An empire of islands: concepts, contexts and collections

岛屿通常被认为是“特殊”的地方。长期以来，它们一直被描绘成伊甸园或乌托邦；在英国，“岛国”的比喻世世代代都承载着（并保留着）政治和文化的分量。小岛屿位于海洋中央，远离大陆，在与其面积和资源的关系之外，往往在通讯、航海、贸易和战略方面具有重要意义。然而，岛屿也是有争议的地方。它们有时同时体现了自由和禁锢的概念；隔离和连接；天堂和冷漠；财富和贫穷。从希腊和威尼斯的海洋王国到欧洲列强的遥远领土，岛屿在世界海洋帝国的历史中显得十分重要。我们建议举办三场研讨会，探讨与岛屿作为历史空间在塑造、代表和影响更广泛的帝国背景方面发挥积极作用有关的关键问题。我们的第一个研讨会将探索岛屿作为建立，扩张和维持帝国的关键节点。虽然大英帝国的大部分陆地是大陆而不是岛屿，但岛屿在巩固英国的全球影响力方面发挥了关键作用。几个世纪以来，早期殖民地将岛屿视为可以通过人口、作物和思想的种植而改变的景观，这对英国通往帝国的道路的发展产生了巨大影响。正如坎尼和贾维斯等学者所指出的那样，英国人对大陆帝国的了解，是他们从首次殖民爱尔兰或百慕大等岛屿中学到的。然而，岛屿不仅仅是帝国的试验场。它们是非常有利可图的财产，为个人和政府创造了巨大的财富，并在复杂的贸易和生产系统中发挥着支点作用。在其他情况下，例如在南大西洋或印度洋，岛屿既是中转站又是战略堡垒，既保护领土和海上航线，又使其得以扩张。从这个意义上说，设想一个岛屿帝国是可能的。虽然岛屿可能被视为维系帝国的链条，但许多岛屿并不是直接属于英国、法国或荷兰。这些地方，作为浩瀚海洋中孤立的港口，为许多国家的人民提供了安全的港湾。他们站在重要的贸易路线上，他们的社区是多语言和多种族的。因此，特别是在战争或革命时期，这些社会反映了更广泛的全球争端。同样重要的是岛上的欧洲人和非欧洲人（无论是本地的还是外来的）之间的紧张关系。奴隶起义和土著力量不断挑战帝国统治的存在。我们的第二个研讨会将探讨将岛屿视为更广泛的帝国和全球竞争的缩影的含义，在这种竞争中，大国之间的竞争在邻国之间，有时是在朋友之间。欧洲人在这些岛屿上的活动产生了大量的文字和视觉记录，这些记录代表了欧洲人与这些地方、它们的环境和人民的交往。除了文献资料外，一系列印刷品、图纸、美术、制图和大量物质文化以各种方式代表这些岛屿，表明欧洲人与这些空间相互作用的复杂性。国家海事博物馆拥有无与伦比的藏品，为我们的网络提供了探索这些主题的机会。在我们的第三次研讨会上，与会者将根据前两次会议讨论的概念来考虑这些集合。我们的目标是将前沿研究与世界级藏品联系起来，考虑以创新的方式理解过去，并为一系列观众解读博物馆藏品的新方法。前两次会议的讨论将启发第三次会议，其结果将是网络影响的核心。

Islands are often imagined as 'special' places. They have long been represented as edenic or utopian; in the UK, the trope of the 'island nation' has for generations carried (and retains) political as well as cultural weight. Small islands, situated in the middle of oceans and remote from continental land masses, often possess an importance in communications, navigation, trade and strategy out of all relation to their size and resources. Yet islands are also contested spaces. They embody - sometimes simultaneously - notions of freedom and captivity; isolation and connection; paradise and inhospitality; wealth and poverty. From the thalassocracies of Greece and Venice to the far-flung dominions of European powers, islands loom large in the histories of the world's maritime empires.We propose to hold three workshops to explore key issues relating to islands as historical spaces with active roles in shaping, representing and influencing wider imperial contexts.Our first workshop will explore islands as crucial nodal points for establishing, expanding and maintaining empires. While much of the British Empire's landmass was continental rather than insular, islands played a critical role in consolidating Britain's global reach. Early colonial visions of islands as landscapes that could be transformed by the plantation of peoples, crops and ideas had powerful impacts on the development of British approaches to empire over centuries. As scholars like Canny and Jarvis have argued, what the British knew about empire on continents, they learned from first colonising islands like Ireland or Bermuda. Islands were more than testing grounds for empire, however. They were highly lucrative possessions, creating immense wealth for individuals and governments, and acted as fulcra in sophisticated systems of trade and production. In other contexts, such as the South Atlantic or the Indian Ocean, islands acted as both staging posts and strategic bulwarks, at once safeguarding territories and sea routes and enabling their expansion. In this sense, it becomes possible to conceive of an empire of islands. Although islands might be regarded as the chains holding empire together, many were not straightforwardly British or French or Dutch. These places, as isolated ports in vast oceans, provided safe harbours for peoples of many nations. Standing on key trade routes, their communities were polyglot and multiracial. As a result, and particularly at times of war or revolution, these societies reflected wider global disputes. Equally important were the tensions between Europeans and non-Europeans (whether indigenous or imported) in the islands. Slave revolt and indigenous power constantly challenged the presence of imperial rule. Our second workshop will explore the implications of considering islands as microcosms of wider imperial and global contests, in which great power rivalries played out among neighbours and - sometimes - friends.European activity in these islands resulted in the creation of a vast archive of textual and visual records that represent European engagements with these places, their environments and peoples. In addition to documentary sources, an array of prints, drawings, fine art, cartography and a host of material culture represent these islands in ways that indicate the complex nature of European interactions with these spaces. The National Maritime Museum holds unparalleled collections that give our network the opportunity to explore these themes. In our third workshop, participants will consider these collections in the light of the concepts discussed in the first two meetings. We aim to connect leading-edge research with world class collections to consider innovative ways of understanding the past and new approaches to interpreting museum collections for a range of audiences. Discussions in the first two meetings will enlighten the third, the results of which will be central to the network's impact.