Evangelia Papoutsaki MA Leeds, PhD Cardiff, MRSNZ

When people heard I was flying to the Philippines, most assumed I meant Cebu. It is the country's tourist capital, the archipelago's front door, the place with the direct flights and the dive resorts and the iconic lechon (crispy whole roasted pig ) stalls that make it onto every itinerary. I did not go to Cebu. After three cancelled connections out of Manila, I landed instead in Tacloban, the capital of Leyte, to co-host an international conference on small island cultures.

Amami’s natural world speaks constantly: through the tracks of the Amami rabbit, the seasonal cycles of the Ryukyu ayu fish, the changing colors of the sea after a typhoon, the density of night darkness. People who have long lived here have learned to read these shifts not as abstract “information,” but as embodied, sensory knowledge.

And so I come from that lineage. A lineage of women whose defining stories created a pathway for the next woman, and the woman after, and the daughter after her. We are the sum total of all of that.

I live on a small island — Waiheke, fewer than ten thousand people, forty minutes by ferry from the major urban centre of Auckland. Walking at Oneroa Beach every day has become my mental health routine, especially now, with the current state of global affairs. Grounding myself in the place that holds me has become essential — a desperate act of keeping above water, keeping at bay a depression seeping into my being, resulting from a sense of despair about our collective malais

Living on a small island teaches you about presence. About the weight of a glance, the meaning of a gesture, the value of a space that knows your name. It teaches you that being seen—truly seen—is not a luxury but a fundamental human need. And that the places where this happens, where we are witnessed and acknowledged, are precious beyond measure.

Sometimes the best academic impact happens not in journals, but in the places where the work truly matters.

Isn’t that what we all want? To be witnessed, quietly, completely. To know that for even a moment, we existed fully in someone else’s gaze.

While tourism is undeniably the lifeblood of the markets today, glimpses of the past linger in the smaller arcades, where echoes remain of a time when this was the main shopping district for locals—before shopping malls drew people away from central Naha for their daily needs. Still, I’m glad the markets have adapted and found a way forward.