The website of the 2023 International Island Games.
[The following three excerpts are from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.]
ABSTRACT
This article discusses the 2023 (NatWest) Island Games in Guernsey, the latest iteration of a sporting tournament held every two years in Atlantic Rim polities since 1985. The event’s participants include UK local authorities, crown dependencies, and British overseas territories. Significantly, non-British and non-Commonwealth polities such as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland also take part, thus allowing UK and Commonwealth jurisdictions a means of performing national identity and diplomacy alongside non-Commonwealth polities. The author explores the potential and limits of this in an era where the Commonwealth (formerly British Empire) Games is struggling for survival.
‘Inter-Island’ sport
The Island Games were the brainchild of Members of the House of Keys (MHK) in Tynwald, the Parliament of the Isle of Man. The first iteration of the competition, 1985’s Inter-Island Games, was the showcase event of the Isle of Man’s Year of Sport, a varied programme designed by MHKs and Manx policymakers for the purposes of tourism development, in a tourism economy in the 1980s which faced many of the same issues as other British seaside resort areas, as they struggled to remain attractive in an era of ever-changing international travel. At least to some extent, the creation of the (Inter-)Island Games went forward because, whilst the dream of Manx parliamentarians was to host a Commonwealth Games, it was believed the Isle of Man lacked the large-scale infrastructure to host the competition. In the long run, it is questionable to claim that a subsequent focus on hosting sporting events has reversed the Isle of Man’s issues with these, but it has nevertheless proved a durable strategy for managing an ageing tourist infrastructure (McDowell, Citation2021). Certainly, then, the Island Games must be seen in the context of sport tourism on small islands in general (Arnott et al., Citation2023; Bull & Weed, Citation1999). However, one cannot divorce the politics of the tournament from its origins. Organisers of the 1985 tournament first invited fellow crown dependencies Jersey and Guernsey, afterwards moving to invite other ‘British’ islands of varying jurisdictional description, including: Shetland, Orkney, the Isle of Wight, Ynys Môn (Anglesey), Malta, and the distant St Helena, the British overseas territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. Manx organisers also built on the island’s own Nordic heritage when inviting Iceland, the Faroe Islands (a Danish territory), Gotland (an island and municipality on Sweden’s east coast), Hitra, Frøya (small islands in Norway’s Trøndelag region), and Åland (an autonomous, demilitarised Finnish archipelago populated by Swedish speakers) (Corlett, Citation1995; McDowell, Citation2021).
Towards the end of the 1985 tournament, there was already broad agreement that a second iteration of the Games would be held in Guernsey in two years’ time. Indeed, the invitees to the first tournament, along with the decision to hold the next iteration within a two-year interval, set the tone for the future organisation and membership of what would become the IGA/IIGA. Over the next four decades, the tournament, held every two years, would expand to include member islands who were either members of the Commonwealth and/or islands based on the Mediterranean or the Baltic.
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NatWest’s discontinuance as the Games’ primary sponsor hints that, as with the example of the Commonwealth Games, the sustainability of regular sporting events is often tenuous. In December 2023, the Island Games suffered its own hosting crisis when Ynys Môn withdrew from hosting the 2027 Island Games, with the Faroe Islands stepping in to replace them. The Ynys Môn organising committee was relying on funding from the public and charity sector, but various ongoing financial crises, during which Wales has especially been hard hit, meant that the organising committee could not realistically fund the event (BBC, Citation2023a). Incidences such as this highlight the unequal finances and powers of UK local authorities: Shetland’s state and third-sector finances (potentially) allow it a significant strategic platform to build on, while other IIGA members like Ynys Môn represent more typical bureaucratic contexts (Grydehøj, Citation2011). It may not be openly discussed as a controversy within the IIGA, but even within this Association there are clear winners.
Conclusion
Baldacchino introduced his 2018 article proclaiming the ‘mainstreaming’ of the study of small states and territories by using a sporting example – the fleeting attention given to the Iceland men’s football team’s success in EURO2016 – and how this reflected a large-state media’s tendency to trivialise and patronise ‘small’ jurisdictions as curios whose existences inevitably revolve around large states (Baldacchino, Citation2018). While the aim of this article does not dispute the relevance of small jurisdictions’ relationships with ‘mainland’ states, the Island Games arguably highlight an instance where ‘British’ islands of various jurisdictional types seek and reaffirm communion outside of the Commonwealth. The UK, the ‘mainland’ state often the topic of conversation in this journal, is not irrelevant to the logistical support for, or shaping of, this event, but within the IIGA the UK, along with Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Malta, Spain, and Estonia, is called upon when it is needed, rather than assuming a starring role. It reflects a present where ‘British’ and ‘Commonwealth’ institutions are under pressure, and the conversation largely takes place without the ‘mainland’ state in the room. It is pointless to speculate as to whether or not the Island Games will outlive the Commonwealth Games; the IIGA, after all, has challenges of its own, and does not operate within any kind of supranational structure such as the Commonwealth or the EU. However, the Island Games represent an instance where these particular ‘British’ island jurisdictions and their citizens have shown agency themselves – often at significant cost and considerable logistical difficulty, and without the UK’s help – in making relationships outside of the Commonwealth. It is worth considering the implications of these relationships beyond the sporting arena.
Matthew L. McDowell is a Lecturer in Sport Policy, Management, and International Development, Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
