Islands Matter

We held a series of online research symposia jointly developed by colleagues at the Institute for Northern Studies, UHI Shetland and the University of the Faroe Islands. The first of a series of research symposia jointly developed by colleagues in UHI Shetland and the University of the Faroe Islands was held on the 22 September 2023 1pm to 4pm Online. The Islands Matter Symposium will bring together researchers from the Faroe Islands and from Shetland. This symposium will focus on the history, culture and heritage of the two island groups, exploring relationships, similarities and differences. There will be a series of presentations of current research, and the opportunity for questions and lively discussion. It will be the springboard for further research and the development of research partnerships, reconnecting the two archipelagos.

On the 3 November, 1pm to 4pm Online, there will be a second symposium, which will take a more contemporary slant, exploring current research into fish science, island education, migration and politics.

The speakers on the 3 November were

Ragnheiður Bogadóttir - Islanding the green energy transition

John Goodlad - Home rule and contemporary fisheries policy

Chevonne Angus – UHI Shetland Fisheries Research

Firouz Gaini - Knitwear in the Faroes today

Simon Clarke – Island-based Tertiary Education

Erika Hayfield - Immigration and social change in the Faroe Islands

Rosie Alexander – The role of career routes in island youth migration

Fleur Ward – ICT Provision in the Scottish Islands

Magni Laksáfoss - Blue resource. Fisheries and aquaculture research in the Faroes

We are holding a series of online research symposia jointly developed by colleagues at the Institute for Northern Studies, UHI Shetland and the University of the Faroe Islands. The first of a series of research symposia jointly developed by colleagues in UHI Shetland and the University of the Faroe Islands will be held on the 22 September 2023 1pm to 4pm Online. The Islands Matter Symposium will bring together researchers from the Faroe Islands and from Shetland. This symposium will focus on the history, culture and heritage of the two island groups, exploring relationships, similarities and differences. There will be a series of presentations of current research, and the opportunity for questions and lively discussion. It will be the springboard for further research and the development of research partnerships, reconnecting the two archipelagos. On the 3 November there will be a second symposium, which will take a more contemporary slant, exploring current research into fish science, island education, migration and politics.

Speakers 

Viveka Velupillai - Shaetlan and its status as a mixed language.

Mark Smith - Jakob Jakobsen’s sister, Anna Horsbøl.

Brian Smith – Shetlanders’ attitudes to the Faroes over the past 200 years

Simon Clarke – Archaeology on the Edge of Europe

John Goodlad - The cultural connection between the Faroese and Shetlanders during the time of the Faroe cod smacks

Jenny Murray – St Magnus in Shetland and Faroe

Erling Isholm - Shetland as a model for Faroese modernisation

Jógvan í Lon Jacobsen - Consequences of purism in language in the Faroes

Part of the Virtual Island Summit

This panel explored recommendations for how we can maintain vibrant, successful Scottish island populations into the future.

The panelists were participants in a series of four Royal Society of Edinburgh workshops held earlier this year, which explored the challenges facing the islands and addressed questions such as: What level of autonomy will best serve the island communities going forward? How can the islanders best engage with the changing environment? How can islands become sustainable? How can large-scale developments be absorbed by small island communities? What role will island cultures and languages have in future scenarios?

The discussion will strike chords with island communities elsewhere. www.virtualislandsummit.com 

This online workshop will focus on inter-island discourse, and the creation of island focussed networks. Island communities can establish links with each other, without involving the centre. What will be the future for islands if this trend continues? How is the internet being used to virtually bridge islands? What role do people see for AI in the islands’ future? What is the role for paradiplomacy. Workshop 4 was a single session.

This workshop was held in Orkney and examined the optimum level of development for islands. Ought they to be industrialised, or should the focus be on small scale development, such as support for the creative industries?

Part of the Scottish Island Futures: 2050 & Beyond research project

This workshop was held in Orkney and examined the optimum level of development for islands. Ought they to be industrialised, or should the focus be on small scale development, such as support for the creative industries?

Part of the Scottish Island Futures: 2050 & Beyond research project.

Speaking of the Future - the Role of Language, Culture and Heritage 3 March 2023 Afternoon Webinar Session

This workshop was held in the Outer Hebrides and examined the role of the indigenous culture and languages in supporting vibrant communities. Is there a future for Gaelic and the Northern Isles dialects?

Part of the Scottish Island Futures 2050 & Beyond research project

Speaking of the Future - the Role of Language, Culture and Heritage 3 March 2023 This morning session was held in the Outer Hebrides and examined the role of the indigenous culture and languages in supporting vibrant communities. Is there a future for Gaelic and the Northern Isles dialects?

Part of the Scottish Island Futures: 2050 & Beyond research project

The Future of Core Periphery Relationships Afternoon Session 3 February 2023

This workshop was held in Shetland and focused on island governance. Participants explored relationships between islands and their metropoles i.e. Edinburgh and London. Are there better models of governance? Is island autonomy a goal to be strived for?

Part of the Scottish Island Futures: 2050 & Beyond research project

The Future of Core Periphery Relationships Morning Session 3 February 2023 This workshop was held in Shetland and focused on island governance. Participants will explore relationships between islands and their metropoles i.e. Edinburgh and London. Are there better models of governance? Is island autonomy a goal to be strived for?

Part of the Scottish Island Futures: 2050 & Beyond research project

Islands Matter Webniar 'Young people and place attachment in the Faroe Islands today' with Firouz Gaini.

Recorded 23 February 12pm

At this webinar, Firouz will talk about young people, place, and identity in the Faroe Island, based on empirical material from a recent research project. He will discuss how local knowledge, family relations, and the sea influence young people’s relation to place and sense of belonging.

Biography: Firouz Gaini is professor in Anthropology at the Faculty of History and Social Sciences, University of the Faroe Islands. He studied in Norway, Denmark and the Faroe Islands. He has published widely on the topics of young people’s everyday lives and futures, fatherhood and masculinities, and small island communities in articles and books. He is co-editor of the volume Gender and Island Communities (Routledge 2020).

Islands Matter Webinar 'Mental Health Research and Scottish Islands' with Professor Sarah-Anne Munoz.

There is little research evidence on the mental health needs of the Scottish rural population, particularly research that includes the voices of island residents. 

Previous UHI research has shown that many island interviewees, both healthcare professionals and community members, perceived gaps in mental health services and they highlighted the difficulty of accessing specialist services and facilities, which are often based in Inverness, particularly in crises.

Prof. Munoz has worked with researchers from Texas A & M University in Kingsville to pilot the use of a modified Delphi method to bring community members together and facilitate discussion so that the community members can identify needs and solutions in their areas. This method has recently been piloted by a UHI team within the Western Isles. This seminar will reflect on the modified Delphi method’s use in the Western Isles, the findings from the pilot and the research gaps in island mental health research more generally.

The Scottish pilot was funded by the Scottish Rural Health Partnership.

Presenter: Prof. Sarah-Anne Munoz, Professor of Rural Health, UHI

Co-authors: Dr. Liz Ellis, Research Fellow, UHI; Dr. Sara Bradley, Research Fellow, UHI; Hereward Proops, Lecturer, UHI Outer Hebrides; Rachel Erskine, Lecturer, UHI Outer Hebrides

Islands Matter Webinar 'Scottish Islands as sustainable development transition zones' with Adele Lidderdale.

Institute for Northern Studies PhD candidate Adele Lidderdale discusses sustainable development in the Scottish Islands. Adele Lidderdale graduated from Orkney College, UHI, with a Bsc in Sustainable Rural Development (SRD) in 2012 then completing a Msc in the same subject in 2022 where she completed her dissertation on the experience of women in green jobs in rural areas. She has had a fulfilling career here in the Isles working in the renewables industry for EMEC and Orkney Islands Council in various roles including data technician, hydrogen project manager and Climate Change Officer. She has recently embarked on a PhD to evaluate the implementation and efficacy of the Scottish National Islands plan in supporting the Islands development aspirations.

Islands Matter Webinar 2 'First a wudd, and syne a sea: Scottish stories of memorable landscape change in their global context' with Professor Patrick Nunn.

Recorded on the 20 October 2022.

In pre-literate (oral) societies, observations of memorable events were encoded into oral traditions and passed down across sometimes hundreds of generations, often as stories. Most such stories to have reached us today are regarded as ‘myth’ or ‘legend’, a default judgement characteristic of many literate people. Recent research, especially in Australia and northwest Europe, concludes that many such stories have a clear grounding in observations of the changes to which they describe, albeit in often exaggerated terms.

