Challenging climate change and migration discourse: different understandings of time-scale and temporality in the Maldives

This article draws on ongoing research in the Maldives to explore differences between elite and non-elite perceptions of climate change and migration. It argues that, in addition to variations in perceptions based on diverse knowledge, priorities and agendas, there exists a more fundamental divergence based upon different understandings of the time-scale of climate change and related ideas of urgency and crisis. Specifically, elites tend to focus on a distant future which is generally abstracted from people’s everyday lived realities, as well as utilise the language of a climate change-induced migration ‘crisis’ in their discussions about impacts in a manner not envisaged by non-elites. The article concludes that, rather than unproblematically mapping global, external facing narratives wholesale onto ordinary people’s lives and experiences, there needs to be more dialogue between elites and non-elites on climate change and migration issues. These perspectives should be integrated more effectively in the development of policy interventions designed to help people adapt to the impacts of global environmental change

Raising awareness of environmental change in the Maldives

Island communities in the Maldives are experiencing environmental change on a daily basis due to coastal erosion, the accumulation of waste at sea and on beaches, and the rapid expansion of the built environment. Researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Reading in the UK, and the Maldivian NGO ENDEVOR, are working with these communities to understand how such changes affect day-to-day life, and to raise awareness of associated issues amongst decision makers in the national capital, Malé. An exhibition of 40 photographs taken by island inhabitants depicting the challenges they face in their daily lives was held at the National Art Gallery in Malé. The exhibition launch, attended by the photographers and policymakers, proved particularly effective in enabling island residents to raise their concerns and put forward their solutions

Contestation over an island imaginary landscape: the management and maintenance of touristic nature

This article demonstrates how maintaining high-end tourism in luxury resorts requires recreating a tourist imaginary of pristine, isolated and unpeopled island landscapes, thus necessitating the ceaseless manipulation and management of space. This runs contrary to the belief that tourism industries are exerting an increasingly benign influence on local environments following the emergence of ‘sustainable tourism’ in recent decades. Rather than preventing further destruction of the ‘natural’ world, or fostering the reproduction of ‘natural’ processes, this article argues that the tourist sector actively seeks to alter and manage local environments so as to ensure their continuing attractiveness to the high-paying tourists that seek out idyllic destinations. Additionally, by drawing on an example of tourism development, environmental change and local conflict in the Maldives, it shows how interventions by tourism managers can result in conflict with local people who, possessing different imaginaries, interests and priorities, may have their own, often long-established, uses of the environment undermined in the process. The article concludes that the growing diversity and increasing environmental awareness of tourists is currently producing a range of complexities and ambiguities that preclude any easy and straightforward environmental response by the sector, and ultimately might destabilise the Western-based tourist imaginary itself

Shifting sands: the rhythms and temporalities of island sandscapes

This article explores the different timescales and temporalities of the movement of sand. In recent years, growing scholarly attention has focused on the qualities of sand and the increasing demands for its use worldwide. However, the dynamics of this complex substance and the ways in which it flows through entangled human and non-human environments remains largely under-explored. In drawing on recently collected empirical data, this article explores the speed, pace and cadence of the passage of sand in, around and beyond a small island in the Maldives. It argues for the need to adopt a more substantive comprehension of the choreography of sand as a place-making process that occurs across different, interconnected temporalities, and seeks to explore the emotional and sensory reactions that shifting sand provokes. These temporal dynamics have profound implications for how we understand islands in the context of global environmental change. The article takes the reader on a walk across the island sandscape to reveal the mutually interlocking roles that human and non-human agents play in transforming its form, thereby creating an ever-changing sense of place

Multiplicities of sandscapes and granular geographies

From SAGE Publishing via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: epub 2021-03-30Publication status: PublishedThis commentary on William Jamieson’s article, ‘For Granular Geography’, which illuminates the granular relations of sand as it is transformed by capitalist urbanism, suggests that understanding what might constitute granular geographies requires further consideration of the multiplicities of granular material. It considers the manifold values of sand beyond its worth as an economic resource and explores the temporalities associated with the movement and fixity of sand. It goes on to argue that there is a need for renewed focus on the impacts of sand extraction for local communities and landscapes as well as for more substantive accounts of the myriad mobile choreographies of sand in processes of place-making

Custodians of a resort island: standing by between oblivion and restoration

This paper explores the experiences of three Bangladeshi migrant workers who are the sole inhabitants and custodians of a former Maldivian island resort. We show how they currently remain in a state of indeterminate standby as the future of the resort remains uncertain, put in this state of limbo by the capacity of the resort’s owners to exploit their disposability and manipulability. We investigate the rich material and sensory qualities of the island, and investigate the everyday practices that characterize how the men live and work there. First, we illustrate how the island remains haunted by the workers and tourists who formerly inhabited this space, since much of the resort infrastructure remains. Second, we explore how the buildings and things on the island are unevenly intact, in a state of partial ruination. Third, we discuss how the inexpert daily maintenance practices undertaken by the three men focus on certain areas but neglect others. Finally, we emphasize that despite their uncertain future, the men endeavour to create a stable, convivial and pleasurable island home