This book provides a powerful picture of the significance and centrality of islands in the Indo-Pacific region in the 21st century, far from an easily assumed benign peripherality and invisibility. It consists of nine chapters and examines four major challenges facing island societies, namely 'aggressive environmental adaptation,' 'outmigration,' 'island borders,' and 'military fortification.' The book relationally details how island geographies in the Indo-Pacific region become an assemblage of environmental, social, and political dynamics. Throughout these chapters, the book aims to renew the mainland/continental perspective that tends to marginalize islands in the larger society, to expand awareness of the significance of islands in the world. The book also contributes to the construction of world peace extended from peace on islands.

This book is the outcome of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Thematic Conference 'Islands in Relations: Conflicts, Sustainability, and Peace' at Osaka Metropolitan University in 2023, with support from the Association of Japanese Geographers and other academic organizations. The conference aimed, and this book attempts, to reconsider the environmental, social, economic, and political relationships among the islands of the world, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, by focusing on their relations with the mainland, neighboring continents, and other islands at the bigger scale, and to identify factors that cause (and avoid) conflicts over islands, conditions for islands' environmental and economic sustainability, and ways to build 'peace' in the maritime and coastal areas surrounding the islands. The book is a valuable resource for geographers, island scholars, other scientists, university students, teachers, policymakers, NGOs, other practitioners, and the public worldwide who find the book topics informative, insightful, and valuable.

Autorentext

Takashi Yamazaki, Ph.D. (University of Colorado, Boulder) is a professor of Geography at Osaka Metropolitan University, Japan. His current research interest concerns the (de)militarization of Okinawa and the critical geopolitics of Japanese foreign policy. He was/is a steering committee member of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Political Geography (2004-2016) and the Commission on Islands (2024-). He served as an editorial board member of Political Geography and Geopolitics for many years.

Godfrey Baldacchino, Ph.D. (Warwick), is a professor of Sociology at the University of Malta. He served as an Island Studies Teaching fellow, UNESCO co-chair, and Canada Research chair in Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), Canada, between 2003 and 2020. He is the founding executive editor of Island Studies Journal, and since 2018, the founding executive editor of Small States & Territories journal. In 2021, he was appointed (thematic) Malta Ambassador for islands and small states. His research interests include island studies, small state studies, political geography, sociology of work, international relations, island tourism, entrepreneurship, brain rotation, immigration, labor relations, human resource management, adult education, worker empowerment, and the development of cooperatives.