HOME

WELCOME

Abstracts

James Auger (Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Portugal) & Julian Hanna (Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Portugal) The Possibilities of an Island: Redesigning Madeira. Islands are often used as conceptual testing grounds or repositories for larger ideas of how the world should or should not be. Islands may represent our hopes and dreams (Aldous Huxley’s novel Island, Gauguin’s Tahiti) or our fears and follies, especially concerning our darker nature (The Island of Doctor Moreau, Lord of the Flies). In our new project we take the island of Madeira as an object of reflection, contemplation, and experimentation: a living laboratory. Madeira has always provided a working space for hubristic and ambitious dreams – from the levada irrigation system begun in the 16th century to Alberto João Jardim’s ambitious reign (1978-2015), during which his government carved out an extensive network of roads and tunnels and brought the remote island, for better or worse, into the 21st century. With energy as our focus we aim to redesign the island in the context of a multi-scale research project – part fact, part fiction. Our project begins with research into energy flows (petrol, diesel, gas) and resources (existing, forgotten, untapped), leading to a range of energy-related proposals (human-scale experiments to macro concepts) and the consequential redesign of things (transport systems, houses, domestic products).

Biographies: James Auger is an Associate Professor at Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Portugal. He has an MA and PhD in Design from the Royal College of Art, London. His research uses design practice to question the role of technology in everyday life. His work has been published and exhibited internationally, including MoMA, New York; 21_21, Tokyo and the National Museum of China.
Julian Hanna is Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities at M-ITI. He has written extensively on modernist and avant-garde culture, and in recent years his research has shifted toward futures studies, interactive digital storytelling, civic engagement, and liveability.

Top

Jiin Baek (Masdar Institute Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi) How land use and urban form affect Pedestrian Activity (PA) in an urban setting: Abu Dhabi. Walkability is a significant factor in evaluating whether a city is sustainable, healthy, and vibrant. The trend over the past decades for promoting the walkable, reliable, and sustainable city has resulted in numerous studies seeking to identify the physical characteristics of places that encourage walking activity and the measurement of walkability. Many researchers in this diverse field have highlighted how density, design, and diversity (land use) in the built environment are factors that play a special role in non-vehicular travel, bringing positive results for both non-work travel and work travel. Even on the micro-level scale of neighbourhoods, diversity and urban form are important variables with respect to walking behaviour. This paper studies, explores, and observes the quality and scale of Abu Dhabi walking environments, assuming that physical activity levels are influenced by the built environment. The key is quantifying the characteristics of the built environment related to the amount of pedestrian activity. We examine the effects of different land use and attitudinal characteristics on pedestrian activity on the micro-scale characteristics of urban blocks. Two different blocks (mixed land use and single land use) selected for this study have similar characteristics in terms of ethnicity, resident age, and middle-class status. Using GIS to check on spatial information, counts of the number of pedestrians, and pedestrian audits, we find measurable factors that fall into the ‘3D’ (design, density, and diversity). The main aim of this study is to provide a behavioural profile for walking patterns and daily circulation routes in different sections of the main island of Abu Dhabi. How do different factors such as physical elements (design), behavioural attitudes, land use patterns (diversity), density, and constraints articulate and explore walkability in Abu Dhabi? Additionally, the paper (1) assesses the quality of pedestrian infrastructure in Abu Dhabi; (2) explores why people walk and for what reasons; (3) provides data on which ethnicities walk the most and why; (4) addresses the challenges that restrain walkability; and (5) provides guidance and policy recommendations to increase pedestrian activity in Abu Dhabi. This research into Abu Dhabi’s walkability is expected to provide solutions for creating sustainable environments in more liveable and healthy cities.

Biography: Jiin Baek received her Bachelor’s degree for architectural engineering in Sejong University in South Korea and her master’s for landscape architecture in University of Sheffield in UK. After her graduation, Jiin started her professional practice and participated in several landmark projects, such as Palm Jumeriah Streetscape Design, United Arab Emirates. While her practical working experience, she would like to research about more walkable environment for the neighborhood and society. She’s started to study and research in Msc. Sustainable Critical Infrastructure, Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi since 2014. Her main research interest is how urban planner and designer create a more walkable neighborhood and how walkable environments affect to the social sustainability.

Top

Gabriel Bertimes Di Bernardi Lopes (Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina, Brazil) Environmental and Urban Legislation in Brazil: The case of Florianópolis Village Golf Resort. This paper analyzes the geographical and economic dynamics established in the process of capital ownership and control of outer space, carried by large tourism developments in Florianópolis, using the case of Florianópolis Village Golf Resort The study proposed here requires a theoretical framework with which to understand the multiple determinations and policy makers that determine success or lack of success in preserving and equitably distributing natural resources for future generations. The hypothesis is that there is a tendency to serve the interests of large tourism developments in Florianópolis, as in the case of Florianópolis Village Golf Resort. This grants governmental legitimacy to actions that break principles of environmental and town planning law, irreversibly impact the environment, mischaracterize traditional communities, and emphasize socio-spatial segregation. We must balance the relationship between natural resource use and economic development, so that future generations do not pay for the mistakes resulting from the misuse of such resources.

Biography: Currently teaches at UDESC (since 2012). PhD in Geography (UDESC 2015). Master in Architecture and Urbanism (UFSC 2011). Bachelor in Geography (UDESC 2007).

Top

Mitha Budhyarto (LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore) Fantasy Islands: The Batam-Singapore Relationship. This paper analyzes the Batam-Singapore relationship by focusing on travel experiences between the two islands for the purposes of business and tourism. Since the 1990s, discussion about Batam and Singapore has mainly revolved around the idea of a new Southeast Asian ‘growth triangle’, with an emphasis on the cross-border economic cooperation between Batam, Singapore and Johor. With the development of ventures such as Batamindo Industrial Park, a group of commuters who divide their daily lives between Batam and Singapore emerged. In addition to this, the economic growth of Batam has also benefited from middle-class tourism from Singaporeans, with high-speed ferries connecting them in less-than-an-hour journeys. By investigating the travel experiences of tourists and commuters, an analysis into a specific form of cultural relation – one that is based on mobility – between Batam and Singapore may be made. The paper argues that in the context of these travellers, the group’s mobility and the responding narratives and collective memory that they share shape a distinct sense of identity. The role of the ferries, piers, travel bureaus, temporary accommodation as well as visual materials such as media publications in shaping such identity will also be explained.

Biography: Mitha Budhyarto is a lecturer in Cultural and Contextual Studies at LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore. She received her doctorate in Humanities & Cultural Studies from University of London Birkbeck College, and holds an MA in Aesthetics from the University of Sussex as well as BA in Art History and Philosophy from the University of Surrey Roehampton. Her current research areas are the concepts of borders, hospitality and friendship within the larger cosmopolitan discourse.

Top

Marco Casagrande (Italian Bar Association, Italy) The Curse of Being an Island City Forever: The Case of Venice. Often what we refer to as an island city is actually a former island city which became part of a wider urban nucleus. Venice, in contrast, is still an island city in the literal sense of the term, being physically separated by the mainland. The consequences have been very negative for the city, with its population falling from about 145,000 in 1960 to today's 66,000, and a more and more unsustainable influx of tourists. Yet the cultural relations between Venice and its coastal “twin city” of Mestre are very strong, so much that the two cities insist in sharing the same municipal administration. Moreover, a strong economic relationship was ensured by the Marghera port hub until the Eighties, but this did not stop the perceived decadence of Venice, unchecked by a string of well-funded public policies triggered by the 1966 flooding. So is a physical continuity with the mainland fundamental for an island city to thrive in the long run?

Biography: I am an Italian qualified lawyer with a Ph.D. in International and EU law. I am specialized in EU law and public policy. I work as a consultant for the Presidential Cabinet of the Venetian Region and I am a former advisor of the Venice Port Authority.

Top

Melissa Cate Christ (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong) Urban Stairs as Public Spaces in High-Density Island Cities: The Case of the Central and Western District of Hong Kong Island. Due in part to historical development patterns, topography and building restrictions, Hong Kong Island’s urban development and population density is one of the highest in the world. In particular, the Central and Western District has one of the lowest ratios of embedded public space per person in all of Hong Kong. This paper presents some initial findings from the author’s research and documentation project, “Hong Kong Stair Archive: Documenting the Walkable City” to argue that in this dense hilly context, urban stairs act not only as movement corridors which allow access to areas otherwise inaccessible (and which likely would not have been so intensely built if not for the their context on this rapidly developed island), but also as vibrant public spaces with crucial social, cultural, environmental and heritage value.

Biography: Melissa Cate Christ is a registered landscape architect, a Research Assistant Professor of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the founding director of transverse studio, a collaborative practice which intersects trajectories of landscape, culture, urbanism and infrastructure through documentary processes of investigation, design and activism. Prior to teaching at PolyU, Melissa was an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Hong Kong and a designer at Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd. Melissa has a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Liberal Arts from St. John’s College. http://www.transversestudio.com/

Top

Yin-Lun Chan (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) Entertainment Architecture as an Archipelagic Network, 1890-1970. Architecture is a significant aspect of the cultural and technological transfers that accompany the geographical flows of entertainment business. Travelling performance troupes and entertainment businesspeople were key agents of transnational development of Asian modernities. From the development and diasporic spread of Cantonese opera in Southern China and Southeast Asia, the introduction of moving pictures and the formation of production and consumption networks, to the staging of a variety live performances such as vaudeville and cabaret, all of these entertainment performances were housed in urban venues of various types that have been adapted to certain specific localities. In this paper, I contend that theatres, dance halls, and other such performance venues were key sites where ideas of modernity and urbanity were conceived, transferred, and received. This study traces the way in which architectural spaces of entertainment changed from the late nineteenth century to the post-war period, focusing on a few early theatres including, for example, the Theatre Royal at the old City Hall of Hong Kong, the Lyceum Theatre of Shanghai, and the Alhambra cinema of Singapore.

Biography: Yin-Lun Chan obtained his Master of Landscape Architecture from The University of British Columbia, and is now pursuing his PhD in architectural and landscape history and theory at The University of Hong Kong. His research interests include architectures of entertainment, landscape performances, and urban semiotics. He is the editor of The History of the Landscape Profession of Hong Kong, 1978-2015: A Collection of Interviews.

Top

Bixia Chen (University of the Ryukyus, Japan) Village Tree Management in Small Island Productive Landscapes: Homestead-Surrounding Tree Belts (Fukugi (Garcinia subelliptica) in the Sakishima Islands, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. This study aims to compile an inventory of remaining old-growth trees that were planted along the borderlines of the homestead as windbreak and to explore to the conservation status of the old trees. Tree borders are important in the maintenance of the productive landscape and represent a form of urbanism. Two survey sites were selected in the Sakishima Island (the southernmost part of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan). It was found that the tree lines standing at the north and east sides of the houses have been intentionally protected and are better conserved than the lines at the south and west sides. There is an average density of approximately 0.8 (S.D. = 0.32) trees per meter. Moreover, there was a negative correlation between the tree density and mean diameter at breast height (DBH) on both in the east and north sides. The conservation and maintenance of old-growth trees within the homestead depends on both natural and human factors. Exposure to typhoons and monsoon winds are among the most important natural factors that contribute to tree damage. However, human factors are also important for tree cutting or conservation. Residents’ awareness of tree conservation determines whether the trees were preserved or cut down.

Biography: Bixia Chen is interested in traditional village landscape in the island topography, with a particular focus on the old growth forests and their ecological functions to shape a stale living and productive landscape on the small islands.

Top

Ruth Davis (University of Wollongong, Australia) Urban Islands and International Law: A View from the Sea. Islands and archipelagos cannot be examined in isolation from the maritime space which surrounds them. There are many interesting and important developments in current international oceans law and policy that will have a particular impact upon urban islands and archipelagos because of their unique combination of high population densities and reliance upon the maritime space for food and transport, amongst other things. This presentation seeks to provide an international law and policy perspective on environmental, security and resource management issues of importance to island cities and their peoples. These issues could include: land reclamation and maritime boundary delimitation; urban development and marine pollution; marine living resources and food security; vessel management and marine environmental protection; maritime border protection and coastal security. An attempt will be made to assess the possible impact of these issues on urban island futures, and the possible contribution of urban islands to the international regulatory framework.

Biography:  Ruth Davis is a member of the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong, Australia. Ruth has a background in law and economics and has spent over 20 years teaching into undergraduate law programs at the University of Wollongong and, before that, UTS and Sydney University. Ruth has been affiliated with ANCORS since its early days as the Centre for Maritime Policy in the 1990s and now coordinates their Masters programs. Ruth's primary research interests are in the fields of international environmental law, marine environmental law and polar law and governance. She is co-author of the Cambridge University Press text, International Law with Australian Perspectives, now into its second edition.

