Envisioning the Archipelago

Certain limitations arise from the persistent consideration of two common relationsof islands in the humanities and social sciences: land and sea, and island andcontinent/mainland. What remains largely absent or silent are ways of being, knowing anddoing¿ontologies, epistemologies and methods¿that illuminate island spaces as inter-related,mutually constituted and co-constructed: as island and island. Therefore, this paper seeks tomap out and justify a research agenda proposing a robust and comprehensive exploration ofthis third and comparatively neglected nexus of relations. In advancing these aims, the paper¿sgoal is to (re)inscribe the theoretical, metaphorical, real and empirical power and potential ofthe archipelago: of seas studded with islands; island chains; relations that may embraceequivalence, mutual relation and difference in signification.