Island Studies Journal

25/09/2025

Miguel Carranza Guasch's paper 'Malapportionment as a Factor Associated With Islandness: Three Archipelagos Compared' has been published early access in 'Island Studies Journal'. https://doi.org/10.24043/001c.144704

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between malapportionment and islandness in three European archipelagos (Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Azores), employing a comparative analysis of electoral systems. Using the Loosemore-Hanby index, we quantify representational imbalances, revealing systematic overrepresentation of smaller islands. Findings suggest that malapportionment is not an anomaly but a structural feature of island governance, shaped by geographic and institutional factors. The paper contributes to island studies by integrating electoral disproportionality into the broader framework of islandness.

By Miguel Carranza Guasch. Findings suggest that malapportionment is not an anomaly but a structural feature of island governance, shaped by geographic and institutional factors.

07/05/2025

Island Studies Journal, Volume 20, Issue 1 has been published online. The issue consists of 13 articles on islands in Asia, Europe, North America, and the Atlantic, including a special section on 'Islands in speculative fiction'. https://islandstudiesjournal.org/issue/12263

Thank you, everyone, who has made it possible for ISJ to celebrate two decades of publications!

19/02/2025

'Island Studies Journal' special section call for papers on 'River islands'. https://islandstudiesjournal.org/post/2978-call-for-papers-special-section-on-river-islands

River islands are relatively small, often transient pieces of land that exist between the banks of rivers. They are found in most large river systems in the world, and abound in the Himalayan Rivers in South Asia where they are known variously as char, chapori, baet, and diara among others. Although generally they are the products of both fluvial dynamics and human interventions, some river islands also refer to catastrophic tectonic events in their ancestry. These geomorphic patches are home to millions of people in South Asia – and the islanders (locally known as choruas or chouras) encounter severe socio-economic marginalization, exacerbated by climate risks and vulnerabilities.

Moreover, the unique hydrotopias of river islands are on the brink of fundamental changes in the Anthropocene. Although people in river islands have always lived with – and adjusted to – hazards and disasters, today they are in the face of unpredictable ‘glocal’ environmental change. Though Small Pacific Island Nations, despite their small population sizes, are under the microscope of international Climate Change research community, yet river islands with millions depending on them, continue to experience invisibility as the “slow disasters” devastate them, rendering choruas homeless and landless, and uprooting them from their traditional livelihoods.

Yet char-dwellers are not mere victims of climate change. They pursue situated adaptive practices, coping and adapting to socio-ecological uncertainties. Thus, it is imperative to articulate new epistemologies of river islands that fully enables the restitution of their historical and local specificities in islanders’ idioms and expressions, language and cognition, first and foremost.

Against this background, Island Studies Journal (ISJ) calls for this thematic section, welcoming contributions that convey river island narratives, discussing and critically interrogating concepts and empirics, across the global North and South.

Welcoming contributions on islands in rivers.

27/11/2024

'Island Studies Journal', Vol. 19, Issue 2 has been published online: https://islandstudiesjournal.org/issue/11123
This issue features 15 articles on islands from around the world, including special sections on 'Island transport challenges' and 'Policy-oriented research and island management within island studies'.

15 articles on islands from the Atlantic, Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Pacific, and Europe, including special sections on 'Island transport challenges' and 'Policy-oriented research and island management within island studies'.

20/11/2024

New 'Island Studies Journal' article:
'Insular Perspectives of the State: Territorial Policy and Management as Seen From Guaitecas'
By Álvaro Román, Katherine Bassaletti, & Javiera Larraín
https://islandstudiesjournal.org/article/124427-insular-perspectives-of-the-state-territorial-policy-and-management-as-seen-from-guaitecas

Guaitecas, islandness, Chile, local politics, centre-periphery dynamics,

By Álvaro Román, Katherine Bassaletti & 1 more. The prevalence of state interventions decided from the continent reinforces a sense of distance and difference. In this paper, we define islandness based on: identity, politics and territory.

16/11/2024

Beewolf Press, publisher of 'Island Studies Journal', is now on Bluesky (https://bsky.app/). Beewolf Press will be distributing island studies news and updates. You can follow the account .com.

16/11/2024

Welcome to the new page for 'Island Studies Journal'! ISJ has been published as a non-fee charging open access journal since its founding in 2006. Over the years, ISJ has fostered a multidisciplinary community of scholars committed to researching island communities worldwide.

ISJ is the official journal of the International Small Island Studies Association, a member of the Asian Journals Network, and is indexed in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Scopus.

The journal receives sponsorship from South China University of Technology's Research Center for Indian Ocean Island Countries and School of Foreign Languages. ISJ is published by Beewolf Press, a diamond OA published based in Hong Kong. Between 2021-2024, ISJ has its institutional home at Fróðskaparsetur Føroya/University of the Faroe Islands.