Top

Mohamed El Amrousi (Abu Dhabi University, Abu Dhabi) Urban Diversification, Abu Dhabi’s New Shorefront Developments, and Global City Impact. Abu Dhabi is reshaping much of its urban identity to change its image from a transit city for expatriate communities via the creation of new spaces for social gathering, iconic architecture, and high-end shorefront residences on its newly urbanized islands. Al-Saadiyat Island is to become the city’s cultural hub with its mega-museums designed by star architects. Al-Reem and Al-Marayah Islands are being shaped with high-rise buildings along a Manhattan-style skyline. Yas Island possesses emerging spaces of shopping and leisure, such as Ferrari World. This represents a paradigm shift in Abu Dhabi’s urban strategies, which for decades aimed to preserve the country’s conservative tribal social structure. The urbanization of Abu Dhabi’s Islands is taking place along the lines of the network of ‘Global Cities’ such as, New York, Singapore, and Tokyo. As new iconic architectural forms re-contextualize the perception of a conservative ‘island community’ in an emphasis to attract multinational capital, Abu Dhabi residents experience this change through emerging cultural spaces such as Manarat Al-Saadiyat and forthcoming projects such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and Zayed National Museum. On Al-Reem Island, the Sky-Bridge Tower as well as the Sun & Sky towers developed by Al-Dar de-contextualize the concept of dwelling. Al Raha Beach developments further cement the image of Abu Dhabi as an emerging global city via projects such as the Wave, Al Durrah, and the Hard Rock Hotel. This research highlights new forms of urbanism emerging on Abu Dhabi’s islands and their manifestation of a transitional shift in perception of island communities from tribal and conservative to islands that serve larger global agendas, joining the network of global cities that market new forms of universalism.

Biography: Mohamed El Amrousi, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Abu Dhabi University. PhD in History and Theory of Art and Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Masters Degree from the American University in Cairo (AUC), and Bachelor in Architectural Engineering from Ain Shams University.

Top

Troy Dino Elizaga (University of San Carlos, Philippines) The Influence of Public Markets in the Urban Form of the Cities of Cebu Island, Philippines. It has long been established that the urban forms of the cities in the Philippine islands are derived from the planning principles of their colonizers. Spain and the United States were influential in forming cities in the Philippines. Spain based its planning principles on the rules of the Indies, while the influence of Burnham helped shape most of the cities during the American occupation. This is the case for Cebu City, a city in the Visayan Islands of the Philippines. The city is a collage of urban forms since it was founded. The urban form of a city necessarily includes the design of its road networks. A study of the public transport system of Cebu indicates that all routes lead to the city’s public markets. This study compares the transport network of other cities in the Cebu islands to determine the influence of public markets in the urban forms of these cities. The result underlines the importance of public markets in transportation planning and, eventually, the urban form.

Biography: Troy Elizaga is an architect specializing in urban conservation. He is currently teaching in the University of San Carlos, Cebu City, Philippines, where he obtained his Masters in Architecture with majors in urban design. He is also involved in the university’s heritage conservation studio where he specializes on wooden American period heritage structures particularly their century old public school buildings. He is currently writing a book on the subject. This interest also led him to the study of public markets which the Americans have also constructed in the towns that they developed during their occupation of the Philippines.

Top

Cheryl Joy Fernandez (James Cook University, Australia & the University of the Philippines Visayas, Philippines) How Much to Spend? A Case of Flood Mitigation Expenditures in Metropolitan Iloilo, Philippines. Disasters are increasingly recognized as serious and ongoing threats to urbanized and coastal areas. The Philippines, which consists of island clusters, has been affected by around 20 typhoons every year and has yet to improve the quality of life of residents. Mismanagement of disaster-related projects in local/regional governments may have resulted in ineffective flood-reduction strategies. There is a growing call for these governments to address disaster problems, but budgets are limited and misdirected, and there is ongoing disagreement about the scale of spending that should be undertaken. The life satisfaction approach is a new method used by economists to capture flood mitigation demand, which could be applied to disasters and may suggest how much spending should be spent on mitigation. My study used self-reported life satisfaction rating and monetary flood damages of 600 residents in Metropolitan Iloilo in the Philippines. Results show that for every ₱1,000 rise in flood damages, each resident need to be compensated ₱196, and the total flood expenditure of the region should be ₱560.14M/year. I conjecture that flood-mitigation policies are worth spending in urban Iloilo, but actual expenditures seem to fall below this estimate. Taken as a whole, these findings suggest a benchmark for spending in the region but also call for examination of financial arrangements in integrating disaster (flood) concerns into local/regional government budgets.

Biography: Cheryl is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Economics (cum laude) from the same university, a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration, and a Master of Management from Massey University in New Zealand. She is currently pursuing her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at James Cook University in Australia. Her research interest broadly focuses on regional development and the environment. She was also involved in a variety of projects: valuation of endangered species conservation; reef resilience at the Great Barrier Reef; residential choices.

Top

Ian Ho-yin Fong (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) Walking: Towards Tangential Intimacy. This article addresses the relationship between walking and senses with reference to Debord’s sense of dérive. It first discusses how globalization in a supermodern degree in Marc Augé’s sense create an “unwalkable” city. Being driven on the road to global modernity, Hong Kong is no different from other modern cities. The operation of the so-called world-class shopping complex dictates ways of living; human activities are confined indoors. Shopping malls are alike: same kinds of food are consumed; the homogeneous spectacle dictates the appearance of supermodern buildings there; they are made of glass and steel which are too cold to touch; they are extraordinary clean with only artificial smell left; the similar noises are heard; the same polluted air is smelled. The sense of living is numbed. A modern subject there is dislocated. Streets are not for humans, but for circulation and for control if a city has to become a global city. For easy circulation, people are connected to a place by lift, escalators and mass transportation; city is walking around us. Supermodernity creates ‘unwalkable’ streets; it turns Hong Kong from an anthropological place to an empty space. Tangential intimacy between a place and its people is lost. City is ambient; walking stimulates our senses, restores our sensitivity and attachment to city. Senses render city as an unfinished cultural text. This article particularly focuses on how walking in winding streets is important to shape psychogeographical contours and to unfold the heterogeneous sound, smell, touch, and taste repressed by supermodernity.

Biography: Ian Ho-yin FONG is currently working as Lecturer for the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is now working on a research project entitled ‘Walking in Chinese Modern Cities: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing’. Related to this project, a paper entitled ‘(Re-)Reading Shanghai’s Futures in Ruins: Through the Legend of an (Extra-)Ordinary Woman in The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai’ is published in Cultural Unbound. He is going to take up a short-term postdoctoral fellowship which allows him to stay in the University of Graz from June to August, 2014 for his walking project. His research interests lie in psychoanalysis, deconstruction, Nietzsche studies, film and literary studies, gender studies, city and knowledge. He received his PhD degree in comparative literature at the University of Hong Kong in 2007.

Top

Hong Gang (Sun Yat-sen University, China) Identity and Community: The Experience of Zhuhai (珠海), Guangdong, China. Instead of being mere spatial arrangements, cities’ localities never cease to extend metaphorically into the complexity of temporal being. Just as the convergence of syntagmatic sequence and paradigmatic substitution produces meaning in a sentence, a city’s identity emerges where territorial order meets oceanic prospects. In the particular case of Zhuhai, territorial continuity to the north and the west dictates historical rootedness while oceanic outlook to the south and the east extends imaginative possibilities. What is produced is not a static periphery or centre but social-historical paradoxes, such as the rootlessness of internal diaspora, the inadequacy of imposed community consciousness and the unconscious closure of pre-1983 history that accompanies the conscious disclosure of cosmopolitan future. What is needed is to embed diasporas of both earlier migrants and the ongoing influx in a historical narrative that seems to have no link whatsoever to their ancestral past, but, upon reflection, could be woven into a temporal continuum that has always witnessed the fate of a town that stares into the liberating abyss of the sea from the peripheral tip of the immense continent.

Biography: Hong Gang (洪罡) am currently working as a lecturer at the School of International Studies in Sun Yat-sen University. I obtained my PHD in literary criticism in Sun Yat-sen University with a thesis exploring the literary and historical evolution of western metafiction. Up to now I have published a number of academic papers on literary studies in various Chinese journals. My current research areas mainly include contemporary Chinese literature and cultural studies.

Top

Anna Gasco (ETH Zurich-Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore) The Airport and the Territory: Cross-Border Developments in Singapore’s Hinterlands. Since Changi Airport opened in 1981, Singapore’s air traffic has grown at an astounding rate. The increased flows articulated by the airport have been central not only to Singapore’s development, but also—as this research reveals—to the growth of the Indonesian Riau Archipelago, south of the island. Through fieldwork conducted in Singapore and the islands of Batam and Bintan, the research traces the regional cross-border cargo and tourists’ flows of Changi and uncovers how these have significant urbanisation effects and economic roles in Singapore’s hinterland development. The research also uncovers how, as these peripheral regions develop, the small airports they contain expand in support of correlated urban growth. While Changi will continue to overshadow these smaller airports on the fringe, the work argues that coming changes in Singapore’s airspace control, coupled with the rapid development of aviation in the region, calls for Changi to further expand it catchment area across the national border. In doing so, the work reveals how Changi Airport is a one of the key forces in regional integration and posits that Changi’s specific regional urbanisation patterns are a critical lens for broadening the cross-border perspective of Singapore.

Biography: Anna is a post-doctoral researcher at the Future Cities Laboratory. Before joining FCL, she practiced as an architect & urban designer for internationally renowned firms. Italian, born in Congo, she holds a PhD from ETH Zurich, a Master in Urban Design from The Bartlett UCL London and a Diploma in Architecture from Brussels. Anna has published in Routledge and for the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Her work has been showcased at the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture in Hong Kong/Shenzhen, the Boston Society of Architects, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore and Aedes Berlin.

Top

Peter Goggin (Arizona State University, USA) Redefining the Picturesque in Urban Archipelagos. In Global Complexity, sociologist, John Urry states that “the analysis of globalization brings out the obvious interdependencies between peoples, places, organizations and technological systems across the world.” He concludes: “with the analysis of globalization, ‘no place is an island’” (39). Here, Urry illustrates a limitation of mainland/mainstream perspective in popular and scholarly discourse that situates ways of seeing islands and island perspectives as some-place/thing outside of a dominant mainland global reality. Sheller and Thompson argue that rhetorical and material constructs of Caribbean island are informed by colonial and post-colonial images that have defined island landscapes, people, and cultures as picturesque, and thus relegated as consumable places within the global system. Sheller observes that such a view constitutes a “rhetoric of presence” that fixes “the mastery of the seer over the seen” (50) and thus the picturesque perception of island people and ecologies constitutes a form of “world making” that reinforces a sense of timeless dissonance for the mainland/mainstream worldview. Thompson further argues that cultures and ecologies are drastically altered as islanders themselves buy into marketing influences and framing of mainland interests--what she terms, “tropicalization.” Taking the urban archipelago of Bermuda (primarily) as a case in point, I will discuss how the picturesque as a tropicalizing influence is shifting from idyllic hinterland representations of place to a more “urban” picturesque as globalization, communication technologies, and offshore financing are reframing island identity.

Biography: Peter Goggin is Associate Professor of English (Rhetoric) at Arizona State University where he studies and teaches theories of literacy, environmental rhetoric, and sustainability. He is the editor of Environmental Rhetoric and Ecologies of Place (2013), Rhetorics, Literacies, and Narratives of Sustainability (2009) and author of Professing Literacy in Composition Studies (2008). He is a Senior Scholar with ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability and founder and codirector of the annual Western States Rhetoric and Literacy conference.

Top

Stephen Graham (Newcastle University, England) Vertical Ground: Making Geology. Of all things, modern humans tend to naturalise the ground, seeing the terrestrial platform beneath them as some immutable and natural product of geological processes working gradually over unimagineable time horizons. Such an understandable tendency leads to an overwhelming sense of ground as an inherently horizontal phenomenon – the very surface of the earth stretching to and beyond the horizon. Such a perspective radically underplays the importance of the vertical accumulation and composition of ground. Increasingly, the terrestrial material beneath our feet is anything but ‘natural’ geology. Increasingly, it is made geology -- the vertically-accumulated phenomenon of manufactured ground.  Building on the ‘geological turn’ in the social sciences, arts and humanities, this lecture will explore the geographies and politics of such manufactured ground and will connect such processes to the global proliferation of manufactured, island cities. The lecture will address three interlocking themes: the deep geologies and ‘archaeospheres’ underlying industrial and ancient cities; the startling ‘waste grounds’ accumulated through urban waste disposal; and, finally, the complex geographies and politics of ‘reclaimed’ and manufactured land and island cities constructed through industrial dredging across the world’s urban littorals.

