Dr. Jean Mitchell renewed as UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability at UPEI

Dr. Jean Mitchell, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, has been renewed as the UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability at the University of Prince Edward Island until December 2028.

First appointed as UNESCO Chair in 2021, Mitchell works closely with the Institute of Island Studies, the Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) program, the School of Climate Change and Adaptation, and the L.M. Montgomery Institute. She has extensive research and project experience in Indonesia, India, and the South Pacific nations of Kiribati, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.

Recognizing that climate change is exacerbating social change, Mitchell is focusing projects around local and traditional knowledge; intergenerational transmission of knowledge; and a range of issues including biodiversity in food production and customary climate change strategies and adaptation across the Pacific Islands. Sharing knowledge across regions and disciplines is key to her work as UNESCO Chair.

Mitchell will continue to work on collaborative, comparative, and interdisciplinary research with partners in universities and with small island developing states and subnational island jurisdictions—such as PEI—including documenting lives and livelihoods in “at risk” Island environments in a climate-changed world; attending to the intersection of local, traditional, and scientific knowledge in climate change adaptation; supporting youth agencies who are re-imagining climate change futures; and exploring some of the intersections of climate change and social change in local communities in Oceania and the Caribbean. Working with partners in the newly created institute of island studies established at the University of Los Lagos in Chiloé, Chile, will also be a key activity over the next few years.

From June 16 to 20, 2025, the UNESCO Chair and the UPEI Institute of Island Studies, in partnership with the University of Aruba and Sophia University (Japan), hosted Turning the Tide: Island Imaginaries and Interdisciplinaries in Climate Change, the third international conference on small island states and subnational island jurisdictions, at UPEI.

Hosted by the Institute of Island Studies, the UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability at UPEI was established in 2016 and renewed in 2020. The long-term mission of the UNESCO Chair at UPEI is to contribute to researching islands and rethinking what sustainability means across different small island states and subnational island jurisdictions.