Island Imaginaries: From Repositories to Experimental Labs

Session Submission Type: Traditional (Closed) Panel

Abstract

Particularly in western thought, islands have borne a fascination for “exceptional“ ecologies or “remote” human societies and political systems. As repositories conducive not only to evolutionary theories but for theorizing the social, their potential for intervention has equally been an allure. Colonial empires, military logistics, and also philanthropists have turned islands into experimental labs of the natural, technical, and the social. Examples range from nuclear tests to developing genetically engineered crops or testing electrical grid systems in more contemporary times. Bringing together these two island imaginaries – repository and experimental lab – allows exploring how islands and their oceanic environments, in the gaze of outsiders, emerge as sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff & Kim 2015) that constitute both the exceptional Other to be preserved (biodiversity, culture), and synecdoches of the world. This panel examines island imaginaries by inviting research in STS and other disciplines, such as international relations, geography, indigenous studies, anthropology, and history. The papers aim to query the normative virtue of “original,” “remote”, “untouched” (social and natural) states, as well as the experimental intervention as normalized, unquestioned undertakings of modernity in the distance. We ask how islands are made sense-able through diverse modes of knowledge-making. How do experienced realities of island inhabitants (see Hau'ofa 1993) challenge established accounts of islands? How to account for the heterogeneity that emerges from conflicting imaginaries and experiences? Building on recent STS scholarship, the panel seeks conceptual and ethnographic accounts of historical and contemporary cases of islands as technoscientific test beds.

Sub Unit

• 4S Annual Meeting

Chair

• Mascha Gugganig, Technical University Munich

Discussant

• Rebecca Lemov, History of Science Harvard

Individual Presentations

• Can an Island Nation Be a Global Test-Bed? The Politics of Experimentation in Singapore. - Madeleine Akrich, CSI-Ecole Des Mines De Paris; Jerome Denis, Telecom ParisTech; Liliana Doganova, Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (CSI) - MINES-ParisTech; Brice Laurent, Ecole Des Mines De Paris; David Pontille, Cnrs

• Earth as Island - Claire Webb, MIT - Anthropology

• From Red Island to Green Island: Cultural and Political Implications of HVDC Cables in Korea - Seung Hee Cho, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

• The Hawaiian Islands: Of Island Biogeography, Sustainable Future Imaginaries, and (Other) Lived Sensibilities - Mascha Gugganig, Technical University Munich