Lynda and Kathryn present to ISISA 2021 on ‘Affective Islandness’ and material identities.

Today at the ISISA 2021 conference Kathryn A. Burnett @KA_Burnett and Lynda Harling Stalker @lynda_harling present to the islandness stream at ISISA 2021. Lynda and Kathryn’s panel paper is entitled ‘Affective Islandness: Personal Narratives and Material Identities’.

17th International Small Islands Studies Association (ISISA) Conference: ‘Sharing Lessons, Sharing Stories’ Virtual conference | June 14–18, 2021 Full program is out now — head to http://mun.ca/wearehere/isisa.php… for more details.

Scotland and Islandness – new edited collection

Scotland and Islandness: Explorations in Community, Economy and Culture (2021) Edited By Kathryn A. Burnett, Ray Burnett and Michael Danson

Peter Lang – Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2021. XIV, 262 pp., 2 fig. b/w.

Studies in the History and Culture of Scotland

Scotland’s islands are diverse, resourceful and singularly iconic in national and global imaginations of places ‘apart’ yet readily reached. This collection of essays offers a fascinating commentary on Scotland’s island communities that celebrates their histories, cultures and economies in general terms. Recognising a complex geography of distinct regions and island spaces, the collection speaks to broader themes of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, narratives of place and people, the ideas and policies of island and regional distinctiveness, as well as particular examinations of literature, language, migration, land reform, and industry. With a view to placing ideas and expressions of islandness within a lived reality of island life and scholarship, the collection provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the value of continued and expanding research commentaries on Scotland’s islands for both a Scottish and an international readership. 

This book should instantly appeal to scholars of Island Studies, Scottish Studies, and Regional Studies of northern and peripheral Europe. Readers with particular interests in the sociology and history of Scottish rural and northern Atlantic communities, the cultural histories and economies of remote and island places, and the pressing socioeconomic agenda of small island sustainability, community building and resilience should also find the collection offers current commentaries on these broad themes illustrated with local island examples and contingencies.

Available in Hardback, PDF and Ebook.

https://www.peterlang.com/view/9781789974133/html/ch05.xhtml

Islandness: Identity and Independence Panel MECCSA 2019

MECCSA 2019 (Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association) Annual Conference, University of Stirling

Islandness: Identity and Independence Panel proposer: Dr Kathryn A Burnett, University of the West of Scotland;  Contributors Mr Tony Grace,  Mr Ray Burnett and Dr Kathryn A. Burnett; Chair: Dr Sarah Neely, University of Stirling.

This Scottish Centre for Island Studies panel contribution is offered in close reflection of the 40^th anniversary of MacDiarmid’s death in 1978, and the 90^th anniversary of the formation of the National Party of Scotland, which involved both MacDiarmid and Mackenzie. 2019 itself is the 50^th anniversary of the release of the iconic island film ‘Whisky Galore’ based on Compton Mackenzie’s celebrated novel. This film continues to offer a set of island tropes that signify both Scottishness and Britishness as well as the ‘national antisyzgies’ of cultural authenticities, the islandness complicities of place and people and the mediated complexities of remoteness, connectedness and independences. A further thematic of ‘island and national liberty’ draws on archival records and new film practice celebrating the ‘father of biography’ James Boswell, and his celebrated accounts of ‘tours’ including the Hebrides (1773) with Johnson, as well as his earlier account of Corsica and most particularly its independence movement.

We are delighted to be working in partnership with The Boswell Trust and hope to revisit aspects of this themed panel later in the year as part of the Boswell Trust’s event and celebrations diary 2019.

Mapping Small Island Communicative Ecologies Seminar SCIS@UWS

Invitation to Research Seminar Creativity and Culture HUB,

School of Media, Culture and Society  

Wednesday 17^th January 2018

14:00- 15:00 UWS Ayr Campus  GT 45

A/Prof. Evangelia Papoutsaki, UNITEC, New Zealand

Mapping Small Island Communicative Ecologies

Islands have a unique micro-communicative ecology makeup and distinctiv geographical and socio-cultural identities. This research seminar introduces the concept of island communicative ecology illustrated with examples from research conducted in several islands in the Pacific region.

The communicative ecology approach refers to the various forms, resources, activities, channels and flows of communication and information used by an island or group of islands or communities within islands. Mapping as a methodology enables a broader comprehension of the complexity of specific island communities and allows for the exploration of the various types of communication activity island people are engaged in (locally, trans-locally, intra-island, inter-island, trans-peripheral, national etc.), the resources available and the understanding of how these can be used in sustaining island communities.

In this seminar, several borrowed concepts, theories, terms and approaches from communication studies will be explored within an island context: communicative ecology, and communicative ecology layers (social, technological, discursive), communication infrastructure theory, communication action, storytelling network and storytelling agents, rhizomas and community media.

The presenter explores how the communicative environment forms part of existing island communities’ structures; identifies key communicative practices that contribute to sustaining islands sociocultural cohesion; explores the role of media, in particular community radio, in localized information flows unique to the islands; and identifies future areas of research of value to the field of Islands Studies especially through the application of the communicative ecology mapping approach.

We are delighted to welcome Dr Evangelia Papoutsaki to Ayr campus for this research seminar. This seminar is open to all UWS staff and students and all are very welcome. Please email Lesley-Anne (lesley-anne.niven@uws.ac.uk) or myself (kathryn.burnett@uws.ac.uk) for any further information you may require.  Evangelia will be delighted to speak with colleagues on any aspect of her global work on media and communication in a range of key sectors and international settings (including diaspora and migrant identities, HIV/Aids, Climate Change, and participatory methods for community engagement). There is time set aside after the seminar for colleagues to meet with Evangelia further.

For further information on Evangelia’s extensive global experience and expertise in media, communication and community research and policy please refer here:

http://www.unitec.ac.nz/about-us/contact-us/staff-directory/dr-evangelia-papoutsaki

https://www.epapoutsaki.com/

Communicative Ecologies Research Seminar Jan 2018

Rural Enterprise SCIS Round Table

See  information below on the SCIS round table session  that was held on island and remote rural enterprise at Rural Enterprise conference at UWS Dumfries in June 2013.