Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T17:39:39.742Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Islands, the Humanities and environmental conservation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2018

GARRY W. TROMPF
GARRY W. TROMPF*
Affiliation:
Emeritus Professor in the History of Ideas, Department of Studies in Religion, School of Letters, Art and Media, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Adjunct Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
*
*Correspondence: Professor Garry W. Trompf email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

This paper concerns itself with the contributions that the Humanities make to the understanding of islands and their bettered environmental conservation. Most distinctively, the Humanities comprise Literary Studies, Studies in Art and Culture (including Indigenous and Gender Studies) and Philosophy (with Aesthetics and the History of Ideas), but they also encompass Archaeology, History, Linguistics, Studies in Religion and, of late, Media and Communication Studies, even though members of this latter cluster frequently deploy methods from the social sciences. The goal here is to explore many of the implications such Human Studies and their sub-branches may have for island conservation, above all informed by the History of Ideas, in order to introduce the relevant key issues and inter-relationships and offer the most judicious illustrative materials. Variances in the reach and special attention of all these branches of knowledge are vast and intricate, while complex relativities apply both in the types of island situations and in expectations about what can or should be conserved. Since the mass of apposite discussions in the literature cannot possibly be summarized here, this article circumvents the difficulties by means of a special double-edged review. It ranges over the history of human consciousness of insular worlds, as reflected in mythic, legendary and historical materials, yet en route it uncovers how Humanities research can elucidate the human responses to islands through known time and shows how developing meaning-making has generally enhanced the appeal of sea-locked environments as worth conserving.

