St. Maarten News – Following a competition, the Island Resources Foundation presented the University of St. Martin’s Dean of Academics Genѐve Phillip, with a partial scholarship to attend the 14th Annual Islands of the World Conference on the Greek island of Lesbos, also called Mitilini. The theme of the Conference which ran from May 23rd-27th, was “Island Identity – Niss (i) ology and Utopia”. Nissiology is a concept coined by world renowned island studies scholar, Grant McCall and it refers to “the study of islands on their own terms”.
Dean Phillip was among six researchers who received scholarships to attend the conference. Of the approximately 150 global participants, Phillip said that she was humbled to be among the six winners. The title of her paper was “Understanding ideational diffusion and island identity through a good governance paradigm.”
The idea for the conference paper stemmed from her PhD thesis in which she focuses on problematizing and deconstructing universalistic governance norms in the island territories of Curacao, St. Maarten and Trinidad and Tobago.
Dean Phillip at Annual Islands of the World Conference in Lesbos