Biography: Stephen Graham is Professor of Cities and Society at Newcastle University’s Global Urban Research Unit and is based in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. His research concerns relations between cities, technology and infrastructure; urban aspects of surveillance; the mediation of urban life by digital technologies; and connections between security, militarisation and urban life. He is author of a number of major books, including Vertical: Looking at the City from Above and Below (forthcoming 2016) and Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (2011) as well as two books coauthored with Simon Marvin: Splintering Urbanism: Networked Structures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition (2001) and Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places (1996). Stephen Graham has been Visiting Professor at MIT and NYU, amongst other institutions.

Top

Adam Grydehøj (Island Dynamics, Denmark) Urbanisation and Small Island Spatiality. Regional, national, and global cities are disproportionately located on small islands and archipelagos. The prevalence of big cities on small islands suggests that aspects of island spatiality encourage the establishment of seats of government and trading posts on small islands: Territoriality benefits assist political and economic elites in maintaining local authority and projecting power outwards, defence benefits help protect local powerholders from external military threat, and transport benefits make strategically located small islands ideal sites for port industries. Land scarcity caused by island spatiality subsequently leads to urban densification and powerful agglomeration economies, resulting in the formation and growth of island cities.

Biography: Adam Grydehøj (PhD in Ethnology, University of Aberdeen) is founder and Director of Island Dynamics and chair of the ‘Island Cities and Urban Archipelagos’ and ‘Sea, Port, City’ research networks. He is Visiting Lecturer in Political Science at Ilisimatusarfik/University of Greenland and Research Associate at University of Prince Edward Island’s Institute for Island Studies. Grydehøj is Lead Editor of Urban Island Studies and sits on the editorial boards of Island Studies Journal, Shima, and Journal of Marine and Island Cultures.

Top

Pamila Gupta (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa) Futures, Fakes and Discourses of the Miniature and Gigantic in the World Islands Development, Dubai. This paper takes the “island” as a key trope in tourism studies, exploring how ideas of culture and nature, as well as those of paradise (lost) are central to its interpretation for tourists and tourist industries alike. Increasingly, however, island tourism is blurring the line between geographies of land and water, continent and archipelago, and private and public property. The case of “The World Islands” mega project development off the coast of Dubai (UAE) is used to chart the changing face of island tourism, exploring how spectacle, playfulness, branding and discourses of the fake, miniature and gigantic (Koch 2012; Abbas 2008; Stewart 1993) alongside technological mediations on a large scale (Jackson and della Dora 2011) reflect the postmodern neoliberal world of tourism that we live in (Sheller 2009), with artificial islands increasingly functioning as cosmopolitan “non-places” (Augé, 1995) in “junkspace” (Koolhaas, 2002). The shifting cartography of the “island” is thus mapped out to suggest new forms of place-making and tourism’s relationship to these floating seascapes.
Biography: Pamila Gupta is currently a Senior Researcher at WISER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University and researches in the areas of Lusophone connections between India and Africa, islandness in the Indian Ocean, and tourism studies.

Top

Miriam Gusevich (Catholic University of America, USA) Resilient Ocean City, Maryland: Urbanized Barrier Islands and the Ecology of Natural and Built Environments. The allure of the beach entices millions of people to the coast every year; floods, hurricanes and surges threaten this bewitching landscape and raise concerns with resilience. The concept of resilience has been very resilient: it has spread from ecology to economics, crisis management, international development, psychology and now urban design and sustainable development. We may understand resilience metabolically, as the ecology of natural and built environments or metaphorically, as cities’ capacity to learn and transform over time. We consider both for a resilient Ocean City. Ocean City is the largest beach town near Washington, DC. In contrast to the scenic setting in the barrier islands along the Mid-Atlantic coast, it is highly urbanized: strip development destroyed the beach dunes and landfill destroyed the bay wetlands. New lagoons will reconstruct wetlands and wildlife habitats to improve water quality. They will also offer a delightful setting for kayaks, dinghies, water - taxis and for pedestrian and bicycles along the shore. These will reduce reliance on the automobile and impervious parking surfaces and heat islands. Mixed use will replace defunct strips to enhance diversity and a new building typology will be more appropriate to a coastal zone.

Biography: Miriam Gusevich is an award winning urban designer, scholar and teacher. Recent design awards include Master Plan for Central Kiev and monument to the Euro-Maidan martyrs and Sibbesborg, a new town in Finland. Built projects include Jane Addams Memorial, Cancer Survivor’s Garden and new Mandrake Park, all in Chicago, Ill. Research grants include Arnold W. Brunner, Graham Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Cintas Foundation for Cuban American Architects. She is a founding principal of Gusevich-Miles Studio, LLC. She received a B.Arch and M.Arch from Cornell University and a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University.

Top

Naomi C. Hanakata (ETH Zurich-Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore) Archipelago of Centralities in Tokyo: A Paradigmatic Dynamic of Urban Dichotomies. Centralities are paradigmatic forms of urbanity in the sense that they are places of concentrated interaction and exchange. They are only defined through a wider context and a spatial relationality positioning one area central to another one, which then becomes peripheral. This conditionality is implicit in all processes defining an urban region but particularly evident in the dynamic between center and periphery. A socio-spatial analysis of Tokyo’s core area reveals a configuration of centralities, which form a discontinuous but strongly connected geography of centralities: an ‘archipelago of centralities’. The development trajectory of this configuration of centralities in Tokyo is a mirror of the city’s urbanization processes and its growing, diversifying, expanding, specializing and contracting condition. The paper will look at the dynamics of this archipelago of centralities as a general indicator for the interdependency of multiple processes shaping Tokyo’s urban region. It will look at the dialectic between center and periphery in particular as productive force over the last 20 years for a growing dichotomy due to socioeconomic restructuring processes, shifts of power and most of all a rapidly aging society.

Biography: Naomi C. Hanakata is an architect, urban designer, and researcher at the Future Cities Laboratory of the Singapore ETH Centre. Her research focuses on urbanization processes in and around megacity regions and their implication on a local and global scale. Her doctoral study looks at the question of differences within the larger metropolitan region of Tokyo. She is a graduate of ETH and received her training at ETH, Tokyo University and London School of Economics. She has worked on various scales as an architect, planner and consultant in Zurich, Tokyo, New York and Singapore and has taught at ETH and the National University of Singapore.

Top

Philip Hayward (Small Island Cultures Research Initiative, Australia) Tendrillar Connectivity: A Case Study of the Concept with Regard to the Relationship between London and Canvey Island. Tendrils are thin organs that extend from a plant’s main body and attach themselves to other plants or objects in order to secure traction for the plant’s growth. Drawing on this mechanism, this paper will explore the manner in which metropolitan centres can create particular types of spaces through tendrillar connections. These can take various forms (material and/or symbolic) and include connections generated by transport links and their particular patterns of use and development. Such links function to bring remote, non-metropolitan locations into the socio-economic and cultural spheres of metropolises, often aligning connected areas more to a remote metropolitan centre than to other parts of the regions in which they are located. The paper will explore the nature of this connection, and the resultant transformations with regard to Canvey Island, in Essex (United Kingdom) and its relationship with London. The paper will address how changing transport connections affected factors such as the natural hazard resilience of the location, related patterns of urbanization, socio-cultural developments and representations and local political impulses arising from these. It will consider the island concerned as both a discrete geo-spatial unit with its own distinct character and as a peripheral location in a quasi-archipelagic relationship to the city.

Top

C.Y. Jim (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) Planning for Sustainable Urban Green Infrastructure for Compact Cities. Urban green infrastructure (UGI), as ambassador and surrogate of nature in city, contributes significantly to ecosystem services, environmental well-being, quality of life, human health, happiness and productivity. Many cities have developed effective strategies and action plans to improve the quantity, quality, spatial spread and pattern of urban green spaces (UGS) in the universal quest for urban sustainability and liveability.  Compact cities in developed and developing countries commonly suffer from UGI and UGS shortage, and the nature deficit may be accentuated in land-deficient island cities. The resulting planning blight especially in old city cores and precincts often brings collateral problems of stifling cramped ambience, restricted ventilation and solar access, air pollution and urban heat island effect. The opportunities offered by urban renewal and new developments unfortunately often fail to usher amelioration. Innovative public policies and greening technologies are needed for systematic and long-term improvements. Based on field studies of UGI in over 100 cities and review of the literature and relevant urban ecological concepts, a sustainable greening master plan is proposed. The signature hallmark of naturalistic design is to establish UGS with a high degree of connectivity forming a green network to permeate the city. Preservation and creation of UGS with native species composition, complex biomass structure and rich biodiversity can reinforce the new dimension of UGS design. Heritage trees can receive statutory protection and high-order conservation efforts. Outstanding trees in construction sites deserve augmented protection. Tree transplanting demands substantial enhancement in concepts and skills. Improving roadside tree planting and maintenance offers a cost-effective way to upgrade the streetscape. Ameliorating widespread yet neglected soil limitations could remove a major hindrance to tree growth. Innovative ideas of development right transfer, street pedestrianization, river and canal revitalization, green roofs and green walls could mobilize hitherto underused plantable spaces and surfaces. Greening benefits can be communicated in economic-social terms to complement conventional ecological-environmental emphasis. Bottlenecks in institutional setup and scientific capability should be overcome. The public and the private sectors can work in tandem to insert plantable spaces and amenity vegetation into the urban fabric. Amalgamating natural and social sciences in a multidisciplinary approach, and reinforcing the link between science and public policies, could overhaul and pump-prime greening endeavours.

Biography: BA (HK), PhD (Reading), Cert Hydrology (US Geological Survey), MISoilSci, FArborA, CSci, BH, JP. Professor C.Y. Jim is Chair Professor in Geography of the University of Hong Kong. His research concentrates on the nature-in-city theme, encompassing urban ecology, urban forestry, urban greening, urban soil science, green roof, green wall and urban nature conservation. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach with an emphasis on compact and south cities, he focuses geographically on Hong Kong and other Chinese cities.  He has accumulated teaching and research experiences since 1981, and his publications have been recognized by the L.C. Chadwick Award for arboricultural research by the International Society of Arboriculture. He contributes as editorial-board member of six international journals related to urban ecology and urban forestry. [Additional information can be browsed at http://geog.hku.hk/staff_FT_Jim.html.]

Top

Changwei Jing (Zhejiang University, China) Implementation of General Land Use Planning in an Island Region: A Case Study of Zhoushan, China. General land use planning is not only the basic approach to implementing macro-control over land resources allocation but is also an important tool for ensuring the security of land resources. Monitoring implementation effects can provide necessary evidence for planning adjustment and revision. Compared with inland regions, islands regions face special problems, such as sensitivity of land use/land cover change (LUCC). This paper assesses the implementation of Zhoushan General Land Use Plan (2006-2020) and explores evaluation methods that are suitable for island regions. A comprehensive evaluation index system, which is composed of planning targets, land use structure, planning implementation management and intensive use of land was built up. The general idea of this paper is to make an objective evaluation and summary of the spatial and temporal effects of the planning implementation process and results in an evaluation year.

Biography: Jing, Changwei: Research associate of Institute of Island & Coastal Ecosystem & Ocean College, Zhejiang University. Education: Ph.D. in Remote sensing and information Tech, 2013, Zhejiang University, M.S. in Cartography and Geographical information engineering, 2007, Jilin University, Master of Surveying and Mapping Engineering, 2005, Jilin University.

Top

Adrianne Joergensen (ETH Zurich-Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore) Can Paradise and the City Co-Exist?: Tropical Tourism on the Singapore Strait. Singapore defies the image of a tropical island. Positioned one degree north of the equator, it has a steady, humid climate ideal for tourism. However, its strategic location along the Singapore Strait has historically created an industrial coastline. In its aspiration to become a tourism capital, Singapore has invested in recreating Paradise idylls in the surrounding archipelago. The tourist can easily find an ideal Paradise view in a remote tropical setting, but along the Singapore Strait, where 1,000 ships pass per hour; the resort must shield its tourists from the conflicting demands of industry. This research analyses 25 seaside resorts on Sentosa, Batam and Bintan islands to answer the question, “Can Paradise and the City co-exist?” More than a single entity, each resort is a composition of multiple architectural instruments, such as the arrangement of sight lines, implementation of Paradise icons, and framing of the landscape, that together synthetically create an ideal Paradise view. More importantly, their potentials and pitfalls reveal the resort as a critical lens for understanding the ongoing urban challenges of Singapore and its surrounding region.

Biography: Adrianne Wilson Joergensen is an architectural designer and research coordinator for ‘The Tourist’, a multi-disciplinary traveling research project at the ETH Zürich Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) in Singapore. She studies the historical and contemporary scenarios of views, their representation and spatial organization for tourists around Singapore and Java. She holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Architecture and a Bachelor of Graphic Design from North Carolina State University.

