Infrastructures of the Imagined Island: Software, Mobilities, and the Architecture of Caribbean Paradise

Mimi Sheller

doi:10.1068/a41248

journal article Jun 01, 2009

Infrastructures of the Imagined Island: Software, Mobilities, and the Architecture of Caribbean Paradise

Mimi Sheller

Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space Vol. 41 No. 6 pp. 1386-1403 · SAGE Publications

View at Publisher Save 10.1068/a41248

Abstract

Software is receding and rescaling island space, assembling islands in new configurations of territoriality and governance. Paying attention to software-supported mobility, sovereignty and place-making offers a key terrain for thinking about the contemporary rescaling of Caribbean states, island territories, and the imaginary ‘offshore’ economies within them. Travel and leisure destinations, especially in the Caribbean, are being disembedded from national territories and repackaged as unique natural enclaves connected to global metropolitan transport, media, and data flows. Through a discussion of Zaha Hadid's masterplan for a new resort on Dellis Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands, the author explores how state space, informational space, and tourist space are converging in new fantasies of mobility, accessibility, and island paradise. The new software- supported spatialities, theorized as urban or metropolitan, are actually affecting remote Caribbean islands and other dispersed enclaves as much as (though in different ways than) ‘advanced’ urban regions. Indeed, as Caribbean states and territories adjust to complex new infrastructures and architectures of mobility, the deformations and refoldings of space described here may precociously prefigure processes of postcolonial urbanism that are restructuring private property, cyberspatial property, and state territory in other parts of the world.

Topics

No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →

References

68

[1]

Adey P Surveillance and Society (2004)

[2]

10.1016/j.geoforum.2007.09.001

[3]

Bærenholdt J O (2004)

[4]

Islands, Island Studies, Island Studies Journal

Godfrey Baldacchino

Island Studies Journal 2006 10.24043/isj.185

[5]

Betsky A (1998)

[6]

Bogdanich W, 2007, “Free trade zones ease passage of counterfeit drugs to U.S.” The New York Times 17 December, pages A1, A10

[7]

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270057.001.0001

[8]

10.1002/9781444397499

[9]

Brown D (2004)

[10]

10.4135/9781446221037

[11]

Cantor M, 2008, “The radar week ender. Treasure islands: Palatial private-island resorts take over Turks and Caicos' uninhabited territories and redefine haute hospitality” Miami Magazine, January/February, pp 100–102

[12]

10.1080/713657026

[13]

de Jong L (2006)

[14]

Dodge M (2000)

[15]

10.4324/9780203402696

[16]

Edward M The Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers (2006)

[17]

Faure M, 2007, “Paradis design” L'Equipe Sport and Style (June)

[18]

10.1215/9780822387640

[19]

Ferguson Y (2002) 10.1353/book4568

[20]

Foster H, 2006, “New fields of architecture: Hal Foster on Zaha Hadid” Artforum (September) pp 325–331

[21]

10.4135/9781446219768

[22]

10.1215/9780822380290

[23]

10.7551/mitpress/9780262062749.001.0001

[24]

Gannon T (2006)

[25]

Gillis J (2004)

[26]

Graham S (2004)

[27]

10.4324/9780203452202

[28]

Grove R (1995)

[29]

Haldrup M, Larsen J, 2006, “Following flows: Geographies of tourism performances”, paper presented to ‘Mobilities, Technologies and Travel’ Workshop, Roskilde University, http://www.ruc.dk/inst3/geo/Tpato/Articles/

[30]

10.1080/17450100500489189

[31]

Hoete A (2003)

[32]

Iovine J, 2006, “The islands that have it—all are about to get quite a bit more” The New York Times House and Home: Currents: Architecture, 14 September

[33]

Junemo M (2004)

[34]

Kanter J, Rivlin G, 2007, “Ruling lets Antigua be pirate to punish U.S. in trade fight” The New York Times 22 December, Business, page 3

[35]

Koolhaas R (1994)

[36]

Krauss C, Creswell J, Savage C, 2009, “Questions rise as a billionaire's island realm comes apart” The New York Times 21 February, pages A1, A13

[37]

Kurlansky M (2002)

[38]

Lacey M, 2007, “New routes and new risk, as more Haitians flee” The New York Times 19 May

[39]

10.1002/9780470755686.ch5

[40]

McDowell S (2008)

[41]

Maurer B Socialist Review (1995)

[42]

Maurer B (2002)

[43]

Maurer B (2004)

[44]

Miller D (2000)

[45]

Novak M (1991)

[46]

Novak M (1997)

[47]

10.1111/j.1931-0846.2007.tb00402.x

[48]

10.1111/0020-8833.00100

[49]

10.1162/002081802753485160

[50]

Pattullo P (1996)

Showing 50 of 68 references

Metrics

55

Citations

68

References

Details

Published: Jun 01, 2009
Vol/Issue: 41(6)
Pages: 1386-1403
License: View

Authors

M

Mimi Sheller

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19072, USA

Cite This Article

Mimi Sheller (2009). Infrastructures of the Imagined Island: Software, Mobilities, and the Architecture of Caribbean Paradise. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 41(6), 1386-1403. https://doi.org/10.1068/a41248

Infrastructures of the Imagined Island: Software, Mobilities, and the Architecture of Caribbean Paradise

You May Also Like