UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability

DATES: June 16-20, 2025
VENUES: University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown and St. Peters campuses
CO-HOSTS: University of Prince Edward Island, University of Aruba, Sophia University (Tokyo)

Come Turn the Tide on Prince Edward Island in 2025! This third international conference on Small Island States (SIS) and Subnational Island Jurisdictions (SNIJs) will bring together perspectives from around the world and across disciplines, for the first time in Canada’s smallest subnational island jurisdiction. The conference is, foremost, a way to share stories about climate change in the context of the lived experience of islandness.

Our 2025 conference will build upon its predecessors in Oranjestad, Aruba, and will include both in-person and online components. The Institute of Island Studies, the UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability, and the Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation at the University of Prince Edward Island, as local hosts, look forward to engaging participants in both traditional and non-traditional formats. We also look forward to working once again with our conference co-host, the University of Aruba, and to working for the first time with Sophia University from Tokyo!

Our call for abstracts is now open, until 30th September 2024!

Call for Abstracts & Submissions

Download the Call for Abstracts: http://projects.upei.ca/unescochair/files/2024/07/Call-for-Proposals_-Turning-the-Tide-2025.pdf

Submit your Abstract: https://forms.gle/bp9zUf7KGcD9oULW7

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and communities across disciplines to explore island imaginaries and interdisciplinarities in the context of climate change. Recognizing that climate change is profoundly cultural and that island imaginaries wield discursive power and material effects, we seek insights from different perspectives such as arts, humanities, social sciences, and climate (and other) sciences.

Islands have long evoked imaginative responses that informed the ways they have been conceptualized, researched, represented, colonized, and deployed by Western-scientific-economic interests. With climate change, new island imaginaries are being produced, for example, via data, computer models, visualizations, and dystopic predictions, all of which have material dynamics that forge realities. Islanders have been resisting and critically responding to past and current island imaginaries through research, art, stories, and Indigenous epistemologies. Diverse, decolonizing, and interdisciplinary collaborations that challenge and reconsider how imaginaries and knowledge(s) about islands are produced, valued, disseminated, utilized, and resisted are vital in creating transformative possibilities. Don’t miss the opportunity to present your work at this vibrant and collaborative forum, bringing together island scholars from around the world and across various disciplines. Submit an abstract related to one or more of the sub-themes:

Food sovereignty in an era of climate change
Ocean health and climate change (ecosystem functionality, terrestrial, ocean, ecotone)
Incorporating diverse knowledges in climate change adaptation strategies
The importance of health and well-being
Material culture: lived experiences of the everyday
Climate and social justice
Gender and intergenerational framing
Environmental law and governance
Migration and urbanization
Nature-based solutions
Climate change communications
Climate change education

This conference aims to share stories. We therefore encourage academic papers, panels, roundtables, posters, and non-traditional presentations (e.g., storytelling, interactive sessions, creative) from all disciplines. In addition to scholarly papers, we also invite submissions for:

Artist in residence / Poet in residence
Creative pieces that engage with the themes
Workshops on sharing creative practices (e.g., poetry, art, photography, storytelling)
Indigenous practices and workshops
Experiential learning activities

We welcome submissions that look at the dynamics of climate change, island imaginaries and the imperative of interdisciplinary research on a case-by-case, island-by-island, or regional basis. All disciplinary perspectives are welcomed, but they must engage with notions of the lived experience of islandness. We are also keen to engage with presentations that adopt a more comparative framework or methodology in their critical analysis.

Abstracts of around 150-200 words each are invited on any of the above themes. Although this is primarily an in-person event, we will accommodate those who choose not to travel with a parallel stream made available to participants online. Please indicate in the Abstract Submission Form if you prefer this mode of delivery. Registration fees will be adjusted accordingly.

Download the Call for Abstracts: http://projects.upei.ca/unescochair/files/2024/07/Call-for-Proposals_-Turning-the-Tide-2025.pdf

Submit your Abstract: https://forms.gle/bp9zUf7KGcD9oULW7

Registration