The Funambulist No 09 2017 - Islands

The ninth issue of The Funambulist engages a shift in the geographical focus of the magazine. Periodicals regularly produce issues on islands but may tend to focus on their geological formation, or the ways in which supposedly “desert islands” have been rendered “inhabitable,” thus perpetuating the colonial narrative of Robinson Cruzoe. This particular issue attempt to amplify the voices of indigenous narratives, as well as on non-colonial protocols of passage on these islands, like in the cases of displaced persons in the Mediterranean Sea or the Indian Ocean. Whether they are the settings of decolonizing and demilitarizing struggles (Mayotte, Kanaky – New Caledonia, Hawai’i, Diego Garcia, Puerto Rico, Okinawa), or of the economization and incarceration of displaced lives (Lesvos, Nauru, Christmas Island), or places that even face the threat of absolute disappearance, as a consequence of the “big countries’” mode of existence (Tuvalu, Kiribati), the narratives voiced in this issue are simultaneously asymmetric regarding the forces against which they are mobilized, and united in a continuously reaffirmed urgency that always sooner or later topples these forces.