This presentation focuses on Scottish stories of coastal landscape change since the last great ice age, some 20,000 years ago. It examines stories of coastal submergence, attributable to sea-level rise, that caused land loss and in particular severed land connections between what are today separate land masses. It also examines stories of (net) coastal emergence, attributable to a net rise in the land resulting from the melting of its ice cover. It is argued that all these stories are likely to be authentic cultural memories of coastal change because all submergence stories come from places known to have been submerged within the past 10-15,000 years while all emergence stories come from places that have indeed experienced net land emergence.

Using various geoscientific data, it is possible to estimate plausible ages for most such stories. Submergence stories from Scotland appear to be based on observations made more than 5000 years ago, some more than 7000 years ago, requiring them to have been passed across 200-300 generations in intelligible form. Emergence stories are of similar age although some appear younger. The antiquity of Scottish stories is comparable to that of Australian and other Celtic stories. This research is important because it demonstrates an unsuspected empirical basis for many ancient stories, suggesting that scientists might fruitfully spend more time interrogating these to see whether they contain information that can broaden and deepen our understanding of human pasts.

Biography Patrick Nunn is Professor of Geography at the University of the Sunshine Coast (Queensland, Australia). A geologist and climate scientist by background, one of Patrick’s current research interests focuses on ancient understandings of coastal-environmental change and how these have been culturally filtered and encoded in narrative and myth. This research was laid out in his books, Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific (University of Hawaii, 2009) and The Edge of Memory (Bloomsbury, 2018).

His new book, out last year from Bloomsbury, is Worlds in Shadow: Submerged Lands in Science, Memory and Myth.

Key Journal Articles

Nunn, P.D. 2022. First a wudd, and syne a sea: postglacial coastal change of Scotland recalled in ancient stories. Scottish Geographical Journal. DOI: 10.1080/14702541.2022.2110610.

Nunn, P.D. and Cook, M. 2022. Island tales: culturally-filtered narratives about island creation through land submergence incorporate millennia-old memories of postglacial sea-level rise. World Archaeology, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2022.2077821

Nunn, P.D., Lancini, L. and Compatangelo-Soussignan, R. 2022. Lessons from Catastrophe: Risk Management in Oral Societies / Les leçons de la catastrophe: la gestion du risque dans les sociétés de culture orale. In: Compatangelo-Soussignan, R., Diosono, F. and Le Blay, F. (eds.). Living with Seismic Phenomena in the Mediterranean and Beyond between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp 83-92.

Nunn, P.D., Ward, I., Stéphan, P., McCallum, A., Gehrels, R., Carey, G., Clarke, A., Cook, M., Geraghty, P., Guilfoyle, D., McNeair, B., Miller, G., Nakoro, E., Reynolds, D. and Stewart, L. 2022. Human observations of Late Quaternary coastal change: examples from Australia, Europe and the Pacific Islands. Quaternary International. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2022.06.016

The first of the UHI Islands Matter webinar series was held at 12.00 UK time on the 22 September. It featured Dr Jane Atterton, Manager and Policy Researcher, in the Rural Policy Centre, at SRUC and colleagues. They will talk about research they have undertaken for the Scottish Government on island depopulation in Japan. They have been exploring some exciting case-study depopulation initiatives in the Japanese islands. They will be drawing lessons for Scotland’s islands and sharing them. The research team consists of researchers from SRUC and the University of Newcastle in the UK and Akita International University and Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan. This research was undertaken by an international team of researchers based in the UK and Japan.

Sae Shinzato is a PhD student at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, having previously been a visiting researcher at CRE. Her work examines community-based learning in rural areas of Japan and UK.

Chisaki Fukushima is a PhD student working with Dr Gkartzios. Her research explores the adaptation of cultural systems and the dynamism of community networks through demographic change, through case study work in coastal Japan.

Dr Jane Atterton (project manager and Senior Lecturer at the Rural Policy Centre, SRUC) is a mixed methods researcher who has worked on rural and island community and business issues, including demographic change, connectivity and poverty and exclusion, in Scotland, the UK and internationally, including Japan.

Dr Luke Dilley (Assistant Professor at Akita International University) has lived and worked in Japan for almost 10 years and has particular interests in demographic change, counterurbanisation and endogenous development.

Dr Menelaos Gkartzios (Reader, Centre for Rural Economy, Newcastle University) has twice held a Visiting Professorship at the University of Tokyo. He has led research projects on rural demographic change and policy impacts, and on the relationship between creativity and rural development in Europe and Japan.

Dr Kate Lamont is a behavioural scientist with experience of participatory action research addressing the needs of rural and island communities and the delivery and evaluation of remote and rural services. She has previously undertaken research in Japan.

As part of the Islands Matter Webinar series Dr Marc Chivers is discussing his new book. It explores the central role these four and six-oared boats played in everyday Shetland life, meeting boatbuilders and the people whose way of life was centred on, and dependent upon, these seaworthy craft.

'Shetland's Boats: origin, evolution and use' is based on Marc's PhD that was completed in 2017 with the Institute for Northern Studies. Dr Andrew Jennings was the Director of Studies for Marc’s PhD, which was joint funded by the Lerwick Port Authority and Shetland Amenity Trust. The idea for the PhD grew out a discussions with Jimmy Moncrieff chief executive of the Amenity Trust, while on a research trip to the Isle of Man.

Hailing from Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, where as a child Marc developed a love for sailing, and spent many happy hours messing around in boats on the Thames Estuary. Marc graduated with an honours degree in fine art from Wimbledon School of Art, and had a career in healthcare education and training management that was halted by a desire to fulfil an ambition to learn how to build traditional wooden boats. After completing a nine month full-time course at the Boatbuilding Academy in Lyme Regis Marc and his partner Rachel (Rae) spent five weeks in southern India, this was followed by a sailing trip, crewing on board a very old 38ft wooden Bristol Channel pilot cutter called Dolphin, which sailed from Ørnes in Norway to Svalbard. On their return to the UK Marc and Rae moved to Devon in their live-in van so that Marc could work for wooden boatbuilder Ash Butler. Marc and Rae were living on a 42ft yacht in Old Mill Creek on the river Dart when Marc saw an email advertising a fully funded PhD researching Shetland’s traditional small open boats. He applied and was accepted, and in September 2013, Marc and Rae moved to Burra, Shetland which is where they continue to live.

Islands Matter Webinar 'Shetland: A fishy tale' by Dr John Goodlad.

As part of the Islands Matter seminar series Dr John Goodlad will join us on the 17 March at 12pm for a discussion online about his most recent work. John has worked in the seafood industry all his life and continues to do so, advising several large seafood organisations and companies. A passionate Shetlander, John has always been fascinated in the island’s history. His first book, The Cod Hunters, was published in 2018.

On Thursday 3rd March, three members of a multidisciplinary team discussed a new project, Women in Manx Politics. The project aims to explore the changing trends in Manx politics and identify any barriers to women becoming involved, through a series of talks, focus groups, interviews, articles and blogs on women and politics. The webinar will focus on the context for the project, the key aims and methodologies, and the potential outcomes.

When the House of Keys Election Act was passed in 1881, the Isle of Man became the first country in the world to extend the vote to women. However, it wasn’t until the introduction of universal suffrage in 1919 that women became eligible to stand for election, and it was 1933 before the first woman was elected as Member of the House of Keys (MHK). Since then, only 23 women have served as MHKs. The lack of female representation was noted by Lord Lisvane, in his 2016 review of the functioning of Tynwald, the island’s legislature. At that time, only two of the 24 MHKs were women, and no women sat in the upper chamber, the Legislative Council. Since then, there has been a shift towards a more representative government, although there is still some way to go. The 2021 General Election saw ten women elected to the House of Keys, and four of the eight elected members of the Legislative Council are currently women.

A new multidisciplinary project funded by Culture Vannin (https://culturevannin.im/) aims to explore the role and experiences of women in Tynwald and consider ways of facilitating more women in Manx politics. The project has both a historical strand and a contemporary strand. The historical strand will seek to discern trends in women standing for the House of Keys and their representation in the Manx press. The contemporary strand will explore the experiences of women in Manx politics since 2000, through a series of qualitative interviews with women who chose to stand for election and those who were elected. Using focus groups, the decision-making processes of those women who considered standing for election, but ultimately chose not to do so, will also be studied. A third strand will examine the Manx position in light of broader academic research on women in democratic politics.

The Project Team Peter Edge (Oxford Brookes University) 

Dr Alex Powell (Oxford Brookes University) 

Dr Catriona Mackie (University College Isle of Man) 

Dr Mari Hughes-Edwards (Edge Hill University)

This discussion is chaired by Dr Catriona Mackie Dr Catriona Mackie is a Lecturer in History & Heritage at the University College Isle of Man (UCM) where she is Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) History & Heritage which is delivered at UCM and validated by the University of Chester. She is also Visiting Research Fellow and Associate Tutor at the University of Chester. She moved to the Isle of Man in 2008 to take up position as Lecturer at the University of Liverpool’s Centre for Manx Studies, based in Douglas, Isle of Man. In this role she has taught and supervised undergraduate and postgraduate students, managing the postgraduate MA in Manx Studies, and organising the Centre’s seminar series.

