H6: Island, Ocean and Environmental Futures
Tracks
6
| Wednesday, December 2, 2026 |
| 9:00 AM - 10:15 AM |
| RH102 |
Overview
Stream: Landscapes, Ecologies and More-than-Human Relations
Paper / Session Submitter
Neil Bruce
Independent Researcher
None
Walking into the future backwards: land and power on Scotland's Long Island
Summary Abstract
Crofting defines the geographic, social and economic landscapes of Uibhist a Deas, the Scottish Hebridean island of South Uist. Its history and cultural heritage are shaped by those with power through ownership of the island’s estate and those who resisted. The control of land and its use were and remain key to Gaels’ patrimony and wider dùthchas or intangible heritage. This case study will demonstrate the importance of land and crofting to islanders, focusing on significant changes and events which took place during the 1950s. These included the siting of intentional monuments to (re)build and strengthen the indigenous identity temporally and spiritually, and resistance to a government decision to site a military rocket range, both led by a local priest. It will consider to what extent these were important building blocks in the community buying the estate in 2006 and establishing a community fund.
Biographies
Neil Bruce holds a Master of Laws from the University of the Highlands and Islands. He researches and writes on the Long Island estate particularly during the proprietrixship of Lady Gordon Cathcart.
Neil is a retired senior manager responsible for arts, culture and heritage services in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Dr Sanna Lehtinen
Postdoctoral Researcher
University Of Helsinki
Making of Archipelago Futures in Finland: Effects of National Cultural Policy on Island Communities
Summary Abstract
The current Finnish government has implemented historically extensive cuts to the cultural sector, likely narrowing cultural diversity, reducing employment, and accelerating sectoral decline. These developments threaten long-term access to arts and heritage, particularly for children, youth, and future generations outside urban centers, with archipelago municipalities providing a particularly illustrative case. This study examines the futures that national cultural policy produces for Finland’s archipelago regions from a legislative perspective, and how these align with or diverge from the expectations, fears, and hopes of local residents. Empirical data are collected in Hailuoto and Reposaari through legislation analysis, case law, interviews, workshops, and co-research practices. Applying methodologies of social and legal imagination, including walking interviews, the study investigates how budget cuts affect local livelihoods, community vitality, and the long-term inhabitation of Finland’s archipelagos.
Biographies
Sanna S. Lehtinen (LLD, MSc, MA) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki. Her fields of study include critical environmental law, cultural policy and heritage studies, spatial justice, and legal geography. She is currently working on postdoctoral research within the Ponte project on island heritage.
Mr Matteo Collina
Postdoctoral Researcher
Victoria University Of Wellington
VR and Immersive Storytelling for Underwater Heritage - Te Rua o te Moko Case Study
Summary Abstract
This presentation discusses research into the design of a Virtual Reality (VR) experience situated in Te Rua o te Moko (Fiordland), Aotearoa New Zealand, which reframes VR as a reflective and dialogic medium for underwater storytelling. Drawing on social science, marine science, and artistic practice, the research examines tensions between marine biologists’ emotional connections to the ocean and their predominantly positivist, dystopian outreach strategies. Using action research and arts-based methods, an immersive framework is developed that positions mātauranga Māori and Western science as parallel knowledge systems in dialogue. This framework informs a VR experience in which participants embody non-human marine species, encouraging non-anthropocentric perspectives and relational engagement. The presentation highlights the research process, design outcomes, and implications for culturally grounded immersive storytelling in ocean conservation.
Biographies
Matteo Collina is an interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of Virtual Reality, marine science, and environmental humanities. His research explores how immersive technologies can support reflective and culturally grounded engagement with underwater environments, with a particular focus on intercultural storytelling and ocean conservation. Drawing on social science, marine science, and artistic practice, his work investigates how scientific knowledge, emotional experience, and Indigenous perspectives can be brought into dialogue through embodied VR experiences. His current research is situated in Te Rua o te Moko (Fiordland), Aotearoa New Zealand, and examines how immersive design can move beyond visual spectacle to foster relational ethics and meaningful connections with underwater heritage.
Professor Boya Guo
Research Professor
Tongji University
Ocean as Archive: Valuing Lamma Island’s Ex-Quarry as Industrial Heritage for a Sustainable Future
Summary Abstract
Disused quarries are often treated as vacant land for profitable redevelopment, yet they are industrial-heritage landscapes where extraction, labor, pollution, and everyday life co-produce meaning. This paper examines the former quarry on Lamma Island, Hong Kong, amid redevelopment agendas reiterated in the Chief Executive’s 2025 Policy Address and its renewed emphasis on coastal ecotourism. It asks: what environmental, political, and cultural forces shaped the quarry’s afterlives; how can value be recognized when heritage is distributed across land–sea ecosystems; and what design approach can couple remediation with remembrance for sustainable futures, cultural tourism, and rural revitalization. Methods combine archival policy analysis, oral histories with residents, former workers, and fishers, and material–ecological mapping of quarry faces, spoil terraces, shoreline armoring, and intertidal habitats, treating the surrounding ocean as an archive. Findings articulate four value registers—ecological repair, labor memory, extractive typologies, and public commons—and propose staged clean-up, blue–green infrastructure, and community-managed low-carbon tourism.
Biographies
Boya Guo is a scholar in heritage studies. Her research areas include urban socio-spatial history, governance and politics of heritage, spatial ethnography, the Chinese history of cartography, socialist spatial practices, and the phenomenon of architectural mimicry and themed space in China. In particular, she shares a strong interest in revealing the underlying power structure behind contemporary society’s use of heritage and history, as well as the cultural heterogeneity interacting with the political and social divisions within society. She is also interested in how cultural powers shape the historic built environment and vice versa in consumer society and contemporary media-driven times.
Su Chang is Assistant Professor in Architectural Design at the University of Hong Kong and Principal of Su Chang Design Research Office. His current research explores a water-centric perspective for understanding architecture, development, and conservation in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, and Asia context. Navigating the shifting dynamics between inland and coastal areas, he has developed design experiments with a material-based approach to rejuvenate spaces and regenerate social fabrics for communities undergoing transformation. His design collaboration with contemporary cultural institutions has built a reputation for its sensitivity to emerging cultures, new economies, and the expanded notion of sustainability.
