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> Project Description
"Island time", which seems to tourists and travelers choosing an island vacation as an attractive yet vague phenomenon, points to a banal, abstract, and still incomprehensible concept of time with which we describe our own island experiences. The multiplicity of temporal experiences and perceptions of time in the island context is further complicated when the non-islander's impression contrasts with the islander's point of view and all that determines it; the rhythm of island life, seasonality of economic activities, seasonal dynamics, and dominant natural surroundings. In project A Network of Island Temporalities we understand temporality as a historically, socially, and culturally shaped process that takes various modalities beyond the determinism of singular linearity and chronological causality.
Port of Sali, Dugi otok. Photo by Danijel Pavičić.
Source: Based on Central registry of spatial units in the Republic of Croatia, Croatian Geodetic Administration (CGA), 2016. Map by Ante Blaće, PhD.
Thus far, in the context of social sciences and humanities, island research has been characterized by predominant spatiality as a fundamental determinant of island cultures. The frequent emphasis on spatiality has resulted in representations of islands as constrained, both geographically and in everyday life, and marked by a historicized present and belated modernity. The dynamic character of island communities was often cited as the starting point for several diverse disciplinary approaches. In the end, interpretations of island cultures unknowingly ended up being described with the rhetoric of exoticism and essentialism. Consequently, the contemporary issues of island research in Croatia often move along a road of evoking nostalgia for the lost “island tradition” coupled with dramatic appeals to save the remaining island cultural phenomena (traditional architecture, the economy, dialects, food culture, etc.). With this project, we aim to provide fresh perspectives on the diversity of island related temporal experiences within a multidisciplinary research environment, while also broadening our knowledge about the entangled relations of space, time, and human experience.
Today, contemporary time is experienced through radical contradictions as it also simultaneously dictates our everyday activities and even marks our language. The notions of “me-time” or “no time at all” are familiar to most and fundamentally reconfigure our daily life. “Time is money” parallelly co-exists with longing for “boredom” or “time at a slower pace”. Even now, in the “time of Covid-19” and ecological crises, we crave relaxation and procrastination to escape possible dark thoughts of what sometimes feels like a not-so-bright future. Awash in multiple temporalities, we believe that now is the time for ethnographically-based research that enables us to think about and beyond the usual perception of time in our everyday lives. In the context of South-Eastern Europe, which is often marked by the rhetoric of temporal alterity, we see islands as ambiguous spaces whose temporal elusiveness stirs new research perspectives and multidisciplinary cooperation.
Port of Sali, Dugi otok. Photo by Danijel Pavičić.
Port of Sali, Dugi otok. Photo by Danijel Pavičić.
With the project, A Network of Island Temporalities: Multidisciplinary Approach to Temporalities on Dugi otok and Kornati islands, we wish to contribute to the understanding of thus far neglected and entangled relations between island space and time, while at the same time focusing on lived experiences of islanders.
Source: Based on Central registry of spatial units in the Republic of Croatia, Croatian Geodetic Administration (CGA), 2016. Map by Ante Blaće, PhD.
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