Top

Henry Johnson (University of Otago, New Zealand) Urbanizing Jersey: Development and Sustainability in a Small Island Context. As the southernmost islands in the British Isles, the Channel Islands occupy a space of inbetweenness and difference. They are British, yet self-governing, have much French influence due to their geographic location in the Bay of St Malo, and have enjoyed relative economic success with various industries, including agriculture, tourism and financial services. On the island of Jersey, each of these industries has helped grow the population, including permanent residents, contract workers, seasonal workers and short-term tourists. As a result, between 1950 and 2015 the island’s population has nearly doubled from about 55,000 to 100,000, and, consequently, Jersey has undergone much housing development, not only in and around the main parish capital of St Helier, but also in varying degrees in each of the island’s 11 other parishes. During this period of population growth, the island’s urbanization has been framed within a context of developing the island’s industries on the one hand, yet sustaining the island’s unique environment on the other. After all, one of the main qualities of Jersey that has helped its tourism industry has been its ability to maintain characteristics of the natural environment in a context of population growth and the increased resource restraints as a result of such urban change. Jersey’s population in the context of its land mass of around 118 square kilometres means that the island has a population density that is nearly double that of England. Thus, the population density of the island is about 847/km2 (England has 417/km2 and the UK has 266/km2). Further, islanders own a massive 121,551 registered vehicles that often congest many parts of the island’s narrow roads, which also contributes to a sense of urban sprawl in some contexts. This paper is a study of how the geographically small island of Jersey has reacted to economic growth and its place-based and locally defined urbanization through a policy of sustainability of the island’s natural resources. The discussion explores some of the consequences for islanders, particularly in terms of housing, and how development and sustainability have helped craft a distinct urban environment for the island that contributes to its local character.

Biography: Henry Johnson is Professor of Music at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His research interests are in Island Studies, Asian Studies and Ethnomusicology, and he has carried out field research in a number of island cultures in Europe, Asia and Australasia. His books include The Koto (Hotei, 2004), Asia in the Making of New Zealand (Auckland UP, 2006; co-edited), Performing Japan (Global Oriental, 2008; co-edited), The Shamisen (Brill, 2010), and The Shakuhachi (Brill, 2014). His publications in the field of Island Studies have appeared in Shima, Journal of Marine and Island Cultures, and Island Studies Journal.

Top

Ilan Kelman (University College London, England) Urban Island Health: Vulnerability and Resilience at the Land-Sea Interface. Many urban areas, particularly on islands, have long encroached into the sea through land reclamation, constructing artificial shorelines, and making protected harbours and estuaries a vibrant part of city life. Walls front small island state capitals such as Nuku’Alofa (Tonga) and Malé (Maldives), ostensibly to reduce vulnerability from waves, storms, and rising seas. Singapore's estuary and the islands of Amsterdam have been deliberately integrated into these cities’ character, appeal, and view of healthy living and resilience. Meanwhile, many island urban areas appear to be increasingly prone to encroachment from the sea. While hazards are changing under climate change, such as sea-level rise and projected increasing intensity (but decreasing frequency) of tropical cyclones, the key for health outcomes is vulnerability and resilience. Urban island enclaves illustrate: Canvey Island, England (below sea level) and Port St. Charles, Barbados (at sea level). Health outcomes are detrimentally impacted, such as expected flood casualties in Canvey Island and exacerbating the rich-poor gap and inequitable resource allocation across Barbados. Irrespective of environmental changes, human activity is markedly increasing urban island vulnerability at the land-sea interface.

Biography: Ilan Kelman http://www.ilankelman.org and Twitter @IlanKelman is a Reader in Risk, Resilience and Global Health at University College London, England and a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo. His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, including the integration of climate change into disaster research and health research. That covers three main areas: (i) disaster diplomacy and health diplomacy http://www.disasterdiplomacy.org; (ii) island sustainability involving safe and healthy communities in isolated locations http://www.islandvulnerability.org ; and (iii) risk education for health and disasters http://www.riskred.org.

Top

Kelvin Ko (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands) Realising a Floating City.
People have lived on the water for centuries in many places around the world. However, the concept of building on water has been reintroduced with a new idea in the last two decades. The new idea is to realise a very large floating structure which is as big as a city. Instead of multiple independent floating houses forming a floating community or residential district, this new idea is to realise a complete city-state which floats on the water, a so-called ‘floating city’. The floating city concept is still in development and not yet realised. Although land reclamation is today a popular method of gaining more building ground, the costs of land reclamation will increase with increasing water depth. As the water depth increases, so does the material needed to fill up this depth, while floating structures remain the same size regardless of the water depth.
The main question to be answered is: ‘Is it possible and realistic to create floating cities from a structural perspective?’ Answering this main research question, requires us to formulate several sub-questions:
-What kinds of floating platforms are needed?
-How can platforms be connected to each other to form a floating city?
-How can the floating city to be moored to stay at one location?
-What is the behaviour of the platforms, connections and moorings when the floating community is loaded by (large) waves?

Biography: Kelvin Ko (Netherlands, 15-07-1989), civil engineer. Graduated in 2015 for the Masters Degree of Hydraulic Engineering.

Top

Vilja Larjosto (Leibniz University of Hanover, Germany) Off-Season Urban Landscape on Sylt, Germany. Sylt is the most urban island in Germany, seasonal tourism driven gentrification being its most salient urban process. This presentation reflects spatial expressions of Sylt’s urban character in the off-season. Despite a natural–rural impression the island is an intriguing case for studying urban landscapes. Within hours the island can be reached via train from Hamburg or by plane from i.e. Zürich. Due to its connectedness, socio-economic patterns, services, infrastructure and size the island can be interpreted as an urban region. Nature on Sylt is a paradox construct of urban ideology and economy: Conservationists intervene the mobile nature of dunes, and attractive beaches require massive sand nourishments. Strict regulation protects landscape from sprawl, but real estate digs underground and prices escalate. Falling between the profitable counterparts of building and nature the quality of public space is neglected. Exclusiveness and seasonal peaks dominate the transformation of the island, but traces of urbanization remain all year. How do they articulate the off-season landscape? The talk relates to my doctoral thesis ‘Dynamic Urban Islands: Landscape strategies for urban growth on islands’, which aims to contribute to urban island studies from the perspective of landscape design and seasonality.

Biography: Vilja Larjosto, M.Sc. 2009 Helsinki University of Technology, is a Finnish landscape architect, teacher and researcher. Since 2014 she teaches “Designing Urban Landscapes” at Leibniz University of Hanover (LUH), Faculty of Architecture and Landscape, focusing on water dynamics, urban environment, research through design and the Anthropocene. In November 2015 she was accepted to the interdisciplinary TRUST/ARL PhD Programme at LUH with her research concept “Dynamic Urban Islands. Landscape strategies for urban growth on islands”. She aims to contribute to urban island studies from the perspective of large-scale landscape design and seasonality.

Top

Erik G. L’Heureux (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Amphibious Urbanism. Singapore, an island city-state located in the Malay Archipelago, stands within the larger urban context of Johor and the Riau archipelago – a composition of eight million people – hosting complex relationships with the sea that binds the territory together. Within this hydro-centric territory lies a series of urban relationships between land and sea, offering new approaches to inhabitation, density and climate change that supersede terra-centric growth.  The paper exposes existing urban-hydrological communities, including Kelongs in the locales of terra-centric Pulau Buluh, coast-centric Kukup and Senggarang, along with the hydro-centric fisheries in the Johor Straits. These sites are analyzed from an architectural perspective, offering a range of unique approaches to urban aggregation and climatic calibration. Utilization of the envelope, including roof and floor, reconfigures the relationship between structure, climate and spatial distance. Three proposed aggregation types (one hydro-, one terra- and one coast-centric) link new inhabitation practices to historical precedents, offering alternatives to urban development and achieving resilient growth. Learning from these existing urban forms facilitate novel urban development in areas wrought with increasing demand on densification, economic income disparity and the impact of climate change in a territory of tremendous flux.

Biography: Erik G. L'Heureux, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, is an American architect and educator. He is an Associate professor at the National University of Singapore, researching tropical envelops, density, and urban hydrology. He practiced architecture in New York City while teaching at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union. He studied as a Fitzgibbon Scholar at Washington University in St. Louis and received a Master of Architecture from Princeton University. Currently he serves as program director for the BA Architecture Program and leads the Climate + Territory Design Section as NUS. He has won several awards, including a Wheelwright Prize from Harvard University in 2015, a 2013 WAF Design Award, a Futurarc Green Leadership Award, a 2012 AIA New York City Design Award, a 2011 President Design Award from Singapore, and two AIA New York State Design Awards.

Top

Louis Wai-Chun Lo (National Taipei University of Technology, Taiwan) Island Imaginary in Hong Sang-soo’s Cinema. This paper explores the notion of ‘island imaginaries’ employed in Hong Sang-soo’s films, maintaining that his cinematic aesthetics and philosophical searches cannot be fully understood without a consideration of what role do geographical sites play in relationship to the themes. Hong’s films are always set in a city where the characters are by-passing, visiting for a few days in search of ideas, or just for holidays. This paper compares Hahaha (2010), which is set in Tongyeong, a port city then of military importance on the southern coast of South Korea. Its ‘islandness’ (G. Baldacchino) is compared with the mountain scenes, set in Namhan Fortress in Gwangju, in No Body’s Daughter Haewon (2013) and the resort town of Shinduri on the western coast in Woman on the Beach (2006). I argue that these sites are crucial in understanding Hong’s minimalistic and repetitious cinematic aesthetics if they are seen as a whole, contributing to an ‘island imaginary.’ Informed by Derrida’s notion of différence and Deleuze’s ideas of de-territorializatoin and re-territorialization, this paper attempts to explore how subjectivity is constructed under the framework of island imaginary in Hong’s films, which are regarded insightfully by Kim Kyung-hyun as ‘post political.’

Biography: Louis Lo is Assistant Professor at the Department of English, National Taipei University of Technology. He obtained his PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Male Jealousy: Literature and Film (Continuum, 2008), and co-author (with J. Tambling) of Walking Macao, Reading the Baroque (HKUP, 2009). He contributes chapters on literature and the city in Dickens and Italy: Little Dorrit and Pictures from Italy, eds. Hollington and Orestano (Cambridge Scholars, 2010), and Macau: Cultural Interaction and Literary Representation, eds. Wong and Wei (Routledge, 2014). His articles/book reviews appear in Textual Practice and Modern Language Review.

Top

Thomas Looser (New York University, USA) Of Islanding (and Portal) Urbanism. There have been previous moments in human history when the forces propelling urbanization produced island-like effects (regardless of actual geographic conditions)—urban worlds which were somehow closed to the outside, even while perhaps linked to the outside through paths of trade, politics, migration, etc. This paper takes up islanding as a manifestation of contemporary modes of urbanization, that have been emerging in response to immediate economic, environmental, technological and sociopolitical contexts. The focus is on special economic zone cities/regions, but with connections made to eco-cities and related projects. The claim is that, first, these are a key mode of urban creation arising as a response to current crises; second, that in varied but consistent ways they produce a kind of islanding of social form; and third that as “island” solutions to crisis, there is an implicit desire for something like a portal city, within an idea of the oceanic that no longer accords with classic understandings of islands, seas, trade connections, etc. The paper concludes with a glimpse of the fantasy of a new life and a new globality – “floating being” as one artist put it – that is emerging out of these same areas.

Biography: I received my PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago, and have taught East Asian Studies and Anthropology at McGill University and NYU. My area of focus is Japan, with an ongoing concern (and publication) in global conditions. Interests include critical theory, media studies, and urban studies; this paper emerges out of earlier work, including an article on the Global University: Neoliberal Geographies of the World in Cultural Anthropology and more recent publications on eco-cities in Japan; I am also co-editing a special issue of a new journal on Asia Diasporic Visual Arts, focused on islands and islanding.

Top

Meri Louekari (Aalto University, Finland) Urban Transformation: The Case of Helsinki Waterfront. Many Western cities are facing major processes of renewal, as former industrial and transportation areas are being transformed into new living and working districts. In this state of constant flux, cities have to rethink their direction and find ways to adjust to changing contexts. This paper is a study of transformation in an urban context, namely at the Helsinki waterfront. It explores different views of change, both for formal and informal fields of the transformation of the urban environment. Theory of episodic and continuous change provides the framework for the study. Helsinki – located on a peninsula and numerous small islands – has over 130 km of shoreline that is open to all. The transformation of Helsinki waterfont is analysed through themes of distributed leadership and co-creation.

Biography: Meri Louekari is an architect and urban researcher with special interest in reconciling top-down and bottom-up dynamics of urban development.

