A Phenomenological Study of Islandness as a Global Sense of Place: Focusing on the Animated Film Moana

• Main Author: Kim, Taehee
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: (Global) Sense of Place; Island; Islandness; Island Studies; Maritime (Im)Mobility; Moana; Phenomenology
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss44/10; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/kk/article/1009/viewcontent/3_20KK44_20Taehee_20Kim.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

This article explores the question of whether islandness exists, and if so, how it can be defined. Using phenomenological methods, it examines a cultural text relevant to this question: the animated film Moana, which tells a story set on a small island. Following phenomenological procedures, any unexamined preconceptions about islandness are methodologically excluded through the suspension of judgment (epoché); islandness is defined as the “sense of place of the island” through a return to intersubjective intentionality (phenomenological reduction); the “essence” of this sense of place of the island is identified through imaginative variation (eidetic reduction). This discourse will shed light on islandness as a sense of place that encompasses both the isolation and connectedness of an island created by maritime immobility and mobility, which can be defined as a “global sense of place” that exists in connectedness but still maintains a substantial attachment to place. Moana is examined as a unique example for exploring phenomenological findings in a single case study, portraying the eponymous heroine’s search for connection beyond the island’s isolation while still maintaining its sense of place.