Dissertation Medal Winner 2025
This thesis examines a broad historical shift in landscape epistemologies and frames them through a theory of ‘island-making’ – a customary method of self-mapping which mediates the relationship between people and landscape. Moving through various stages in Shetland’s history, the essay identifies the mutations of island- making that originated at the Norse parliament in Shetland. It posits that the types of gathering and negotiation that were present at this parliament re-emerged as symbolic expressions of locality during periods of rapid commercial expansion in the 1800s and were codified as expressions of landscape through the adoption of the idealised image of the Viking during an era of Norse romanticism. It analyses the nuances of walking the line between spatial strategies of environmental management and symbolic expressions of identity, ultimately calling for a renewed approach to extractive spaces and infrastructures.
As an antidote to unchecked marine exploitation, the thesis concludes by proposing a strategy of island-making which engages ritual and custom with the modes of extraction - enabling new types of agencies within the rhythms of the fishing industry by drawing a keen awareness of one's boundaries and relationship to natural resources.
Tutor(s)
Tim Waterman