Islands as legible geographies: Perceiving the islandness of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland)

Abstract

Despite considerable research within the field of island studies, no consensus has yet been reached as to what it is that makes islands special. Around the world, islands and archipelagos are shaped by diverse spatialities and relationalities that make it difficult to identify clear general characteristics of islandness. This paper argues that one such ‘active ingredient’ of islandness, which is present across many forms of island spatiality, is the idea that islands are ‘legible geographies’: spaces of heightened conceptualisability, spaces that are exceptionally easy to imagine as places. The paper uses the case of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) to show how island geographical legibility has influenced a territory’s cultural and political development over time, even though Kalaallit Nunaat is such a large island that it can never be experienced as an island but can only be perceived as an island from a satellite or cartographic perspective. I ultimately argue that islandness can have significant effects on a place’s development but that it can be difficult to isolate these effects from other factors that may themselves have been influenced by islandness.