Long conceived as isolated or peripheral spaces, islands are today understood as strategic sites of travel, contact, and interconnection. Located at the intersection of commercial, migratory, and tourist routes, island territories function both as spaces of circulation and of anchorage, as points of departure and arrival for migrations, exiles, diasporas, and tourist flows. At the same time, climate change is placing a large proportion of the world’s islands at risk as a result of rising sea levels. To this environmental threat is added the legacy of the fundamental role that certain islands played in the histories of colonization — a legacy that continues today to shape the unequal distribution of environmental risk experienced in some archipelagic and insular territories.

This colloquium — an initiative associated with the PhD program in Island Literatures and Cultures (University of the Azores, University of Madeira, University of Corsica, INALCO) and with CHAM Açores – Centre for the Humanities (FCSH NOVA/UAc) —aims to examine this conception of the island as a space of circulation, conflict, cultural reconfiguration, and vulnerability, taking the Azores archipelago as its point of departure. The call for papers is open until May 31.

Call for Papers (.pdf)

Organization

CHAM-Açores