Casula, Marina (2012) Looking for the Thyrenide : Corsica and Sardiania, two "islands-sisters". A socioanthropological approach of an archipelagic imaginary. In: Reframing Islandness: thinking with the archipelago, 26 février 2012, New York.

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Abstract

For the French sociologist Anne Meistersheim " the archipelago emphasizes the marine character, the liquid element, the link between islands rather than islands themselves. " [In Figures of the island, 2001]. Thinking with the archipelago enlightens relations which connect insular and not insular spaces, and their populations, beyond the cultural, social or political differences. Some archipelagoes are recognized as such, the others were split up and their islands politically isolated although belonging to the same unit. We shall show how the concept of archipelago gives a sense to the history and to the strong links between two "islands-sisters", Corsica and Sardinia. In the first ages of the Earth, Corsica belonged with Sardinia to a continent now disappeared: Tyrrhenide. Even today, these two islands form a geologic whole except for of the other islands of the Mediterranean Sea. But they also nourish an archipelagic imaginary which bases at the same time on the strength of their subjective links (sociocultural, due to a common history) but also objective ones (via the institutional cooperations). The archipelagic experience which resulsts from this, is different from that of the islands of the Pacific or moreover which underwent the conquests of the Europeans and the flows of migrations which totally transformed the populations of origin. Our communication will rest on a socio-anthropological approach but will also aim at building a bridge between theoretical approaches resulting from geography, from sociology, without neglecting literature, in order to understand the foundations of this imaginary.