Keywords

environmental conservationisland studieshumanitiesmythologyhistorystudies in religioncultural studiespollutionbiogeography
Type
Subject Reviews
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 45 , Issue 2: Thematic section. Humans and Island Environments , June 2018 , pp. 101 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Note: Biblical and classical mediaeval citations are placed in-text and all modern literary works handled by allusion, since the diversity of versions and editions are too great to construe bibliographically in this article.Google Scholar
Albera, D. & Eade, J. (eds.) (2017) New Pathways to Pilgrimage Studies. New York, NY, USA: Routledge.Google Scholar
Alpers, E.A. (2014) The Indian Ocean in World History. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aoyagi, M. (2002) Modekngei. Tokyo, Japan: Shinsensha.Google Scholar
Attenborough, D. (1987) The First Eden. London, UK: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Baldacchino, G. (2010) Island Enclaves. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P.S. (1979) Man's Conquest of the Pacific. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Beyer, C. (2017) Life was a state in which a war was on. In: War, Myths, and Fairy Tales, eds. Butterworth, S. & Abbenhuis, M., pp. 195–218. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bibby, G. (1969) Looking for Dilmun. New York, NY, USA: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Black, J. (2015) The Atlantic Slave Trade in World History. New York, NY, USA: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buck, P.H. (1959) Vikings of the Pacific. Chicago, IL, USA: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Burbank, J. & Cooper, F. (2010) Empires in World History. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cahill, T. (2010) How the Irish Saved Civilization. New York, NY, USA: Anchor.Google Scholar
Callender, G. (1999) The Minoans and the Mycenaeans. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Conrad, P. (2009) Islands. London, UK: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Curtin, P.D. (1984) Cross-Cultural Trade in World History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Damas, D. (1994) Bountiful Island. Waterloo, Canada: Wilfred Laurier.Google Scholar
Davies, N. (2000) The Isles. London, UK: Papermac.Google Scholar
De Vita, C.G. & Lichtenstein, A. (eds.) (2015) Global Convict Labour. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.Google Scholar
Defley, M. (2013) Ancient Pacific creation legend promotes soil health. USDA Conservation Archive [www document]. URL http://usdasearch.usda.govGoogle Scholar
Diamond, J. (2011) Collapse. London, UK: Penguin.Google Scholar
Edwards, A.J. & Mead, S.M. (eds.) (2013) Red Sea. Oxford, UK: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Farrell, B.H. (1982) Hawaii: The Legend that Sells. Honolulu, HI, USA: University Press of Hawaii.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. (1975) Utopias of the Classical World. London, UK: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Fernández-Armesto, F. (1995) Millennium. London, UK: Bantam.Google Scholar
Futter, A. (2015) The Politics of Nuclear Weapons. London, UK: Sage.Google Scholar
Gillis, J.R. (2009) Islands of the Mind. New York, NY, USA: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ginzburg, C. (2000) No Island is an Island. New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Glacken, C.J. (1963) This growing second world in the world of nature. In: Man's Place in the Island Eco-System, ed. Fosberg, F.R., pp. 75–100. Honolulu, HI, USA: B.P. Bishop Museum.Google Scholar
Glacken, C.J. (1979) Traces on the Rhodian Shore. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Grove, R.H. (1996) Green Imperialism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, V. & Curtis, K.R. (2017) Voyages in World History. Boston, MA, USA: Cengage.Google Scholar
Hinds, K. (2002) Venice and its Merchant Empire. New York, NY, USA: Benchmark.Google Scholar
Hirst, A. & Sammon, P. (eds.) (2014) The Ionian Islands. Newcastle upon Tyne: UK: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. (1959) Primitive Rebels. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Howgego, R.J. (ed.) (2006) Encyclopedia of Exploration, 1850 to 1940. Sydney, Australia: Hordern.Google Scholar
Ingstad, H. & Ingstad, A.S. (2000) The Viking Discovery of America. St Johns, Canada: Breakwater.Google Scholar
Ivens, W.G. (1930) The Island Builders of the Pacific. London, UK: Seeley, Service & Co.Google Scholar
Jha, U.C. (2014) Armed Conflict and Environmental Damage. Delhi, India: Vij.Google Scholar
Keller, D.R. & Golley, F.B. (2000) The Philosophy of Ecology. Athens, GA, USA: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Klieger, P.C. (1998) Moku‘ula. Honolulu, HI, USA: P.B. Bishop Museum.Google Scholar
Langdon, R. (1959) Tahiti. New York, NY, USA: Pacific Publications.Google Scholar
Le Juez, B. & Springer, O. (2015) Shipwreck and Island Motifs in Literature and the Arts. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.Google Scholar
Lemos, C.N. (1975) Esboço Histórico das Ilhas de S. Tomé. São Tomé, São Tomé and Príncipe: Imprensa Nacional.Google Scholar
Loret, J. & Tanacredi, J.T. (eds.) (2003) Easter Island. New York, NY, USA: Springer.Google Scholar
Lowenthal, D. & Olwig, K. (eds.) (2013) The Nature of Cultural Heritage and the Culture of National Heritage. New York, NY, USA: Routledge.Google Scholar
MacArthur, R.H. & Wilson, E.O. (2001) The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McCusker, M. & Soares, A. (eds.) (2011) Islanded Identities. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Rodopi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGregor, D. (2007) Nâ Kua‘âina. Honolulu, HI, USA: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. (1916) Baloma. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 46: 354–430.Google Scholar
Manning, S.W. (1999) A Test of Time. Oxford, UK: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Migot, A. (1960) Solitudes humaines. Paris, France: Casterman.Google Scholar
Moscati, S. (1999) The World of the Phoenicians. New York, NY, USA: Phoenix.Google Scholar
Murray-Smith, S. (ed.) (1969) Bass Strait, Australia's Last Frontier. Sydney, Australia: ABC.Google Scholar
Newman, C., Mannion, M. & Gavin, F. (2017) Islands in Global Context. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts.Google Scholar
Nunyara, R. (ed.) (2009) My Marovo Lagoon. Brisbane, Austalia: University of Queensland.Google Scholar
Olcott, F.J. (ed.) (1933) Stories from the Arabian Nights. London, UK: Harrap.Google Scholar
Pepper, E. & Wilcock, J. (1977) Magical and Mystical Sites. London, UK: Wiedenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Perlin, J. (2005) A Forest Journey. Woodstock, VT, USA: Countryman.Google Scholar
Petersen, G. (2000) Indigenous island empires. Journal of Pacific History 35: 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petzold, J. (2017) Social Capital, Resilience, and Adaptation on Small Islands. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.Google Scholar
Polunin, N. (1949) Arctic Unfolding. London, UK: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Siegel, P.E. & Righter, E. (eds.) (2011) Protecting Heritage in the Caribbean. Tuscaloosa, AL, USA: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Size, J. (2015) Fantasy Islands. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Smith, B. (1985) European Vision and the South Pacific. New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sponsel, L.E. (2001) Is indigenous spiritual ecology just a new fad? In: Indigenous Traditions and Ecology, ed. Grim, J., pp. 159–174. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Spriggs, M. (1988) Pleistocene human occupation of the Solomon Islands. Antiquity 62: 703–706.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R.L. ([1894]1924) Vailima Papers. London, UK: William Heinemann.Google Scholar
Swain, T. & Trompf, G.W. (1995) Religions of Oceania. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Threlfall, N.A. (1975) One Hundred Years in the Islands. Rabaul, Papua New Guinea: United Church.Google Scholar
Trompf, G.W. (1961) The colonial aspect of Athenian imperialism. Melbourne Historical Journal 1: 45–80.Google Scholar
Trompf, G.W. (1979–2018) The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Trompf, G.W. (ed.) (1993) Islands and Enclaves. Delhi, India: Sterling.Google Scholar
Trompf, G.W. (2002) Easter Island. In: Ugo Bianchi: Una Vita, ed. Casadio, G., pp. 441–465. Rome, Italy: Il Calamo.Google Scholar
Trompf, G.W. (2004) Utopia. In: Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Jones, L., vol. 14, pp. 9491–9493. New York, NY, USA: Thompson Gale.Google Scholar
Tucker, J.A. (2003) Japanese views of nature and the environment. In: Nature across Cultures, ed. Selin, H., pp. 161–183. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Vico, G. (2015) La Scienza Nuova 1744. Rome, Italy: ISPF.Google Scholar
Whitt, L. (2009) Science, Colonialism, and Indigenous Peoples. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Whittaker, R.J. & Fernández-Palacios, J.M. (2007) Island Biogeography. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Young, R.-A. (2003) Mutiny of the Bounty and Story of Pitcairn Island. Honolulu, HI, USA: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar