Four students and two lecturers participated in the Critical Island Studies Consortium 2024 at De la Salle University, Manila, Philippines. They traveled all the way from Yogyakarta to Manila, presenting their critical ideas on the role of language in addressing ecological issues. The consortium took place on October 3rd and 4th, 2024.
Critical Island Studies Consortium 2024 brought a theme of the Political Lives of Islands, where scholars were challenged to respond to environmental transformation through an interdisciplinary lens, in particular humanities studies, to perform a practical and creative solution for life and sustainability. Six delegates from the Master’s Program in Linguistics, Universitas Gadjah Mada, brought their ideas in a paper to be presented in the parallel session of the conference.
In detail, Munzila Adelawati and Muh. Asrul Baharuddin presented their paper discussing Ecolinguistic Analysis of Industry and Ecology of Island: A Case Study of Tin Mining in Bangka Belitung Island. Hurrotul Firdausiyah discussed linguistic landscape by presenting her paper entitled Remembering the Pearl of Java among the Trading Ports: A Linguistic Landscape Study in Bandar Grissee, Indonesia. Diana Sri Suryani examined how environmental policy is generated by the Indonesian Government, where she submitted a paper entitled Exploring Climate Change Metaphors on the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Website: An Ecolinguistics of Representations of Indonesia Government’s Environmental Policy. Furthermore, Dr. Aprillia Firmonasari, S.S., M.Hum., DEA presented her paper entitled Unveiling Cultural Depths: A Critical Ecolinguistic Exploration of Tahne Juguin and Jean-Denis Pendanx’s Comic “Mentawai” while Dr. Merry Andriani, S.S., M.L.C.S. analyzed environmental issues and carbon market in presidential campaign 2024 in Indonesia, where she put Contestation of Environmental Issues and Carbon Market Discourse in Presidential Electoral Campaigns 2024 in Indonesia as the title of her paper.
Hurrotul expressed that she was very glad and blessed to participate in the Critical Island Studies 2024. “We, the participants, came from countries with similar environmental and cultural backgrounds. Listening to and engaging in the discussions provided valuable insights, along with opportunities for networking among scholars,” Hurrotul explained. When asked about the most interesting part of the discussion, Hurrotul mentioned that Asian cultures share common ideas—not only in social norms or cultural ideologies but also in small details that we might not have considered. “I never imagined that we have similar or even the same concept of another entity—a ghost. The differences are only in the names, but the form and structure are identical. For me, it shows that we face the same issues, and this type of meeting can be a medium to exchange ideas and knowledge to help solve our problems,” said Hurrotul.
The Critical Island Studies Consortium was initiated by Kritika Kultura, Ateneo de Manila University, and UNITAS, University of Santo Tomas in 2019 taking “Critical Island Studies: The Islandic Archipelago and Oceanic” as the theme. It reconvened post-pandemic in Jakarta in 2022, in which Universitas Kristen Indonesia (UKI) and Universitas Indonesia (UI) hosted the conference. Still in Indonesia, in 2023, it carried the theme “Island Commodities” and was held at Universitas Gadjah Mada in conjunction with Universitas Sanata Dharma’s Literary Studies Conference.