Policing and justice in island communities

Abstract

Research focusing on policing and the justice systems from an island perspective is available, but extremely rare. Additionally, available research on policing and justice systems in island contexts is usually conducted by non-island scholars using a limited frame of reference on ‘islandness’. Instructively, conventional wisdom suggest that it is academically imprecise and improper to universalise scholarship from countries with large land masses onto islands with unique topographies and challenges. This thematic section, highlights the inherent qualities of policing and justice systems in island communities by way of engagement with the existing body of island and ocean studies literature as well as by way of theoretically informed and methodologically appropriate research conducted by a judicial mix of early, mid- and established career scholars. The authors of the article in this thematic section present their scholarly efforts from diverse perspectives and contributes to decolonization efforts in island studies. Ultimately, the articles advance the call for a move away from colonial epistemology and hegemony in knowledge production and transference to situating island scholars and scholarship within island studies. In sum, this thematic section contributes to the emergent body of literature on both policing and the justice systems and studies on island communities.