Top

Sean Mallon (Museum of New Zealand/Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand) Cosmopolitans and Beach Crossers: Histories of Visual Culture in Island Cities and Urban Archipelagos. In the twenty-first century urban spaces are conduits for the ever quickening and complex traffic in culture. They are connected and cosmopolitan spaces, the meeting places of many cultures, and the destinations and departure points for all kinds of people, commodities and ideas. From Port Moresby to Suva, from Auckland to Pape‘ete, the visual culture of Pacific Islands peoples living in island cities and urban archipelagos addresses a vast range of social, economic and political concerns. It reflects on histories of cultural loss and experience, it mediates recovery and change, and facilitates new processes of identity making. The cosmopolitan artists in these urban spaces are locally grounded and globally connected. They are conspicuous by their creativity and invention but also their appropriation of old and new ideas, ancient and contemporary technologies. In this presentation I will analyse the various ways these conditions challenge how we create, think and write about visual culture in the Pacific. I will use examples from across the region and reflect on histories of contemporary art, tattooing, reggae, hip hop, and Hong Kong cinema.

Biography: Sean Mallon is of Samoan and Irish descent and is Senior Curator Pacific Cultures at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. He is the author or lead editor of five books including Tatau: Samoan tattoo, New Zealand art, global culture (2010) and Tangata o le Moana: the story of New Zealand and the people of the Pacific (2012). He was co-author of Art in Oceania: A new history (2012). His exhibitions include Paperskin: the art of tapa cloth (2009); Tangata o le Moana (2007), Voyagers: discovering the Pacific and Tatau/Tattoo (2002).He has been a council member of The Journal of the Polynesian Society since 2008.

Top

William McConnell (Michigan State University, USA) Prospects for Meeting Urban Madagascar's Domestic Energy Needs with Local, Renewable Biomass. The isolation that characterizes islands can reach into every economic realm. While many manufactured goods must generally be imported, sometimes even basic necessities such as food and energy may be lacking. While Madagascar has some oil reserves, like many islands it has no domestic refining capacity and faces a future of volatile and rising petroleum prices as global supplies dwindle. While many modern economies seek to shift back to biomass-based fuels – with targets of 20% for the year 2020 seen as quite a challenge – more than half of the domestic energy supply of Madagascar's capital city, Antananarivo, is already being supplied by artificial tree plantations. At the same time, however, the country's farmland is being targeted by corporations from East Asia seeking to produce animal feed to meet their own growing urban classes' appetite for meat. This paper traces the historical, political and cultural environment that enabled and supports the remarkable energy self-sufficiency of Madagascar's urban population, and explores the tradeoffs the island faces with food production.

Biography: William McConnell is a human-environment geographer specializing in land use and land cover change. He has conducted research on issues relating to biodiversity conservation in Africa and in China.

Top

Arijana Medvedec (University of Lisbon, Portugal) Urban Islands and Identity Building in a Multicultural City. Due to its metaphoricity, the concept of the urban island has been gaining ground in island and urban studies in an attempt to encompass both and bridge the in-between (Grydehøj, 2015). On the other hand, contemporary cities are becoming increasingly multicultural in terms of their identity, thus forming complex composite cultures (Glissant, in Hiepko, 2011) and offering fertile ground for depicting identity representations (Hall, 1997) through the use of the media (Lipovetsky & Serroy, 2007). Urban space is also ephemeral and fragmentary, both on the outside – in its geography, and on the inside – in the ethnography and anthropology of the identity-building processes of its inhabitants. In this context, the paper will analyze Sérgio Tréfaut’s film Lisboetas/Lisboners (2004) as a documentary shedding light upon new urban communities in Lisbon and these communities’ realities and identity practices. The paper will discuss the film’s visual narrative discourse in order to examine to what extent these communities can be perceived as ever-changing urban (socio-cultural) islands.

Biography: Arijana Medvedec, MA in Comparative Literature: Portuguese and French, is currently an associated researcher at CLEPUL 5 – Centre for Lusophone and European Literatures and Cultures/Iberian-Slavonic Interculturality, and a PhD candidate in Culture and Communication (comparative Portuguese/Croatian perspective) at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Lisbon. She is also one of the founding members of CompaRes – International Society for Iberian-Slavonic Studies, and an associated member of GEsIPI – Group for the Study of Identities and Identity Practices (FLUL/ILTEC). Her research interests include cultural and island studies, communication, new media, utopia, comparative literature, narrative and traditional literature.

Top

Kelema Lee Moses (Occidental College, USA) Accounting for Urban Space and Coastlines: Modernizing the Honolulu International Airport. For thousands of years, unfazed by physical boundaries, the people of Oceania traversed the Pacific Basin in canoes. By the nineteenth-century, large-scale colonial efforts in the region initiated the presence of arbitrary boundaries that created distinction and ideological differences among Pacific island nations. However, amidst an increasingly globalizing twenty-first century world, Islanders have reconnected in a way that harkens back to native notions of interconnectivity. Not only are Pacific Islanders leaving and/or commuting between islands, but people from all over the world are visiting and settling in the islands at an unprecedented rate. Air travel supports these perpetual comings-and-goings. As such, this paper explores how bodies in transit through airport spaces affect architectural and urban design. I use the Honolulu International Airport (on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu) as a case study. I focus, first, on the redesign of the Honolulu International Airport (2013-2017) by HOK Architects in order to analyze the ways in which the structure impacts the coastline landscape of Oahu. I then address how the redesigned airport confronts local and touristic expectations of a space embedded into the urban fabric of the Hawaiian Islands.

Biography: My research focuses on discourses of collective subjectivities, identity, and race within urban environments of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specifically, I look at ways in which spatial legacies can be interpreted as cognitive tools by which national and indigenous identities are extracted and reformulated across cultural boundaries. I’m currently a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Architectural History and Urban Design at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Top

Zarina Muhammad (LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore) Magic, Belief, and Cultural Production in Singapore: Engaging with Southeast Asian Traditional Art Forms in the Island City. The realm of the magical and mystical has always been contained within its own world: sustained through its practitioners and believers, and explored by those who attempt to document it through academia and ethnographic research. Within myriad regions of urban Southeast Asia, esoteric beliefs continue to contribute to the vastly heterogeneous forms of religious practices. My paper aims to examine the 'invisible histories' of these magico-religious traditions, the issue of cultural translation and the intersections between artistic practice, ethnographic research, oral histories, intangible heritage and questions of cultural difference, identity and transformation. How can artists, curators and researchers engage with these ideas in relevant and coherent ways? In what ways do these aspects of tradition, history, heritage, environment, culture and identity play an increasingly significant role in social and public debates, and artistic practice in urban Southeast Asia? By examining the shifting borders underpinning and surrounding the ecosystems of visual arts practice in the island city of Singapore, we consider the ways in which the cultural worker/producer engages with concerns pertaining to the social, material, political, sacred, spiritual and transcendental realities of this region. We explore how Singaporean artists negotiate and create work through the lenses of these cultural revisions, reinstatements, rejection and anxieties. In so doing, these individuals reflect upon how these forms, beliefs, and practices are reconciled in a world of multiple and contending modernities. Cultural workers/producers furthermore negotiate the residual colonial legacies and cultural tensions that still play a part in shaping the communities of present-day Southeast Asia.

Biography: Zarina Muhammad is an independent curator, researcher, writer and educator. She lectures on art history and cultural/critical studies at LASALLE College of the Arts. As the co-founder of Etiquette SG, a Singapore-based art collective, she co-curated and was involved in a series of visual arts exhibitions, literary readings, spoken word performances and panel discussions from 2009-2013. Her other curatorial projects include collaborations with independent art spaces such as The Substation, human rights group MARUAH, Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), Animal Concerns Research & Education Society (ACRES) and Sayoni. She is one of the editors of Body Boundaries, an anthology of women’s writing published by The Literary Centre, Singapore. Currently, Zarina is working on a multidisciplinary research project on Myth, Materiality, Ritual, Folk Religion, Mysticism and Magic.

Top

Jeffrey S. Nesbit (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA) & Caleb Lightfoot (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA) Islands within Islands: A Case Study on Jakarta’s Urban Heterogeneity. Jakarta, a megalopolis situated on the island of Java, is a place rife with the memory of recent turmoil where disparate socioeconomic groups and urban memories – in lieu of centralized ordering systems – find co-existence. The heterogeneity that characterizes the urban conditions of Jakarta obtains ‘systems of colliding and wandering grids’ including the ‘materialization of plurality’. Whether considering the colonial origins of Batavia as an extension of 17th century Dutch globalizing cosmology, slum villages known as Kampungs, or embedded urban memories of Suharto’s New Order Regime, Jakarta is an island city where non-linear and ‘intensive contiguities’ offer inquiries into boundaries between ‘this and that’. This paper identifies urban islands and the effects of Jakarta as a heterotopic island built from various transplanted influences – such as historical colonization, the rise of radical tourism, and the effect of global financial markets – to speculate future growth in the 21st century mega-city. Due to these paradoxical patchworks, this research focuses on Jakarta’s ‘islands within islands’, a case study on the contemporary and future unplanned heterogeneity.

Biographies: Jeffrey S. Nesbit holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and received his first Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Texas Tech University. Currently teaching design in the School of Architecture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, his research work focuses on landscape urbanism as innovative design criteria for future urban speculation.
Caleb Lightfoot holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Texas Tech University with honors. Currently as graduate student in the College of Architecture, his work investigates the role between architecture, cartography, and archeology.

Top

Collier Nogues (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) 'with [our] entire breath': Military Suburbanization on Guam and Craig Santos Perez's Literature of Resistance. Since 2006’s bilateral U.S.-Japan pact, the island of Guåhan (Guam) has anticipated a buildup of U.S. military and civilian personnel scheduled to add an estimated 79,000 people to Guåhan’s current 160,000. The buildup will constitute the newest example of the distinctive form of suburbanization common to American military installations overseas, what urban design scholar Mark L. Gillem has called “America Towns.” Local resistance to this uninvited, militarized suburbanization has been strong, led by groups such as ‘We are Guåhan’ and ‘i nasion chamoru’. One of the most strident critics is Chamorro poet Craig Santos Perez. Throughout his three-book project /from unincorporated territory/, Perez interweaves public source documents with intimate family stories and Chamorro history, positioning the poems as navigational vessels through a sea of inseparably personal and political language. In this paper, I will discuss the most recent installment, 2014’s /[guma’]/, in which Perez incorporates other activists’ public comments against the U.S. Navy’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Perez means to “re-circulate these testimonies in another sphere,” reimagining literature’s capability to serve as a nexus of activism, and charting a way to resist militarized suburbanization in Guåhan and beyond.

Biography: Collier Nogues is a Hong Kong Ph.D. Fellow in the University of Hong Kong’s School of English, where she studies U.S. poetry and militarization in the Pacific. She holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of California, Irvine, and is the author of two poetry collections, /The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground/ (Drunken Boat, 2015) and /On the Other Side, Blue/ (Four Way, 2011). She is Lingnan University’s Spring 2016 Writer-in-Residence.

Top

Urban Nordin (Stockholm University, Sweden) & Lenn Jerling (Stockholm University, Sweden) The Archipelago in a Growing Metropolitan Area: The Case of Stockholm. This presentation aims to describe and analyze the Stockholm archipelago from a time-space perspective, with focus on how and why natural and social conditions have changed over the past 200 years. Not only is the city of Stockholm itself is based on a series of islands, but the seas around it are filled with numerous small islands, the so-called Stockholm Archipelago. This presentation will first analyze the relationships between the islands of the Stockholm Archipelago and the outer world, especially Stockholm. These relationships have changed dramatically over the past hundred years, with a population decline. Small-scale farming and fishing have also been sharply reduced parallel to increasing second-home tourism. As a consequence, the landscape has changed in that the second homes have created an opportunity to increase biodiversity in the archipelago, a biodiversity that had declined during the islands’ intense use from 1700s until the second half of the 1900s. There are now approximately 40,000 second homes in the area with a permanent population of just over 10,000.

Biographies: Urban Nordin: Urban Nordin PhD Senior Lecturer Research profile: Second Home Tourism. Local & regional development with focus on archipelago issues.
Lenn Jerling: PhD Prof in Plant Ecology. Research Profile: archipelago issues.

Top

OuZuan (Sun Yat-sen University, China) Re-Marginalization of the Marginal Group: A Case Study of the Dan People in the Transformation of the Fishery Society in Sanya City, Hainan Province. According to Manuel Castells’s theory of the dual city, urban inequality generates the spatial distinction between social classes. Whether or not marginal groups could gain equal opportunities in urban renewal process largely depends on their position within the network of state, society and market, as well as the interplay of globalization and localization. Aiming at an international tourist place, Sanya city, Hainan province, is launching a Yacht Harbor by the relocation of Sanya port to Yazhou bay. The Dan people (Fishermen), a marginalized group in traditional Han society in the long history, are denied access to deserved benefits and deprived rights to make a living by fishing in the process. Increasingly in short of the supply of natural and social resources, they are re-marginalized in both physical space and social space during the transformation of the fishery society. In that case, Chinese urbanization would bring up more conflicts and instability in social transformation of the island.

