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Representing Climate Change Space: Islographs of Tuvalu
Citation
Farbotko, C, Representing Climate Change Space: Islographs of Tuvalu (2008) [PhD]
Abstract
Tuvalu, an archipelagic nation state in central Oceania, is being materially
transformed by anthropogenic climate change, particularly sea level rise.
Its islands are also being represented in new ways in climate change discourses
such as journalism and environmentalist campaigns. This study, located in
the interdisciplinary field of island studies, draws from insights in cultural
geography to examine representations of the Tuvalu islands in climate change
discourses. The central concept in this work?s analytical framework is the
islograph: shared, non-static imaginations of islands, mediated through words,
images and symbols. I have found it useful to create and use the concept
of the islograph to emphasise the important role of island representations
in climate change power relations, constituted in part by discursive means.
In a significant discursive moment in which climate change is being defined
and grappled with as a global environmental crisis, Tuvalu is taking on new
meanings that command documentation and critical analysis. Such meanings
are tied to an extant and remarkably strong presence of islands in Western
discourses. I argue that there are two key characteristics of Western islographs.
First, islands are paradoxical spaces and second, islands are imaginative
geographies, mechanisms of relational identity construction that paradoxically
function as mirrors of the self and a means of identity construction in relation
to distant and different others.
Subsequent analysis of Tuvalu?s islographs - many of which are produced by
Westerners in climate change discourses - considers whether and how its islands
are paradoxical spaces and imaginative geographies. Islographs of Tuvalu
that are analysed in detail in this work include the following: Mark Lynas'
popular science monograph High Tide, which aims to redefine Tuvalu as a frontier
of climate change and a spur to action on climate change at the global level;
various activities of environmentalist non-government organisation Alofa
Tuvalu which try to reposition Tuvalu as the rightful space in which global
lessons for sustainable living are to be learned; Sydney Morning Herald articles,
where, as the islands disappear, Tuvaluans are transformed into environmental
refugees and yet Western tourists are also urged to turn a voyeuristic eye
towards the ?disappearing islands?; and interviews with participants in climate
change discourses. I demonstrate that in such discourses, Tuvalu?s islographs
are structured by a paradox: its islands constituted as separate from and
yet embedded in global climate change trajectories; its inhabitants simultaneously
identified as subjects of compassion and objects of voyeurism. Such a paradox
is embodied in recurring images of Tuvalu as valuable yet expendable - the
?canary in the coalmine? of climate change for Earth. Meanwhile, among professionals
in Tuvalu who are engaged in climate change debate - politicians, bureaucrats,
community elders, educators, journalists, and pastors - attempts are being
made to reclaim Tuvalu as inherently valuable space. Their islographs link
Tuvalu to the rest of planet Earth not in service to it as a litmus test,
but connected to and embedded in common rights and responsibilities of humanity
to advance environmental stewardship and cultural diversity.
Item Details
Item Type: | PhD |
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Keywords: | Tuvalu; Climate change; Islographs; Cultural geography; Ethics; Voyeurism; Islands; Representations; Discourses; Relational identity |
Research Division: | Human Society |
Research Group: | Human geography |
Research Field: | Social geography |
Objective Division: | Culture and Society |
Objective Group: | Other culture and society |
Objective Field: | Other culture and society not elsewhere classified |
UTAS Author: | Farbotko, C (Dr Carol Farbotko) |
ID Code: | 56002 |
Year Published: | 2008 |
Deposited By: | Geography and Environmental Studies |
Deposited On: | 2009-03-19 |
Last Modified: | 2009-03-19 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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