Island Cultures and Festivals

PREFACE: Island Culture Research and the Small Island Cultures Research Initiative 

PHILIP HAYWARD

INTRODUCTION: Island Cultures and Festivals: A Creative Ecosystem

SONJAH STANLEY NIAAH AND EVANGELIA PAPOUTSAKI

Part One: Art, Culture and Island Communities

1 Diagnosing Uneven Revitalization Outcomes among Declining Communities in a Japanese Island Art Festival 

MENG QU, YACHEN HE, A. D. MCCORMICK, CAROLIN FUNCK

2 The Norseman’s Home: Up-Helly-Aa and Shetland’s Performance of Place

EMMA LANG

3 Mapping Waiheke Island’s Festivalscape:

Community Activism and Festival Reclamation 

EVANGELIA PAPOUTSAKI AND JOHN STANFIELD

4 Promoting the “Creole Traditional Wedding” during the Seychelle Creole Festival as a Strategy to Sustain Cultural Traditions

MARIE-CHRISTINE PARENT

Part Two: Music, Dance and Island Identity

5 The Traditional Daur Music and Dance Festival Kumule on the Island Meadow by the Amur River 

HOLGER BRIEL

6 Soca, Pleasure and Utopia 

SHAUNA RIGAUD

7 Rebel Salute: A Birthday Party the World Attends 

MELVILLE COOKE

8 A Celebration of Music, Movement and Memory:

The Archival Significance of St Kitts “Sugar Mas” 

STANLEY H. GRIFFIN

9 The Sound of Citizenship: Performance, Politics and Transgression 

SONJAH STANLEY NIAAH

Contributors 

Index 

Island Cultures and Festivals

A Creative Ecosystem

Sonjah Stanley Niaah and Evangelia PaPoutsaki

ONE FEATURE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE IS THE PARADOX of inclusivity inside exclusivity or even cohesion inside isolation as part of the character of geo-culturally specific phenomena such as islands. Islands are bounded yet, more often than not, unbounded by the movement across their multiple borders. They are also often vulnerable, with constantly considering and planning for sustain- able outcomes. Among the disciplinary configurations that seek to engage these geo-cultural phenomena, it is well acknowledged that island studies has developed into an established, interdisciplinary research field (Shima Editorial Board 2007), one that has attempted to grapple with existential questions around sustainability and resilience as well as geopolitics and economics. However, specific research and comparative analysis of island cultures within a field that identifies itself as Island Studies is a more recent phenomenon. For Grydehøj (2017, 3), the former editor of the Island Studies Journal, it is “important that island studies not only continue deepening its internal theoretical understandings but also reach out to other fields and regions that have received limited attention within island studies”.