Islands and Communities

Case studies from Cyprus, Crete and Sardinia reconsider through evidence from archaeology, art, and history, assumptions about island identity and isolation and interaction, commerce and mobility involving other islands and the Mediterranean mainland

Water may separate islands and the mainland, but the sea also offers a vital link. This volume is one of three major outputs of the research and public engagement project ‘Being an Islander’: Art and Identity of the Large Mediterranean Islands, implemented between 2019 and 2024 at the University of Cambridge. This project aimed to elucidate what defines island identity in the Mediterranean. It explored how insularity affects and shapes cultural identity by integrating transdisciplinary research methodologies, for example, by producing an awarded documentary on insularity and island identity, drawing on the principles of visual anthropology, social anthropology and environment studies. This volume is the culmination of the project’s research strands, undertaken by our key research teams in Cambridge, Cyprus, Greece and Italy. It disseminates our research across our main project themes: insularity, connectivity, mobility, migration, island art and material culture production, hybridity and diachronicity, and provides cross-disciplinary arguments and suggestions on the future of island archaeology and associated disciplines. Contributions included suggest that the relationship between people, place and material culture is what reveals important aspects of island identity and reframe the concept of the islands as a dynamic interplay shaped by social and historical episodes, connectivity and mobility, rather than geography or political boundaries. The volume advocates that the complex histories of the Mediterranean islands can also be a story of connections.