ABSTRACT
This introduction sets the stage for the framing and content of the book. In the first micro-essay, I describe my lifelong fascination with islands and outline the personal and academic trajectory that brought me to writing this book. In the next section, I outline a brief history of anthropology as seen through an engagement with islands, beginning with Malinowski’s (1922) pioneering work in the Trobriand Islands and landing in the more recent work of island studies. The third section applies Levi-Strauss’ (1966) structural anthropology to islands by addressing how and why the space and place of islands offer a productive and viable lens through which to view contemporary culture. The next section proposes a practical methodology for conceptualizing anthropological encounters with islands and their inhabitants. Lastly, I provide a micro-essay on the liminal location of the ferry as a both literal and figurative route between mainland and island, thereby outlining the conceptual relationship between here and there. In this section, I lean heavily on the classic maxim that anthropology is the translation of there into here. The ferry becomes transportation as a form of translation.
