Reimagining Island Culture

Islands have long been framed as peripheral, isolated, and vulnerable spaces. This paper argues instead that island cultures constitute central sites for rethinking human–environment relations in the twenty-first century. Drawing on six interconnected analytical lenses—biocultural diversity, islandness, social–ecological systems, commons and community resilience, archipelagic thinking, and place-based knowledge—the study synthesizes multidisciplinary scholarship and comparative regional cases from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. The analysis demonstrates that islands are not marginal territories but relational and networked socio-ecological systems deeply embedded in global processes. At the same time, their ecological constraints and visible environmental feedback render them living laboratories of sustainability. Cases such as the Jeju haenyeo, commons-based tidal flat management in Korea, Bajau maritime practices, and Pacific navigation traditions illustrate how cultural systems evolve in dynamic dialogue with ecological conditions. The paper also identifies critical gaps in existing island studies scholarship, including regional imbalance, disciplinary fragmentation, limited engagement with power and inequality, and insufficient integration with broader theoretical debates such as the Anthropocene and the Blue Humanities. Moving beyond vulnerability-centered narratives, it calls for a decolonized, comparative, and glocal approach that recognizes islands as active producers of knowledge rather than passive recipients of global policy. By repositioning islands as nodal sites of relationality, resilience, and epistemological innovation, this study highlights their broader significance for sustainability transitions and planetary futures

Anthropocene · Boundary (topology) · Commons · Deconstruction (building) · Discipline · Earth system science · Multidisciplinary approach · Scholarship · Sustainability · Temporalities · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies