The Outremer of Europe's Outremer: Pitcairn Island, Mangareva and the Persistence of Interaction between Îles Oubliées

The islands of the Europe's Outremer inhabit a certain sociological and geographical imagination (Harvey 2005), a collective conceptual orientation in which they are perceived in their colonial or post-colonial articulations to various European metropoles or to each other. We cannot help but note, however, that the geosocial imaginary of Europe's overseas is always at risk of misperception in which a profound plurality of historical, cultural or political relationships are unnoticed due to a myopic metropolitan self concern. In Oceania, this risk is compounded by the way that certain extremely well-known islands cast long shadows--penumbrae which often obscure close ties between regional neighbors.