ABSTRACT
One could say that island studies has proliferated as a celebration of the local in the face of, but also as an expression of, the global. At hand were countless examples of island societies and economies that defied and bucked the trend in favour of massification and urbanisation that ensued in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. But islander views and voices proffer a different and additional view of island life: one that has all too often been rendered invisible, mute, shamed, and debased. The Caribbean country has a powerful global brand on which stands its reputation as an attractive tourism destination; and its island neighbours are jealous. Mainstream literature and scholarship, especially in the humanities and social sciences, has not yet come properly to grips with islands, to the extent and with the attention expected by the demographic argument. The ‘gender shift’ in island studies delivers a series of fascinating gendered accounts of island life.
