Kathrin Schödel (German, Literary and Cultural Studies) focuses on constructions and representations of insularity. In this context, she has worked on the connection between insularity and utopian thought and on insular spaces of tourism and migration. When ‘insularity’ is used to describe the experience of geographical islands it reinforces a predominant continental imaginary of the island as separate and peripheral. However, when it is understood as the result of social constructions, practices and discourses, insularity can be a useful concept for an analysis of spatial segregation. With this approach, it becomes clear that even in relation to geographical islands, it is a process of insularization which makes an island insular. Islands are viewed as isolated spheres from the perspective of a dominant ‘center’ or ‘main’-land; from the island itself, the experience is often one of interconnection and exchange with the surrounding waters. Within the network, Kathrin Schödel will focus on the social creation of insular spaces linked to geographical islands, for example in the context of migration. The analysis of insularization is used as a critical tool for understanding an increasingly compartmentalized global world order.