Territory, islandness, and the secessionist imaginary: Why do very small communities favour autonomy over integration?

Abstract

Small communities should have the most to gain from integration, but the average size of the state is shrinking as island nationalism creates new, and very small, states out of former colonies, and federalised or autonomous territories. “Islandness,” as a proxy for territory, is employed as a resource to justify secession, but mainstream studies subordinate this factor in accounts that privilege ethnic, religious, linguistic, or economic drivers of identity. This article adds to a small body of work that foregrounds territory. Drawing on an in‐depth case study of Barbuda's (population 1,600) attempt to secede from Antigua demonstrates how nationalists employ different meanings of territory—legal, cultural, and political—to make the case for secession in the absence of factors commonly theorised to drive identify formation. Barbudan secessionism therefore problematises mainstream theory. It concludes by arguing that paying greater attention to how territory acts as a resource in the nationalist imaginary allows us to re‐examine long‐standing studies and cases in new and penetrating light.

Secession, Territorial Integrity and (Non)-Sovereignty: Why do Some Separatist Movements in the Caribbean Succeed and Others Fail?

“…In doing so, it echoes LaFlamme's (1983) observation decades ago that a common feature of virtually all 'archipelago states' is that the peripheral islands are much poorer than the main island and the inevitable consequences of this disparity are centrifugal tendencies and island nationalism (cf. Byron, 1999;Corbett, 2020).…”

“…A change of government in 2006 provided an opportunity for Barbudans to increase their autonomy via the 2007 Barbuda Land Act. But, after Hurricane Irma forced the evacuation of the island in 2018, the Act was repealed, and the national government sought to reassert its control of Barbudan affairs (see Corbett, 2020). This has reignited the desire to secede, but also rendered secession harder to envisage due to the scale of devastation wrought by the hurricane and waning local control over land and resources.…”

Beyond belief: How religion fosters self‐determination

“…These contestations blend territorial features and collective identity, so that “monasteries, fields and even trees become sites of national importance; where battles took place, ancient monarchs were crowned, or even where God revealed himself to a chosen people” (Etherington, 2010, p. 327). References to territorial features invoke collective identities, their local rootedness, traditions, and self‐government (Huysseune, 2010), while the character of the contested territory affects the nature of arguments forwarded in support of self‐determination (Corbett, 2020). Territorial control is a central concern not only for satisfying the physical requirements of collective survival, such as through the availability of land and natural resources, but also to secure the ideational existence of the community (cf.…”

A muralha e a tempestade: uma análise do Hino Nacional da República Popular da China

“…desenvolvem dentro e fora de uma determinada comunidade (supostamente) homogênea, eles não são perfeitos naquilo que se propõem a fazer; se assim o fossem, não teríamos a existência dos famosos movimentos Catalão e Basco surgindo na Espanha, os "sub-nacionalismos étnicos" sérvio e croata como contraparte ao separatismo magiar (BREUILLY, 1993, pp. 130-131), e muito menos tentativas sérias de Barbuda, uma comunidade com aproximadamente 8.000 habitantes, querer independência da ilha vizinha de Antigua (CORBETT, 2020(CORBETT, , pp. 1087(CORBETT, -1103.…”