150 SVETOVI / WORLDS leto 1, št. 2, julij 2023 The world we live in today is character - ised by high levels of interconnectivity, co- dependence, and overwhelming amounts of information. As we navigate this increasingly complex world, it is important to recognise that isolation still has a pull that captures our imaginations, invades our daydreams, and shapes our desires. For many people, roman- tic notions of secluded and remote places are still alluring utopias that evoke ideas of isolation, remoteness, and detachment from everyday worries. Because of these notions, islands hold a special place in people’s imagi- nations, representing a promise of being cut off from the rest of the world and immersed in a rhythm marked by simplicity and a slow- The Insularisation of Our Worlds Call for papers for the 2025 thematic issue of the journal Svetovi/W orlds Submission deadline: September 15, 2024 Island Futures 2.0. (Author Josipa Slaviček, 2023). 151 V ol. 1, Nr. 2, July 2023 Napovedi / Announcements er pace of life. However, as Godfrey Baldac- chino points out, this island allure arises from insularism, or the contemporary branding of islands, in which the deliberately stereotypi- cal self-representation of islanders is mixed with the exotic expectations of non-islanders (2012). Despite the prevalence of reduction - ism and generalisation, romanticised images of islands owe their seductiveness to the long durée of the W estern imagination (Gillis, 2004). Although they bear little resemblance to a conceptually shrinking, interdependent world and the heterogeneity of lived experi- ence, these images continue to enchant us and excite our imagination. Island meta- phors and island-related experiences have tremendous impact on how we perceive our- selves and others, even in environments that are not islands, leading to a kind of insulari- sation that has little to do with actual islands. Whether it is spatially isolated areas that lead us to think in island metaphors, cultural phenomena that highlight insular imagery, or oases of different temporal rhythms that emerge amidst the hustle and bustle of cit- ies, it is hard to deny that insular concepts are pervasive in today’s world. In this the- matic issue of Svetovi/W orlds: Journal for Ethnology, Anthropology and Folkloristics, we aim to explore the complex cultural and social worlds that shape our everyday lives and that are often portrayed as isolated. By remapping these complex processes that set archipelagos of thoughts, ideas, and practi- ces in motion, we hope to gain new insights that go beyond the usual assumptions of spa- tially distant and self-contained domains. Our understanding of insularisation under- scores the importance of re-evaluating our assumptions about isolation and islands, tracing their fragments in everyday life, and considering the ways in which spatial, tem- poral, metaphorical, cultural, and experien- tial ideas of insularity blur and intersect to insularise our world. W e invite authors to contribute to this thematic issue and join us in rethinking the insularisation of our world as an analytical concept that trig- gers various cultural and social phenomena. W e propose thematic directions that include exploring various problems, research questions, and possible themes related to the concept of insularisation and its various cul- tural and social phenomena – insularity and islandness beyond island studies, i.e., politi- cal and economic alliances in today’s world, re-emerging lifestyles and identities, zones of nature/culture, fragile environments, insu- larisation in/of conspiracy theories, history of epistemologies and paradigms, etc. Apart from emphasizing the basic orientations of the jour- nal (ethnology, anthropology, folklore, etc.), we do not impose disciplinary, thematic, tem- poral, and spatial restrictions on the authors or content of articles. In writing and editing texts, we find more important aspects of eth - nographic experience, theory, comparability, interdisciplinarity, syntheticity and topicality. The thematic issue will be edited by cultural anthropologists T omislav Oroz (Uni- versity of Zadar; tomislav.oroz@gmail.com) and Peter Simonič (University of Ljubljana: peter.simonic@ff.uni-lj.si ) Y ou are kindly invited to send arti- cles to svetovi-worlds@ff.uni-lj.si or to the editors by September 15, 2024. Y ou can also upload them directly to our W orlds Open Journal System.