Islands and Resilience : Experiences from the Pandemic Era

This book explores island resilience and how island communities come together to achieve wellbeing, have agency over their future and resist ongoing neo-colonialism during disruptive events such as COVID-19 and the increasing threats of climate change. This collection provides examples of lived experiences and the responses of island communities, many of them based in tourism-reliant locations. These examples are based on intensive research by a team of diverse academics and practitioners. The chapters offer case studies that interrogate theories related to resilience, wellbeing and social inclusion and provide cutting-edge insights that demonstrate the multifaceted complexity of island resilience.

This book examines the islands, their developing economy and social development themes. It is relevant for academic researchers, students, and practitioners interested in the multiple components that contribute to the resilience of island communities, including community development, economic development, tourism, disaster response, community wellbeing, social justice, globalisation, decolonisation, and neoliberal governance in island communities. As many of the island economies examined are also developing island-states, this volume is also essential to scholars investigating economies in transition. The collection is truly interdisciplinary and offers state-of-the-art knowledge on island communities and their resilience.

Can-Seng Ooi is an anthropologist/sociologist and Professor of Cultural and Heritage Tourism at the University of Tasmania. As an engaged scholar, he integrates his research, teaching and engagement with the practice community together. His empirical research cuts across continents, including in Australia, Denmark, Singapore, China, and Malaysia. Over three decades, one of his research focuses is on business-and-society relations, as he examines the political economy of tourism, the poetics and politics of place branding, arts and cultural development strategies, and cross-cultural management tactics.

Roxane de Waegh is a PhD candidate at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. The scope of Roxane’s PhD research aims to explore the effectiveness and resilience of integrated conservation and development projects in remote coastal communities. Prior to embarking on this academic journey, Roxane worked as a marine conservation practitioner with various non-government organisations in island communities around the world, including Myanmar, Solomon Islands, Bahamas, Belize, and Timor-Leste. Roxane utilises her experiential knowledge in her current academic pursuit to reflect and critique extant ideas, assumptions, values, processes, and structures around development and conservation. Her goal is to explore alternative development strategies that are aligned with local understandings, and that emphasize people’s long-term social-ecological wellbeing over economic growth.

Cristina Alexandra Trifan is a Doctoral Researcher and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster, United Kingdom. Alexandra is undertaking a research project on the role and meaning of happiness in volunteer tourism in Fiji. Drawing on decolonising research and using the culturally embedded indigenous Fijian Vanua Research Framework, her study uses a participatory, collaborative approach in which research assistants actively participate in the research. Her research interests intersect with international hospitality management, tourism, cultural anthropology, development studies, happiness studies and Small Island Developing States. Alexandra is also a Postgraduate Representative of the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Research Group at the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).

Yunzi Zhang is an Associate Professor of Hospitality Management at the Northern Marianas College. Her primary research interest is the interconnection between tourism, history, and culture. She has published research articles about Chinese tourist behaviours overseas in the context of collective memory. She received the 2019 Emerald Literati Awards for her Outstanding Author Contribution in the book Quality Services and Experiences in Hospitality and Tourism. Her current project includes the investigation of the indigenous understanding of the “hospitality” of the aboriginal peoples in the Northern Mariana Islands. Dr. Zhang holds a PhD in Hospitality and Tourism Management from Purdue University in Indiana, USA.