Biography: OuZuan, born in 1986, with a MA degree in anthropology, is a PhD student in anthropology at Sun Yat-sen University. I am also a visiting research associate in Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica. 2011-2014，I have been a lecturer in Social Development College of San Yat-sen University for three years. My research topics include island society, marine culture, and academic history of anthropology. Now, my project is “Comparative Study of the Transformation of the Fishery Societies on Hainan and Taiwan Islands” (National Social Research Fund project).

Top

Stephen Pratt (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong) Food Miles and Menu-Based Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Case of an Upscale Urban Hotel in Hong Kong. Food sources for hotels and resort have been an increasingly important topic of interest for scholars and practitioners alike in recent years. Sources of foods have important implications for the economic, environmental and socio-cultural sustainability of tourist destinations. The implications can be exacerbated on islands where there is a lack of land and food processing industries. Using a case study of an upscale urban hotel in Hong Kong, this research calculates the source of food and beverages and hence food miles one such hotel. Further, the paper then estimates the subsequent greenhouse gas emissions associated with this hotel. Follow-up interviews with the hotel’s procurement and executive chefs reveal the motivation behind these purchase decisions.

Biography: Dr Stephen Pratt joined the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University as Assistant Professor in January 2013. He graduated with his PhD in 2009 from the University of Nottingham, UK. He is currently Adjunct Research Associate at USP. His current research interests include the economic impacts of tourism; cruise tourism and film tourism.

Top

Jiaguo Qi (Zhejiang University, China & Michigan State University, USA), Changwei Jing (Zhejiang University, China), Jingang Jiang (Zhejiang University, China), Guanqiong Ye (Zhejiang University, China), Huan Zhang (Zhejiang University, China), Haibo Wan (Zhejiang University, China), Jiaping Wu (Zhejiang University, China), & Peilei Fan (Michigan State University, USA) The Nexus of Water, Energy and Food in Sustainability Assessment of the Zhoushan Archipelago, China. Economic development is accelerating on the Zhoushan Islands of China’s Zhejiang Province, with rapid urbanization, port development, increasing tourism, and land use conversions. Such rapid development is widely recognized as unsustainable due to natural constraints in freshwater availability, energy production, and terrestrial land for food production. A critical question is how to achieve sustainable development given the islands’ resource limitations. A socio-ecological framework is needed to holistically examine the nexus of water, energy and food in the context of sustainability science. In this study, we adopt the concept of sustainability science framework to examine the water, energy and food nexus of the Zhoushan Islands. Using a suite of socioeconomic, demographic and geospatial datasets, we first establish a framework and then test it to validate the concept, and then subsequently apply it to the nexus of water, energy and food. Built within the framework are agent-based models, expert systems, network analysis and biophysical processes that are hypothetically linked to achieve a balanced society. This work is still in progress, but preliminary results will be presented at the conference.

Biography: Jiaguo Qi, professor. Dean of Center for Global Change & Earth Observations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.

Top

Shuangshuang Qiu (Zhejiang University, China), Wenze Yue (Zhejiang University, China), Huan Zhang (Zhejiang University, China), & Jiaguo Qi (Zhejiang University, China) Impacts of the Establishment of the Zhoushan Archipelago New Area on Island Ecosystem Service Value. The implementation of national policy has a remarkable impact on urban social economy and land use. Islands are more sensitive in their responses to various interferences because of their closed spatiality. In 2011, the Zhoushan Archipelago was formally established with the theme of the marine economy. The establishment of the New Area promotes Zhoushan’s administrative status, carries with it privileges and rights, and exerts influence over the archipelago’s land use and ecosystem. This research concerns the establishment of the New Area as a policy interference factor and chooses 2010 and 2014 as two study points. Based on the ArcGIS and InVEST models, the ecosystem service value of these two study points will be evaluated respectively. Comparing these two different ecosystem service values allows the determination of the impact of outside interference on the Zhoushan Archipelago’s ecosystem service value. Finally, the processes and mechanisms of interference impacts will be discussed.

Biography: Shuangshuang Qiu is a PHD student in the Department of Land Management, Zhejiang University.

Top

Kirsten Marie Raahauge (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark) Islands of the Past, Islands of Leisure. Denmark is a nation of many islands. This paper deals with the phenomenon of small Danish islands and their depopulation. Some 50 years ago most of the small islands were populated. Since then they have become gradually depopulated. At the same time they have become the imaginary places of city dwellers from the bigger islands, who long for the past and are nostalgic about nature. Many city dwellers go to the small, depopulated island villages for leisure. This presentation will discuss a pilot project conducted by the studio Blankspace called Islands (Øer). Blankspace consists of two architects, an artist and an anthropologist. ‘Øer’ deals with the phenomenon of islands and how they are imagined and used by city dwellers. This pattern is also seen on a global scale and therefore gives impetus to rethink the field of urbanisation, and of centre and periphery in connection with islands and the coming and going of city dwellers to these small societies in a Danish context.

Biography: KMR is trained as an anthropologist at The Department of Anthropology, The University of Copenhagen (mag.scient./master), and The Department of Design and Architecture, Aalborg University (Ph.D.). KMR has been employed at several universities (as assistant professor, post doc., researcher, and lecturer) and is partner in the studio Blankspace. KMR has executed consultant projects, is editor and referee for journals and anthologies, organizer of conferences, seminars and sessions, and supervisor and lecturer. KMR is currently associate professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. KMRs research pivots around the anthropology of space (including cities, neighbourhoods, homes, landscapes, and haunted houses).

Top

Pinar Ulucay Righelato (Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus) & Bahar Ulucay (Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus) Tracing the Urbanization Process of Nicosia/Cyprus through the Narratives of Urban Elites.
Urban contexts are multifaceted spaces created by a diversity of individuals, groups and institutions whose morals, values and decisions impact upon the course of development of cities. However, it is the unbroken presence of urban elites and their leading role in urban politics that influence the everyday life and therefore change the landscapes of any place, specifically island cities. Due to their political impact and therefore leading role on the societies and institutions, urban elites have always been regarded as gifted individuals with necessary capabilities to make contributions towards the urban governance and therefore the planning/development of a city. In order to understand the urban development process of any settlement, it is worth glancing back to the history of capital cities as they have always been the practical and symbolic focus of national and/or colonial administrations. Correspondingly, the urban landscapes of Nicosia – the capital of Cyprus – have greatly been influenced by the British imperialism and therefore colonial practice and legislation which were in force in between 1879 and 1960. Being extremely versatile in its outlook and methods, the British tried to avoid military action to the benefit of dependence on networks of local elites who voluntarily collaborated and in turn gained authority (and military protection) from British recognition. The narratives drawn from the history of Cyprus demonstrate that without the presence of local elites, British colonial administration could not fully accomplish its imperial ideology which involved ‘bringing civilization and modernity’ to the island. Through the oral and written narratives of selected actors, the paper will trace the urbanization process of the city of Nicosia from the traditional historic city to the suburbs.

Biographies: Pinar Ulucay Righelato: After being rewarded a commonwealth scholarship to study architecture at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK, the author was granted a BSc degree in Architecture in 1993. Her 10-year experience in practice includes work carried out in small architectural offices both in Northern Cyprus and Turkey. Her Master’s degree on ecological design and Phd degree on European Spatial Planning were both funded by Eastern Mediterranean University where she worked as a research assistant and part-time instructor for many years. The author has teaching experience in other Cypriot institutions including Near East and Cyprus International Universities. In year 2011, she was awarded a European Union scholarship to enhance her knowledge and experience in sustainable building design at the Center for Alternative Technology in Wales. She is currently teaching as a full-time instructor at Eastern Mediterranean University.
Bahar Ulucay: The author finalized her BArch degree in Architecture at Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir in 2002. While working in practice, the author earned her MArch degree on urban history from Eastern Mediterranean University in 2007 where she also gained experience as a teaching assistant. As part of her professional training, she worked in various architectural offices gaining experience in housing and office design as well as renovation. Since 2010 she has been working as a senior lecturer in Faculty of Architecture of Eastern Mediterranean University where she teaches foundation year courses. The author has recently obtained a MSc degree in Architecture in Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies in UK where she developed specific interest in sustainable architecture.

Top

Duarte Santo (University of Madeira, Portugal) and Ana Salgueiro (University of Madeira, Portugal) How to Grow a Pearl in the Atlantic?: Reframing Identity and Early Tourism Narratives on Madeira Island. In the early 20th Century, the Portuguese island of Madeira witnessed two apparently unrelated phenomena. On one hand, autonomist positions were accentuated in discussions concerning the island’s identity narrative relative to Portugal in terms of inclusive differentiation (Beck). On the other hand, political and economic actors used tourism as a response to the crisis affecting Madeira, creating institutional and promotional tools to support and regulate this growing economic activity. However, tourism is a multidimensional phenomenon and no stranger to cultural and psychogeographic processes such as the subjective relationship with space and the ‘other’ or the construction of cultural imaginaries (Baldacchino; Fortuna). Adopting a hermeneutic approach, we will look at discourses of Madeira produced either by natives or visitors in order to explore the images of the island being designed in these discourses. Who defines these cartographies? What roles do natives and tourists occupy? Who are subjects and/or objects of the gaze? How were these tourist representations of Madeira received or even manipulated by the autonomist and insular independence speech? We thus aim to explore and understand how the images produced by tourism narratives, both local and foreign, were incorporated into the islanders’ identity and generated what became the ‘Pearl of the Atlantic’.

Biographies: Ana Salgueiro is a researcher with an interest in insular studies (cultural and literary approaches, with a focus on Lusophone islands); memory studies; disaster studies; human and cultural transit and translation. Author, editor and coordinator of several research projects, she is completing her PhD in Culture Studies at the Catholic University of Portugal (UCP). She is a member of CECC-Research Center for Communication and Culture Studies, UCP.
Duarte Santo is an Architect and Researcher focusing on Land, Sea and Tourism in Island spaces. Graduate in Oporto school of Architecture holds a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture and is pursuing his Doctoral Research degree at the University of Westminster. Along with a solid academic background, a strong practice base characterizes his career, individually or in collaboration with artists and international practices like OMA-Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Addresses Architecture as multidisciplinary, interactive with broader forms of artistic expression and pursues the exploration of tools for reflection on contemporary spatial, social and cultural dimensions. They are both members of CIERL- Research Centre for Local and Regional Studies, University of Madeira Island.

Top

Gerald Steyn (Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa) The Impacts of Islandness on the Urbanism and Architecture of Mombasa. Most of the Swahili port cities that occupied the western rim of the medieval Indian Ocean long-distance trading system were founded on islands. Dating from as early as the 10th century CE, Lamu and Zanzibar have become ‘museumified’ as World Heritage sites, while others such as Kilwa and Pate are now uninhabited ruins. Mombasa Island is, however — in spite of numerous calamities — an increasingly important commercial hub and gateway into East Africa. This study aims to determine how the intrinsic nature of islandness has been shaping the settlement patterns and architectural forms that embody this continuous process of urbanisation. A typological analysis serves to explore Mombasa Island’s layers of spatiality and morphology. More than any other East African city, Mombasa Island reflects the synthesis of the distinctive settlement traditions of the Swahilis, Portuguese, Omanis and, subsequently, the British colonisers, through to its current state as dynamic modern urban centre. Compact, complex and culturally diverse, Mombasa Island’s wide range of urban and architectural typologies offers a comprehensive conspectus of unique island concepts for contemporary African urban and architectural solutions.

Biography: Gerald Steyn is Research Professor at the Department of Architecture of the Tshwane University of Technology. He holds B Arch and M Arch degrees from the University of the Free State and a PhD from the University of Pretoria. His academic and research interests include settlement dynamics and vernacular African architecture, with a special focus on African urbanism, affordable housing and good neighbourhoods.

Top

Elaine Stratford (University of Tasmania, Australia) Three key insights into an island city transformed: larger lessons from the flourishing of Hobart. Formerly the territory of the Mouheneener tribe, Tasmania’s capital city of Hobart was founded by the British in 1803 as a defensive post and penal colony. Geographically isolated, the island colony (and, following federation in 1901, the island state) and its capital city have been subject to slow population and economic growth. Both have also experienced periods of significant social disadvantage and economic hardship, evidence for which continues to the present time. Yet, it is possible to discern significant shifts in how Hobartians now see their city—discourses of deficit are being supplanted by others about innovation and creativity often drawing on the particularity of this island place. From these shifting storylines certain needs have been identified as necessary to fashion a vibrant future. Among them three concern me here: how to improve young people’s educational attainment levels; how to support new forms of economic development and foster population growth; and how to celebrate the islandness of the city in pursuit of these other goals. This paper considers these matters critically; advances key insights into the elements affecting an island city’s transformation; and identifies both that which is unique to this setting and that which illuminates island-city dynamics more generally.

