Island Encounters: Experiential Modes of Insideness and Outsideness on Pitcairn Island

Abstract

In a case study of Pitcairn Island, this article uses Relph’s experiential notion insideness/outsideness to deliver perspectives on islands as places of local and multiple meanings that are constructed spatially and experienced diversely. Results reveal how place, for different individuals and groups, induces a spectrum of situations, meanings, and identities, and whereby extremes of insideness (existential) and outsideness (alienation) become critical points of juncture that can work to maintain, restore, or threaten permanence of place. More specifically, as a subnational island jurisdiction, Pitcairn reveals the complex and often contested nature of place reflected in relationships of center/periphery (geographical) and island/metropole (sociopolitical). In isolation, specific subnational island jurisdictions like Pitcairn Island offer particular rather than general assumptions on the nature of place experience. Nonetheless, they better equip us to maintain perspectives on islands as currently ongoing and commonly contested processes of creation and becoming, with largely indeterminate futures.