An empire of islands: concepts, contexts and collections

岛屿常常被想象成“特殊”的地方。长期以来，他们被描述为伊甸园或乌托邦;在英国，“岛国”的比喻几代人以来一直承载着（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，在通信、导航、贸易和战略方面往往具有重要性，这与它们的面积和资源无关。然而，岛屿也是有争议的空间。它们有时同时体现了自由和囚禁、孤立和联系、天堂和冷漠、财富和贫穷的概念。从希腊和威尼斯的海权统治到欧洲列强的辽阔疆域，岛屿在世界海洋帝国的历史中占据着重要地位。我们计划举办三场研讨会，探讨岛屿作为历史空间的关键问题，这些空间在塑造、代表和影响更广泛的帝国背景方面发挥着积极作用。我们的第一场研讨会将探讨岛屿作为建立、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。早期的殖民地将岛屿视为可以通过种植人民、作物和思想来改变的景观，这对几个世纪以来英国帝国的发展产生了强大的影响。正如坎尼和贾维斯等学者所言，英国人对大陆帝国的了解，是从爱尔兰或百慕大等第一批殖民岛屿上学到的。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了支点的作用。在其他情况下，如南大西洋或印度洋，岛屿既是中转站，又是战略壁垒，既保护领土和海上航线，又使其得以扩张。从这个意义上说，我们可以设想一个岛屿帝国。尽管岛屿可以被视为将帝国维系在一起的锁链，但许多岛屿并不直接属于英国、法国或荷兰。这些地方作为浩瀚海洋中的孤立港口，为许多国家的人民提供了安全的港湾。他们的社区位于重要的贸易路线上，使用多种语言，多种族。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。同样重要的是岛上欧洲人和非欧洲人（无论是土著人还是外来人）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意义，其中大国竞争在邻国和-有时-朋友之间展开，欧洲在这些岛屿上的活动导致创建了大量的文本和视觉记录档案，这些记录代表了欧洲与这些地方，其环境和人民的交往。除了文献资料，一系列的印刷品，绘画，美术，制图和大量的物质文化代表了这些岛屿的方式，表明欧洲与这些空间互动的复杂性。国家海事博物馆拥有无与伦比的收藏品，使我们的网络有机会探索这些主题。在我们的第三次研讨会上，与会者将根据前两次会议上讨论的概念审议这些收藏品。我们的目标是将前沿研究与世界一流的收藏品联系起来，以考虑理解过去的创新方法和为一系列观众解释博物馆收藏品的新方法。前两次会议的讨论将对第三次会议有所启发，第三次会议的结果将对网络的影响至关重要。

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.