Islands may offer 'a glimpse of the future' and P.E.I. plays a global role in showing us how

In September 1992, representatives of a dozen or so countries and dependent territories met in Canada's smallest province to talk about the one thing they all had in common: They all came from islands. 

The hosts, an assorted group of scholars from the then-still-new University of Prince Edward Island Institute of Island Studies, couldn't have possibly foreseen that between dry academic discussions on issues such as Icelandic sovereignty, they were starting a movement.

"We were both setting up institutes of island studies for similar reasons at our respective universities. And very soon of course, within a few years, we found out about each other," said Godfrey Baldacchino, a sociology professor at the University of Malta.

"I was invited, and I haven't looked back."

Baldacchino, who also teaches at UPEI, is one of the leading scholars in island studies, an academic field that during that conference first got its moment in the sun.

Islands have captured imaginations since the times of Homer, and scholars have rigorously studied their particularities starting with at least Darwin (think Island gigantism). But island studies — also known as "nissology" — didn't develop into its own thing until the mid-1980s.

That was chiefly the result of the independent work of scholars in two small islands: Malta in the Mediterranean Sea, and Prince Edward Island.

"There's quite a large network now of island studies researchers around the world. And I'm really proud to say that here we've been doing it amongst the longest," said Laurie Brinklow, the current chair of the UPEI Institute of Island Studies.

On P.E.I., Brinklow said, island studies first developed out of the efforts of one scholar, Harry Baglole, who analyzed the Island's historical relationship with the Canadian mainland within the context of other islands who've had a similar relationship with their respective countries.

Since then, the University of Prince Edward Island has been at the centre of island studies, spearheading international initiatives like the UNESCO chair of island studies and cultivating a network of researchers from islands all over the world.

But Brinklow said the topics they debate don't just affect islands. In fact, she believes they are the "canary in the coal mine" for some of the most hotly debated contemporary issues, including self-determination, Indigeneity, colonialism, migration and climate change.

"I was at a conference recently where somebody said islands are a glimpse of the future, and what happens on an island is going to happen to the rest of the world. And we're seeing that with climate change," she said. 

Similar to other forms of "area studies," nissology is multi-disciplinary in that it encompasses "hard sciences" such as geology as well as fields such as history, political science and even philosophy.

"In order to understand what goes on even on a very small island, you can't simply adopt a mono-disciplinary lens. You realize very quickly that what you're trying to study melds into other areas of knowledge," Baldacchino said.