Pagan Island Land Use Proposals

Sovereignty is a term used by stateless people seeking decolonization as well as by dominant social groups struggling to reassert their socially privileged positions. All sorts of political actors, it seems, are interested in sovereignty. It is less clear, however, just what the term means, and whether calls for sovereignty promote a politically progressive or conservative agenda. Examining how sovereignty functions allows us to better understand the dangers, promise, and limitations of relying on it as a political strategy. Islands and Oceans explores how struggles for decolonization, self- determination, and political rights permeate conceptualizations of how sovereignty operates. To support his theoretical claims, Sasha Davis works through a series of case studies, drawing on research that he conducted between 2013 and 2017 in Korea, Guam, Yap, Palau, the Northern Marianas, Hawai‘i, and Honshu and Okinawa in Japan. Because of the hybridized and contested arrangements of sovereignty in these territories, these places are excellent sites to tease out some of the differences between official regimes of sovereignty and the actual control of social processes on the ground. In addition, analysis of the tensions and acute debates over sovereignty in these regions lays bare how sovereignty works as a process. Davis’s study of these political cases within the Asia-Pacific region advances our understanding the nature of sovereignty more generally.

Following the trails of Hawai‘i’s snails to explore the simultaneously biological and cultural significance of extinction. In this time of extinctions, the humble snail rarely gets a mention. And yet snails are disappearing faster than any other species. In A World in a Shell, Thom van Dooren offers a collection of snail stories from Hawai‘i—once home to more than 750 species of land snails, almost two-thirds of which are now gone. Following snail trails through forests, laboratories, museums, and even a military training facility, and meeting with scientists and Native Hawaiians, van Dooren explores ongoing processes of ecological and cultural loss as they are woven through with possibilities for hope, care, mourning, and resilience. Van Dooren recounts the fascinating history of snail decline in the Hawaiian Islands: from deforestation for agriculture, timber, and more, through the nineteenth century shell collecting mania of missionary settlers, and on to the contemporary impacts of introduced predators. Along the way he asks how both snail loss and conservation efforts have been tangled up with larger processes of colonization, militarization, and globalization. These snail stories provide a potent window into ongoing global process of environmental and cultural change, including the largely unnoticed disappearance of countless snails, insects, and other less charismatic species. Ultimately, van Dooren seeks to cultivate a sense of wonder and appreciation for our damaged planet, revealing the world of possibilities and relationships that lies coiled within a snail’s shell.

Paganism means living in harmony with nature and respecting all that nature has to offer. It is a sustainable way of life that has existed in the British Isles for thousands of years and that has survived secretly among scattered households throughout the UK. Although it is not a religious path (true pagans do not worship deities), paganism will appeal to anyone who cares about the environment, who is interested in maintaining an organic lifestyle or who believes in respecting their roots whilst catering for the future. Paganism may be thousands of years old, but it is particularly suited to meeting our twenty-first century concerns. In The Modern Pagan, Brian Day explains how to live in a way that honours the land and its inhabitants. There is advice on celebrating seasonal festivals, on cultivating a true pagan garden, on creating delicious food and drink from hedgerow fare, on herbal medicine, on the importance of pagan parenting and family values, on living in harmony without prejudice and discrimination and much more. The core principles of Modern Paganism will make sense to anyone who is tired of the hustle and bustle of our polluted lifestyles, and who is looking for a way to live that is in balance with our fellow human beings and the natural world.