Of the world’s 120 Sub-National Island Jurisdictions listed, about 50 are former colonies whose communities retain constitutional bonds with their former colonial metropoles: London, Paris, Washington, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Canberra, Wellington. The communities of these 50 non-sovereign island territories struggle to decolonise the relationships with their metropoles. However, since 1983, none have moved to become independent, sovereign, states. In fact, in the course of time, most became quite successful in continuously rebalancing the relationships with their former colonial metropoles to their advantage; creating what has been labelled an “Islandian sovereignty”. In this webinar for the Islands Matter Series, Gerard will, first, detail six strategies applied by these non-sovereign island territories to expand their autonomy. Second, Gerard will invite webinar participants to explore to what extent these six strategies are relevant for other Sub-National Island Jurisdictions.

Gerard Prinsen works as an Associate Professor in Development Studies at Massey University New Zealand, after a professional career in development practice. Most of his research revolves around health and education services as spaces where small, rural, or remote communities negotiate their relationships with big metropolitan powers

The fifth University of the Highlands and Islands 'Islands Matter' webinars with Professor Owe Ronström. Owe will talk about his research into islandness and the history, heritage and music of Gotland, his island home. Owe has written extensively on music, dance, ethnicity, age, heritage, and islands. He has also produced several hundred radio broadcasts for the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, on music from around the world. He is an active musician, and plays in the bands Orientexpressen, Gunnfjauns kapell, and is the director of Gotlands Balalajkaorkester. In June 2013 he produced BelleSounds, the world’s largest concert. Next semester there will be further talks from island-based experts.

The fourth University of the Highlands and Islands 'Islands Matter' webinars with Professor Chik Collins Rector of the University of the Faroe Islands. Chik will talk about his university, the research being undertaken, and how this might relate to the main themes of the UHI Islands Strategy. Professor Chik Collins has been the Rector of the University of the Faroe Islands since September 2019 and Visiting Professor in the School of Education and Social Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland. Previously he was Professor of Applied Social Science and Interim Dean and the Assistant Dean in the School of Media, Culture and Society at the University of the West of Scotland. Chik has researched and published extensively on a range of issues, including language and social change, community development, urban regeneration, and over the past decade, on health and health inequalities – particularly, in collaboration with the NHS Health Scotland and the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, the phenomenon of ‘excess mortality’ in Scotland and Glasgow. Between now and Christmas there will further talks by Professor Owe Ronström from the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology Uppsala University, based on Gotland, and Professor Des Thompson, Principal Adviser on Science and Biodiversity at NatureScot.

The third UHI Islands Matter webinar with Professor Des Thompson. Des talk is entitled ‘Where next for the COPs – tackling the climate and biodiversity crises.’

Des is the Principal Adviser on Science and Biodiversity, Scottish Natural Heritage. He is from the Highland village of Culrain. He undertook his PhD at Nottingham University, publishing his research as a textbook on the behavioural ecology of bird flocks. After holding a Liverpool University Fellowship, he moved to the Nature Conservancy Council to begin leading upland conservation work for the government and its agencies. Now with Scottish Natural Heritage, he is the principal adviser on biodiversity and chairs several national and international groups. Des has published widely and collaboratively on topics covering birds of prey, shorebirds, mountain and moorland ecology, and the state of nature. He is Chairman of the Field Studies Council, the UK’s leading provider of outdoor environmental education, and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management.

The second University of the Highlands and Islands 'Islands Matter' webinars with Dr Laurie Brinklow Iceland’s Honorary Consul to PEI, and Interim Coordinator of the Master of Arts in Island Studies program and Interim Chair of the Institute of Island Studies at University of Prince Edward Island. Laurie will talk about the past and current research undertaken by the Institute and its close connections with the local community.

The first University of the Highlands and Islands 'Islands Matter' webinars with inspiring guest speaker James Ellsmoor Institute for Northern Studies UHI Island Studies MLitt graduate and the university's Postgraduate student of the year in 2019 and Alumni Award Winner in 2020. James is the founder and director of Island Innovation, a global media platform which offers unique insights into island sustainability, and which has evolved into a community of over 127,000 members. He will talk about what makes him tick, Island Innovation, and about the Virtual Island Summit, which this year had over 14000 attendees with over 500 islands represented.