Biography: Elaine Stratford is Professor of Cultural and Political Geography at the University of Tasmania. Her research seeks to identify the conditions in which people flourish in place, in their movements, in daily life, and over the life-course—not least in cities and island places. Elaine is the Interim Director of the University’s Peter Underwood Centre for Educational Attainment, a centre of excellence to improve educational outcomes in Tasmania and raise young people’s aspirations for tertiary education throughout their lives. Elaine is Editor-in-Chief of Geographical Research and lead editor of the Rethinking the Island series published by Rowman and Littlefield International.

Top

Ping Su (Sun Yat-sen University, China) Contact Zones in Urban Guangzhou: A Study of Interminority Relations between Uyghur Migrants and African Diasporas in Xiaobeilu Area. Guangzhou, located in Pearl River Delta, is a world factory and a major commercial port in South China. Famous for its foreign trade and business, and bi-annual Canton Fair, China’s largest trade fair, the city has attracted many migrants, both domestic and international. And the influx of migrants in the past 30 years has fueled the rapid urbanization of Guangzhou. Among these migrants, the most noticeable are the Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the black diasporas from Africa who gathered in the same commercial area of Xiaobeilu and formed a new type of international Muslim community there. This paper, by developing hypotheses from various well-established theories related to group categorization and identification, intergroup contacts and multicultural endorsement, will analyze the social distances of Uyghur and African communities toward each other, and toward the majority group of Han Chinese. A large scale survey will be conducted to investigate how the two communities commingle in a shared space, whether there is conflict or coalition between them, and what their attitudes toward each other and toward the majority group are.

Biography: Su Ping is a lecturer in the Faculty of Foreign Languages and International Studies at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. She has a PhD degree in English literature from the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include ethnic and diasporic studies, and visual arts.

Top

Yehre Suh (Seoul National University, South Korea) Extraterritorial Archipelagos of the Koreas: SEZs and a Third Korea. Since the 1953 Korean Armistice, North and South Korea have been officially at war with constant skirmishes, political drama. On the surface, war seems immanent, but subsurface, currents of the free global market flow strongly through the urban archipelagos of both Korea’s Special Economic and Tourism Zones. The extraterritoriality of the SEZs offer a zone that is neither North nor South with an operational platform divergent from mainstream politics. But they are also volatile urban islands where both Koreas are unified under the rubric of the neoliberal global market despite the incessant threat of shutdown and catastrophic financial loss, as experienced at the Mt. Kumgang Special Tourism Zone and the Kaesung Industrial Complex. This article investigates the spatial mechanism of these volatile yet persistent spatial products as a third Korea where new urban territorial concepts are explored as a means to sustain their parallel co-dependency.

Biography: Yehre Suh is currently the Assistant Professor of Urban Design at Seoul National University, Graduate School of Environmental Studies. She is also the Principal of Office of Urban Terrains and is currently the Curator of Asian Urbanism at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju Korea. She was awarded the Graham Foundation Grant in 2008, Cornell Arts Council Grant in 2009, 2010, Rotch Foundation Grant in 2012, and the ARKO Grant for Criticism in the Arts, and SNU Promising Pioneer Research Grant in 2015. Her work was part of the 14th Venice Biennale Korean Pavilion exhibition in 2014 which won the best pavilion Golden Lion award.

Top

R. Swaminathan (Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives, Observer Research Foundation, & National Internet Exchange of India, India) Islands of Faith: Dargahs and Secularisation of Everyday Work and Leisure in Mumbai. Mumbai exhibits a complex relationship between its archipelagic roots, physical forms, narrative articulations and metaphorical landscapes. This paper seeks to unravel the unique coastal logic that has shaped the Dargahs of Mumbai. Across the South Asian world Dargahs are firmly located within the Sufi metaphysical tradition of spiritual mysticism. The Dargahs of Mumbai are remarkably different in the way in which they seamlessly intermesh spirituality, mysticism and daily and secular common sense with the various strands of established religions like Islam and Hinduism. A large part of their unique social fabric is the result of Mumbai’s archipelagic nature. It has allowed the philosophical basis of Sufism to be stretched, expanded and reoriented to not only include different epistemological positions from around the world, but also bestow notions of ‘saintly divinity’ to seemingly ordinary people from a prosperous Uzbeki business man (Peer Haji Ali Dargah) to a Portuguese sailor (Peer Pedru Baba Dargah). In co-locating themselves in both the sacred and profane domains, the city’s Dargahs construct narrative bridges between religion, faith, local pagan beliefs and notions of work, leisure and entrepreneurial spirit created interconnected islands of faith. Such a physical and metaphorical landscape runs counter to the strict binaries of scientific rationality, especially the church-state dichotomy, that underpin conventional notions of modernity, secularism and urbanity These islands of faith are constitutive of a deeper discursive framework that has spawned a unique non-western conceptualisation of modernity, urbanity and secularism in Mumbai. This paper will uncover these sites of articulation, negotiation, engagement and contestation. Such sites have also provided a continuing context for Dargahs to reorient their fundamental relationships with Islam and Sufism and to establish connections with Hinduism. This has helped Dargahs establish a larger set of faith-based articulations creating a syncretic belief system that transcends traditional religious boundaries, while architecting a modern and secular discourse of urbanity.

Biography: R. Swaminathan is a political scientist by training and received his doctoral degree from India s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He has over 16 years of research, media, teaching and corporate experience. Currently, he is associated with the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI) as Chief Programmes Officer (CPO), as Visiting Senior Fellow of Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Fellow of the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and as Contributing Editor with the magazine Governance Now. He has been involved with studying various dimensions of urbanity. His recent research areas predominantly deal with the intersections of digital technologies with urbanity and daily lived experiences. He believes in an interdisciplinary approach in studying the various forms of urbanisms and borrows tools, techniques and methodologies from sociology, anthropology and the emerging area of technosciences. He is the author and editor of five books, including the forthcoming Notes of a Digital Gypsy: Decoding the Other India, and has presented several papers at international conferences and workshops. He also writes extensively on cities and digital technologies in the popular media. Swaminathan lives in Bangalore.

Top

Michael Tanko (Griffith University, Australia) Bridge Them up or Improve the Ferries: Challenges to the Mobility and Sustainability of Hong Kong’s Outlying Islands. Hong Kong has numerous outlying islands that are relatively less developed due to isolation from the urban core areas. These islands present unique opportunities for urban island studies. Higher global oil prices have made ferry transport increasingly expensive, yet little is done from the private operators with limited investment for fleet or technological improvements. Government plans increasingly view outlying islands as spaces for urban expansion and have proposed building more bridges/tunnels favouring land-based modes. Yet without affordable transport options, stagnant population and constrained development may occur due to limited mobility and accessibility. This is a long-term threat to the sustainable communities on the outlying islands, despite island community interest in better ferry services. Meanwhile, preference for island living and ferry transport has seen resurgence in certain Western countries, which is not as evident in Hong Kong. Hence this paper investigates the issues of ferry transport on Hong Kong’s outlying islands from a transport and land use viewpoint. Using census and transport statistics, the population change and journey to work patterns are analysed. Three case study islands are selected for in-depth study. The transport problems faced by the case islands are further conceptualised and scenarios of sustainable island futures are proposed.

Biography: Michael Tanko is a PhD candidate at Griffith University's Urban Research Program in Brisbane, Australia. His research concerns transport and land use studies, looking specifically at the evolution of urban water transit systems worldwide.

Top

Ruffina Thilakaratne (Chu Hai College of Higher Education, Hong Kong) & Paul Hoi Shan Chu (Chu Hai College of Higher Education, Hong Kong) Heat Island within Urban Island Hong Kong. Urban areas report higher air temperatures compared to rural areas due to building envelopes and paved areas that radiate heat. Air temperature differences between rural and urban Hong Kong varies from 1.1-5.5° C. Hong Kong Observatory (2008) predicted an exponential increase in the temperature by the end of the Century “…there will be a temperature increase of 3.0.” This phenomenon is called ‘Urban Heat Island Effect’ (UHIE) which leads to poor thermal comfort levels, low energy efficiency, and most significantly health impacts. Notable differences between urban areas compared to rural areas include the high built density and therefore lack of air movement. With just 30% of Hong Kong’s land suitable for development, high density is unavoidable, creating a lack of porosity and therefore stagnant air and high humidity. Average air movement in most of urban Hong Kong is less than 4m/s. Hong Kong accommodates over 41,000 buildings (EMSD, 2009), contributing to billions of square meters of surface areas that absorb solar radiation. One of the most effective ways of dealing with UHIE is by focusing on reducing heat radiation caused by built envelopes. This study intends to explore the UHIE reduction that can be achieved through manipulating building envelop finishes.

Biography: Dr. Ruffina Thilakaratne is a RIBA qualified architect, LEED Accredited Professional, and a BEAM Plus Professional with 18 years’ international experience in architectural practice and academia. She possesses extensive experience in architectural practice, research & teaching. She is currently serving as an Assoc. Professor at Chu Hai College and Director of Sustainability at Green Research Integrated Design Consortium. She is specialized in green building rating, environmental performance modeling, green materials and education institution planning. Ruffina is contributing her knowledge through involvement as a BEAM Faculty and USGBC Education Review Committee, RIBA HK Chapter Education Committee, USGBC China Chapter and SwedCham Environmental Committee.

Top

Andrew Toland (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) The Architecture of Oneiric Islands. Over the past decade or so, the allure of artificial urban islands has ‘resurfaced’ within high-concept architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism. I am not referring here to the hackneyed examples of the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai or other similar excesses of speculative property development, but rather to the more intellectual genre of conceptual-art-like schemes known as ‘paper architecture’ that circulates within architectural culture. While the popularity of the trope of artificial urban islands in the megastructure movement of late modernism in the 1960s and 70s is well-known, what has caused its revived popularity? The justification given within the architectural disciplines for this recent speculative interest in islands as sites of design speculation will be uncannily recognizable to conference participants, drawn as it is from their own work and from other familiar sources in the humanities and social and natural sciences. Yet what are the internal dynamics within the design disciplines specifically that have been driving the interest in ‘designer’ islands at this moment in time? This presentation will suggest some of the deeper currents and themes in contemporary design thinking that have found expression in these projects and their representations, and that have also made the ‘idea’ of islands borrowed from other disciplines so appealing within contemporary architecture.

Biography: Andrew Toland is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Landscape Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. He holds degrees in architecture, law and economics. His current research concerns the turn to ‘the (dirty) real’ in contemporary landscape and architectural culture. His most recent publication, in the critical landscape journal Scapegoat, considers the complex jurisprudential history surrounding the ‘exorcism’ of certain Alpine glaciers in 17th century.

Top

Nicha Tovankasame (Hiroshima University, Japan) Is It All about the Money? Opportunity of Migrants Working in Tourist-Related Occupation in the Consuming City: The Case of Phuket, Thailand. Phuket began experiencing the tourism industry in the 1990s. Through the process of national tourism promotion, Phuket has recently stood out as a significant global tourist destination, attracting large numbers of tourists and stimulating a rapid increase in real estate investment. Over the past 20 years, the economic activities emerging on this peripheral island contributed the second-highest revenues in Thailand (following Bangkok) with a tendency toward high capacity urban development. However, the registered residents of Phuket number merely 350,000 people, compared to the million migrants who currently reside on Phuket in order to work in tourist-related occupations and send remittances back to their hometowns. This leads to questions concerning the domestic migrants’ feelings of spatial attachment to Phuket and their long-term life plans. This research further interrogates whether Phuket has yet become a ‘money-making city’ where the domestic migrants live merely in order to pursue a better economic life or whether they also seek to contribute to local society.

Biography: I am a Ph.D. student, studying in the field of Urban Anthropology, Graduate School of International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University. My areas of interests are migration, tourism anthropology, multicultural society, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies.

Top

John Urry (Lancaster University, UK) Islands and Offshore Worlds. In this lecture it is argued that offshoring has become a key feature of contemporary globalisation and that islands are central in developing offshore worlds. This can involve literal islands or island-like places. Central though is the significance of secrecy as both a real and as an imagined characteristic of offshored places. The significance of ‘islands’ is shown in relationship to offshoring work and wealth, leisure and waste. The lecture goes on to consider just what might develop in such island societies; will they be examples of extreme offshoring or could we imagine them as central to low carbon experimentation?

Biography: John Urry BA, MA (economics), PhD (sociology), all Cambridge University. Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Institute for Social Futures, Lancaster University. He is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences and has published c40 books and special issues. These include After the Car (Polity 2009), Mobile Lives (Routledge 2010), The Tourist Gaze 3.0 (Sage 2011), Climate Change and Society (Routledge 2011), Societies beyond Oil (Zed 2013), and Offshoring (Polity 2014). He is founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities (Routledge). 

