Activities

Conferences and meetings have been organized by Steering Committee solely or jointly co-organized with IGC, or IGU regional conferences, or in collaboration with other island studies organizations, such as International Small Islands Studies Association (ISISA), Island Dynamics, and relevant organizations.

  • The meetings/events the Commission plans to hold in 2021 and later years:
  1. Organizing Island Geographies at the IGU 100th Anniversary Congress to be held in Paris, 18th -22th July 2022. Theme: Time for Geographers. Website: https://www.ugiparis2022.org/index.php?langue=en&onglet=4  Scientific Information: https://www.ugiparis2022.org/en/scientificinformation/1   
  2. Collaboration with International Small Island Studies Association (http://isisa.org/ ) to organize the 18th “Islands of the World Conference” in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada- 14-18 June 2021, Global Webinar (the deadline for submitting abstracts is 28 February 2021) : https://www.mun.ca/wearehere/isisa.php ; and in Zadar and area, Croatia – 13-19 June 2022.
  3. Collaboration with IGU national committees and commissions to organize regional conferences in different regions around the globe. For instance, the Asia-Pacific region (e.g. in Indonesia, Japan, and New Zealand ) in 2021, 2023, 2024; the conference themes and locations will be discussed by Commission Members
  4. Islands & Local Development – Given concerns about sustainable development issues for small island vulnerable environments and local societies, the Commission will develop programs for the systematic study of island strategies for sustainability at the local level in response to global/regional changes. These efforts may provide valuable guidance for islands’ local development. The content to be discussed at the next Steering Committee Meeting to be held in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada via web meeting in June 2021.
  5. Regional Meetings: Co-organize a South Pacific Islands Conference with SOCPacific coordination meeting and the joint fieldwork periods in Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia that will be conducted later in 2021 and 2022.
  6. Education Programs – In order to promote the study of island geography in education programs at all levels, the Commission will organize various workshops and educational programs for island geographical studies, young geographers exploration, young islanders programs, and so on.
  • During 2019-2021, major activities include,
  1. Steering Committee meeting via webinar on Jan 11, 2021. (Participants:10 Steering Committee members and executive secretary)
  2. A joint program with the 8th Nordic Geographers Meeting in Trondheim, Norway (June 16-19, 2019), Eric Clark, Huei-Min Tsai and Gerard Persoon organized a Committee members meeting and a panel on ’Sustainable Island Geography – Geographies of Island Sustainability’, within the overall theme of the conference ‘Sustainable Geography – Geographies of Sustainability’. The meeting was organized by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). A total of 13 presentations were given in three sessions dealing with various aspects of the general theme.
  3. A joint program with ISISA Islands of the Worlds Conference “Sharing Lessons, Sharing Stories”- the 1st Global Island Studies webinar (24 June, 2020). It ran the first ever ‘global island studies webinar’ (GISW 1), run on a Webex platform, with the most bewildering time zone management: 70 presenters in 62, 30-minute blocks, from 30 countries and territories. Plus 156 additional attendees, also from far and wide. Thank John Duff, Bojan Furst and the team at the Leslie Harris Centre of Memorial University of Newfoundland, for rising up to the challenge and basically solving all the tech-related problems.
  4. A joint Conference on “Climate Change, Indigenous Resilience and Local Knowledge Systems: Cross-time and Cross-boundary Perspectives” held at National Taiwan University & National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan, 13–15 December 2019. Co-organized by IGU Commission on Islands (on the sessions ‘Island Resilience and Local Knowledge’), sponsored by The Humanities and Social Sciences (RIHSS), Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST). (Participants: 150 from 8 countries)
  5. Annual meeting of East Asian Island and Ocean Forum (27 Nov-1 Dec. 2019, Pukyung University, Korea), theme : ‘Development and Exchange of Humanities Network in Sea Area’. ( Participants: 45)
  6. The Marine and Islands Cultures Conference:“Island Humanities: Changing Humanities Geography and Sustainability of Island” organized by Institution for Marine & Island Cultures (MIC) , Mokpo National University, South Korea. It started from September 2020, and will be continued to 2027 annually.