‘Covid-islands’ and ‘covid-archipelagos’ : sociospatial identities and spatiotemporal dynamics of island and archi-pelagic insular imaginaries of the covid-19 pandemic

Halliday, Andrew (author)

During the global Covid-19 pandemic, households, communities and regions around the world were faced with the hardening of borders at a variety of jurisdictional and spatial levels. These policy actions saw a sharp rise in insularisation occur as border geographies spurred insularity. The purpose of this paper is to examine this phenomenon and explore how this insular imagery took hold. Jurisdictional islanding in the form of “Covid-islands” and “Covid-archipelagos” is introduced and explained as policy constructs which occurred at both micro and macro levels during the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper then examines Eastern Canada’s Covid-archipelagic “Atlantic Bubble”, constructed by the joint-islanding of the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, as an illustrative case study example. The paper finishes by analysing the sociospatial and temporal dynamics of Covid-islands and Covid-archipelagos, tying to dimensions of culture, territory and society intercon-nected amongst prior concepts and paradigms of island understanding. Islanding in the Covid-19 era brought us back to the notion of seclusion and detachment that in a way echoes the paradigms that had already been deconstructed in the field of island studies. However, the emergence of these sociospatial island imaginaries leads us to rethink insularisation and what it meant to be insularised in the Covid-19 period.

• Language: English
• Keywords: insularity, island studies, Covid-19, Covid-islands, Covid-archipelagos, island imaginaries, Great Britain
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication date: 01.07.2025
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 18-35
• Numbering: Letn. 3, št. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-179546
• UDC: 616-036.22:39(410)
• ISSN on article: 2820-6088
• DOI: 10.4312/svetovi.3.2.18-35
• COBISS.SI-ID: 245442051
• Publication date in RUL: 16.02.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Svetovi
• Publisher: Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 2820-6088
• COBISS.SI-ID: 148550403

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: »Covidni otoki« in »covidna otočja« : družbeno-prostorske identitete in prostorsko-časovna dinamika otoških imaginarijev med pandemijo covida-19

Abstract

Med globalno pandemijo Covida-19 so se gospodinjstva, skupnosti in regije po vsem svetu soočale z utrjevanjem meja na različnih ravneh, bodisi v pravnem ali prostorskem smislu. Zaradi teh ukrepov je na podlagi spodbud mejnih geografskih območij prišlo do močnega povečanja izolacije ali otočenja. Namen tega prispevka je preučiti ta pojav in raziskati, kako se je uveljavila ta podoba izoliranosti. Razložena sta koncepta »covidnih otokov« in »covidnih otočij«, ki sta se pojavila kot obliki pravnega otočenja ali izolacije, kot konstrukta politik, ki so se med pandemijo pojavile na mikro in makro ravni. Kot študija primera je predstavljen t. i. »atlantski mehurček«, covidno otočje na vzhodu Kanade, ki so ga sestavljale province New Brunswick, Nova Škotska, Otok princa Edvarda ter Nova Fundlandija in Labrador. Sledi analiza socialno-prostorske in časovne dinamike covidnih otokov in covidnih otočij, povezanih z razsežnostmi kulture, ozemlja in družbe, ki so medsebojno prepletene s koncepti in paradigmami razumevanja otokov. Otočenje nas je v času Covida-19 znova približalo pojmu osamitve in odmaknjenosti, ki na nek način odraža paradigme, ki so bile na področju otoških študij že dekonstruirane. Vendar nas pojav teh socialno-prostorskih otoških imaginarij vodi k ponovnemu razmišljanju o izolaciji in o tem, kaj je to pomenilo v obdobju Covida-19.

• Keywords: otoškost, otoške študije, Covid-19, covidni otoki, covidna otočja, otoški imaginarij, Velika Britanija