Top

Yushi Utaka (University of Hyogo, Japan) Dynamism of Island City’s ‘Frontier’ Settlements: ‘Clan Jetty’ and ‘Penang Hill’, Penang Island, Malaysia. Islandness is observed as a “fringe” phenomenon through the dominant world perspective. However, from a broader perspective, “fringe” is neither static nor insignificant. Penang Island is a renowned international port city, and has recently been highlighted with a World Heritage listing. Historically, Penang has been a “frontier” for a wide range of social issues, and has provided pioneering examples for dynamic solutions, from local governance to environmental protections. Arguably, Penang Island could be observed as having a dual character – “fringe” and “frontier” of national and regional perspectives. There are unique settlements which represent Penang’s dual character- “Clan Jetty” on the port waterfront and “Hill Station” on the hill top of the island. These two settlements were formed as “frontier” during colonial times, but have lately been regarded as “fringe” where sacrifices are made for economic development. Interestingly, it could be argued these settlements are now functioning as a “frontier” of natural/cultural heritage conservation and public participation. In this paper, the author seeks to illuminate the background of the transformation process; the author points out inhibitory factors which manifest as complicated land regulation, regime change, and people’s perceptions for these settlements. Additionally, the author tries to explain these phenomena as a product of the combination of 4 factors; Legal System, Ethos, Space and Politics.

Biography: Yushi Utaka is working as Professor at the University of Hyogo, Japan. His research interest is in Asian urbanism with a special focus on built environments and cultural diversity in Asia. He has been conducting field research in Southeast Asia for the past 30 years. He was researcher at University Science Malaysia in Penang State from 1995-1996 and 2001-2003, and at the National University of Singapore in 2001. Currently, he is involved in built heritage conservation and site management in Japan and the Asian region under the auspices of the authorities and international organizations.

Top

June Wang (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) Cultural Archipelagos in China: Shenzhen and a Multi-Scalar Network in the Hegemonic Project. Amidst China’s passionate exploration of a cultural turn, the Shenzhen model distinguishes itself by positioning the city as the node for the Chinese cultural trade. Deploying what Arrighi calls the ‘archipelago’, that is, “islands of capitalism on the sea of horizontal exchange among local and world markets,” this research interrogates the making of a new economy that introduces a new political order of spatial development and lays the groundwork for a particular material infrastructure network. At issue here is the governance concerning political technology and politics of scale – how to catapult a city into China’s trading circuit while at the same time allowing the nation-state to extend its power to locales in an increasingly liberalized market environment. The newly constructed ‘island’ of Shenzhen in the landscape of a cultural economy is an output of hard labour by an ensemble of state and non-state actors, which function across much-stretched territories to enable capital, goods, political dreams, and aspirations for China’s cultural sovereignty.

Biography: June Wang is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies in the Department of Public Policy at City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include gentrification, cultural/creative cities, and precarious geography of labours. She co-edits ‘Making Cultural Cities in Asia’ (Routledge, forthcoming), and is the co-author of ‘The Rhetoric and Reality of Culture-led Urban Regeneration: A Comparison of Beijing and Shanghai, China’ (2011). Aside from that, she published papers on Cities, Urban Geography and Geoforum, etc.

Top

Frank Weiner (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA) Tragic and Comedic Islands: Imagining Islandness. Islands have a poignant hold upon our imaginations. This paper will study two fictional islands from popular cinema and television. The film Life of Pi (2012) and the television situation comedy Gilligan’s Island (1964-67) will form the basis of a study of island imagination. Taken together these seemingly disparate examples provide a conceptual framework for island studies. Life of Pi is an Academy award winning film directed by Ang Lee based on the 2001 novel written by Yann Martel. One scene takes place as the shipwrecked protagonist in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger on board comes upon a floating ephemeral island — an island with no soil. Many scenes from Gilligan’s Island, a popular American 1960s sitcom, were filmed on a fabricated deserted island lagoon built on a back lot set in Hollywood, California. An improbable group finds itself shipwrecked on this uncharted tropical island paradise they never — despite their considerable expertise — are able to escape. In the film and television show two fictional ships (named Tsimtzum and S.S. Minnow respectively) are important characters in the development of the plot. The ship as an island remains a crucial metaphor in imagining islandness.

Biography: Frank Weiner is a Professor of Architecture at Virginia Tech. He holds a B. Arch. from Tulane University (1980) and a M.S. in Building Design from Columbia University (1987). His research on architectural education and on the relationship between architecture and philosophy has been widely published. He has presented papers around the world. He has served as a guest critic at numerous institutions in the US. In 2004 he was awarded first prize in the 2003-2005 European Association for Architectural Education competition on Writings in Architectural Education. At Virginia Tech Prof. Weiner has served in a variety of administrative positions.

Top

Ray Chon Fai Yeung (University of Calgary, Canada) An Island under the ‘Red Flood’: The Influence of Chinese Capital on Hong Kong’s Property Market Since the mid-2000s. This study examines the impact of China’s monetary policy on Hong Kong's property market under the principle of ‘One Country, Two Systems’. Hong Kong has very different laws and government administration than mainland China. Hong Kong’s common law system, lack of capital flow restrictions, low tax rates, and stable socio-political status made it a hot-spot of speculation for mainlanders. This research argues that differences between the two political economic systems have been the most significant factors since the mid-2000s. Chinese capital is inflating Hong Kong’s high-end property market and a trickle-down effect is affecting the entire property market. Any changes in Chinese monetary policy will significantly affect the price of housing in Hong Kong. This research empirically examines the relationship between China’s money supply and Hong Kong’s housing prices from 2004 to 2014, when housing prices increased over 150% (Bank for International Settlements, 2014) while China’s money supply increased over 300% (The People’s Bank of China, 2014). There is a significant and positive relationship (R=+0.968, α=0.01) between these two variables, supporting the hypothesis that they are related. The results suggest that 2004 is the watershed of their relationship and the principle of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ is the source of the current property bubble in Hong Kong. This finding has important policy implications for island cities where property markets are patronized by other, significantly different, national economies.

Top

Wenze Yue (Zhejiang University, China), Shuangshuang Qiu (Zhejiang University, China), Huan Zhang (Zhejiang University, China), Jiaguo Qi (Zhejiang University, China) Population Concentration and Redistribution Processes in the Zhoushan Archipelago against the Backdrop of Rapid Urbanization. China’s reform policy has prioritized urban areas since the 1990s. China has stepped into a period of rapid urbanization, with a large proportion of the rural population migrating to coastal areas from inland areas. In the same manner, the urbanization process taking place within the Zhoushan Archipelago features shifts in the population’s spatial concentration and a redistribution among various islands with different sizes, locational factors, development levels, and so on. In this study, we investigate the dynamic relationship between the population, household scale and island conditions by using the rank-size rule of city systems from 2000 to 2010. This allows us to reveal an uneven urbanization pattern of population concentration and redistribution in the Zhoushan Archipelago area. We then seek to explain the driving forces behind the uneven urbanization process through the determinants of location and natural conditions, marketization, governmental activity and land-ocean interactions. The conclusions will be significant for informing urbanization policymaking in archipelagic areas.

Biography: Wenze Yue is the professor in Department of Land Management, Zhejiang University. The dean of the institute of land research.

Top

Paul Johannes Zimmerman (Designing Hong Kong Limited, Hong Kong) Great Waters – But can We Enjoy Them? Marine uses continue to change in Hong Kong. The majority of local registered vessels are now used for sports, leisure, recreation and tourism. Is the infrastructure in place on the land and along the shore to cope with the change? Are the institutions in place to respond to the changing aspirations and needs? Research shows a shortfall in safe berthing for pleasure vessels. Following persistent pressure the Marine Department is now conducting a fundamental review of berthing and sheltered space for local vessels (including pleasure vessels and small visiting vessels) in Hong Kong. Experience has shown that the institutions for creating and managing land-water interfaces have yet to catch up with changing circumstances.
A new opportunity is provided in the 2015 Policy Address which calls for promoting water recreational and sports activities and a water-friendly culture including exploring the feasibility of organising water sports activities in Victoria Harbour and identifying desirable locations to build new water sports centres.

Biography: Paul Zimmerman is the Pokfulam District Councillor and CEO of Designing Hong Kong, a non-profit organization. Paul promotes interventions wherever he sees bad planning and wherever he sees that policies or institutions are not working the way they should. He has been instrumental in enhancing Victoria Harbour waterfront and is an active promoter of boating infrastructure. Paul has a Masters in Social Science (Economics) from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and a Masters of Arts (Transport Policy and Planning) from The University of Hong Kong. Visit www.paulzimmerman.hk and www.designinghongkong.com for more information.  

Top

Discussion Panels

Discussion Panel: Sinking Islands, Forced Migration, and Urban Spaces (Room CPD-3.04)
How will sea-level rise in Oceania affect the nature of island cities in the future? Also, how will foreign migrants into urban spaces adapt to their new surroundings? Furthermore, how can urban environments be more ‘user-friendly’ toward new migrants who have been displaced from their homelands? And finally, how do we reconcile differing perspectives of nature (mountains, oceans etc.) as ‘earth beings’ that are commonly held by those from insular backgrounds with urban perspectives that view nature as separate from humans? Using Moana Rua: The Rising of the Sea as point of departure, this panel asks new questions that have arisen as a result of climate change and seeks to open up a conversation that is informed by experience as well as by art (including performance) and imagination.

Chair: Ann Kildahl (Sustainability Manager, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
Panellists: Filmmaker Vilsoni Hereniko (University of Hawaii, USA), Ilan Kelman (University College London, England), Cheryl Joy Fernandez (James Cook University & University of the Philippines, Visayas, Philippines), & Ian Ho-yin Fong (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong).
Biography:
Vilsoni Hereniko is a professor, playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker, as well as an author of several books, numerous academic articles in referred journals, and a former editor of the award-winning journal The Contemporary Pacific. He was a former Director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawaii and the Oceania Center for Arts, Culture, and Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. His plays, more than a dozen, have been published and several have been staged in Suva, Guam, Honolulu, London, St. Andrews, Copenhagen, Bergen, and Brussels.  His creative work and academic work are also studied in schools and universities in the Pacific and beyond. He is the first Fijian to make a feature film. Titled The Land Has Eyes, it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was Fiji’s official nomination for the Academy Awards in 2005. He has also written and directed two short films, and five documentaries. He is now working on his second feature film, an adaptation of a novel set in the Marshall Islands.
Ilan Kelman http://www.ilankelman.org and Twitter @IlanKelman is a Reader in Risk, Resilience and Global Health at University College London, England and a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo. His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, including the integration of climate change into disaster research and health research. That covers three main areas: (i) disaster diplomacy and health diplomacy http://www.disasterdiplomacy.org; (ii) island sustainability involving safe and healthy communities in isolated locations http://www.islandvulnerability.org ; and (iii) risk education for health and disasters http://www.riskred.org.
Cheryl Joy Fernandez is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Economics (cum laude) from the same university, a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration, and a Master of Management from Massey University in New Zealand. She is currently pursuing her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at James Cook University in Australia. Her research interest broadly focuses on regional development and the environment. She was also involved in a variety of projects: valuation of endangered species conservation; reef resilience at the Great Barrier Reef; residential choices.
Ian Ho-yin FONG is currently working as Lecturer for the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is now working on a research project entitled ‘Walking in Chinese Modern Cities: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing’. Related to this project, a paper entitled ‘(Re-)Reading Shanghai’s Futures in Ruins: Through the Legend of an (Extra-)Ordinary Woman in The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai’ is published in Cultural Unbound. He is going to take up a short-term postdoctoral fellowship which allows him to stay in the University of Graz from June to August, 2014 for his walking project. His research interests lie in psychoanalysis, deconstruction, Nietzsche studies, film and literary studies, gender studies, city and knowledge. He received his PhD degree in comparative literature at the University of Hong Kong in 2007.

Lunchtime Discussion Panel: Publishing in (Urban) Island Studies (Room CPD-3.15)
Chair: Ilan Kelman (University College London, England)
Panellists: Elaine Stratford (Island Studies Journal), Philip Hayward (Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures), Adam Grydehøj (Urban Island Studies).
Biography:
Elaine Stratford is Professor of Cultural and Political Geography at the University of Tasmania. Her research seeks to identify the conditions in which people flourish in place, in their movements, in daily life, and over the life-course—not least in cities and island places. Elaine is the Interim Director of the University’s Peter Underwood Centre for Educational Attainment, a centre of excellence to improve educational outcomes in Tasmania and raise young people’s aspirations for tertiary education throughout their lives. Elaine is Editor-in-Chief of Geographical Research and lead editor of the Rethinking the Island series published by Rowman and Littlefield International.

Top