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The ‘relational turn’ signifies a shift in the focus of the social sciences and humanities towards relationships rather than isolated entities. One of the key recent developments in this perspective is an emphasis on the co-constitutive relationship between the agent and its environment, leading to a reconsideration of geography as a science of human-environment relations in today’s world. Similarly, the relational turn has significantly influenced perspectives in political geography and geopolitical studies since the 1990s. Revisiting the relational turn in these fields, this special issue aims to clarify how islands and seas form interconnected geopolitical realities as mutually constitutive and inseparable geographical features within contested territories. Six articles were selected from the papers presented at the International Geographical Union Thematic Conference on ‘Islands in Relations’ held in Osaka, 2023. They examine the conference theme from different angles and with various approaches. All of them provide theoretical and/or conceptual insights into island relationality, supported by empirical cases spanning a wide geographic area, from the Arctic Circle to the Pacific Ocean. This makes the special issue both intellectually enriching and empirically comprehensive, systematically demonstrating the importance of relational approaches to current geopolitical issues surrounding islands.
Yamazaki et al. (Sun,) studied this question.