It is interesting to talk about places like The Pearl or Banana Island in Qatar if only because both places are fun and luxurious to visit for an evening out or a vacation within the country itself. I say this from experience as I have happy memories from both places. However, these places are interesting to talk about from an Environmental Humanities point of view too. If we break down the concept of an island every step of the way while thinking about everything that we know about them, we can think of several different subjects regarding the Environmental Humanities and questions we can have. The first step can be to simply think about what comes to mind when you think about an island. Even the word ‘natural’ is something that is important to think about, and one can think about what it means for an island to be something that is ‘natural’. Where do the associations of islands to other things come from, and how do the associations change if the islands are artificial? These topics are some of the ones that I might choose to answer as I write more posts on artificial islands in Qatar.
In fact, many new topics can come about when artificial islands and Qatar are connected to one another. What is particular to Qatar in terms of ‘natural’ and why might artificial islands like The Pearl and Banana Island be something that is wanted? Some primary sources that I can use to discuss these subjects are the Banana Island website and see what is mentioned in the website about islands. If there is nothing mentioned about islands, then that can be a different subject to write about. The words used to advertise Banana Island on the website itself can also be contrasted with the kinds of things said about it on a different primary source, like for instance this CNN travel article about it. Looking at what words different sources use to describe Banana Island or The Pearl helps us understand what purpose these different sources have in discussing artificial islands in Qatar and what they would want to say about them.
Going into this project, I expect that much of what I know about islands, as well as The Pearl and Banana Island are going to change. It would be interesting to compare this post with future ones and compare what I think about islands right now to what I will know about their significance in all the posts that come after this one. First and foremost, and like I mentioned earlier, islands and the artificial ones in Qatar are fun to think about mainly because much of the media around islands illustrates beauty. In many ways, the ideas around islands can be summated with the word ‘vacation.’ A secondary source I might use to talk about this subject and that would most probably be one of the things that changes my connection to islands is the book Elsewhere: A Journey Into Our Age of Islands by Alastair Bonnett. All theories about Environmental Humanities that I will apply to this case study will be explained, and we can see if the case study might not act as a flawless exemplification of such theories, or if it can and why. My memories of visiting these two places will also be an interesting thing to compare with both the primary and secondary sources.
