and gender roles.
For Immediate Release Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (April 26, 2021) —
A new report outlines challenges and creative solutions for islands to “build back better” as they recover from COVID-19. The Annual Report on Global Islands 2020 is published by Island Studies Press.
While the ongoing global pandemic may have spared many islands the negative health impacts of COVID-19 thus far, it has undoubtedly served as a wake-up call for islands, such as Prince Edward Island, that rely heavily on tourism.
“It is crucial that islands and their communities recover from COVID-19 not by going back to a business-as-usual scenario but by building back better,” writes Dr. Francesco Sindico, Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance, University of Strathclyde, Scotland, in the report. He has identified tourism and food security as two of many areas that need to be included in such a process.
“If resilience is about driving an agenda for a better island following a state of vulnerability, the question becomes: what kind of future does that island want?”
Based on analysis of a comprehensive data set contributed by islanders around the world, Dr. Sindico discusses the importance of shifting towards sustainable tourism and diversified island economies. He suggests that the ongoing pandemic provides islands with an opportunity to take stock, recognize policies that may have contributed to vulnerability, and begin a process to become more resilient and sustainable in the face of present and future crises.
According to Dr. Sindico, the first step in making islands more resilient is to recognize that governance and government is at the heart of many of the current vulnerabilities. He proposes a policy-relevant research agenda to ensure that post-COVID-19 recovery packages enable islands to “build back better” and move towards a more resilient and sustainable future.
Dr. Sindico is continuing to collaborate with UPEI and its Institute of Island Studies through the COVID-19 Island Insights Series, where 24 islands from all over the world are being analyzed not just in relation to how they coped with the pandemic, but also, along the lines of his chapter, on how they can build back better. The final goal of the project is to develop policy recommendations aimed at promoting greater island resilience and sustainability in a post COVID-19 world.
The Annual Report on Global Islands series is published by Island Studies Press at UPEI and edited by Dr. Jim Randall, UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability at UPEI. It is produced in partnership with the Foreign Affairs Office of Hainan Province, P.R. China, a sister province to PEI. Released annually since 2017, the series features peer-reviewed chapters by international experts on major topics associated with the economic development of islands.
April 16, 2021 — The Institute of Island Studies was invited to submit an article to The Parliamentarian, the Journal of the Parliaments of the Commonwealth, for their recent issue, Parliamentary democracy in the smallest Parliaments and Legislatures of the Commonwealth. Read our contribution, “What can island studies show us about sustainable development and public policy today?” below.
The issue also includes other articles about islands, including one from our colleagues in Malta on “The importance of academic research in studying islands and small states.” Click here to read the full issue
MAIS student and IIS Interim Coordinator Marlene Chapman’s opinion piece, “Islandness: A COVID-19 superpower?”, was recently published in The Guardian. In this article, Marlene discusses the characteristics of islandness and how they have contributed to community resilience on Prince Edward Island – and in Atlantic Canada more broadly – in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
April 14, 2021 — The Institute of Island Studies’ Dr. Laurie Brinklow was recently invited to give a presentation to Dr. Carolyn Peach Brown‘s ENV-4010: Public Scholars on Environmental Issues class regarding the Institute and its contributions to environmental awareness and public policy on Prince Edward Island.
Dr. Brinklow’s presentation has been summarized in a document which outlines the many ways in which the Institute of Island Studies has contributed – and continues to contribute – to awareness and education regarding climate change and the environment, with public policy implications here on Prince Edward Island and around the world.
Complete with links to relevant publications, event recordings, and research projects, this document is a valuable resource for anyone seeking an overview of the Institute of Island Studies’ active role in environmental policy education and research.
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.
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 theStrathclyde 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
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
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.
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 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.
