islandism

English

Etymology

From island +‎ -ism.

Noun

islandism (countable and uncountable, plural islandisms)

1. A form of regionalism in which one's primary loyalty is to the island on which one lives and to its people.
   • 1981, Earl Gooding, The West Indies at the Crossroads, page 92:

     West Indian nationalism was challenged by islandism not simply for the ownership of "loyalty" of the people of the federated islands, and for what Max Weber has called the "title to rule";

   • 2009, Miranda Forsyth, A Bird that Flies with Two Wings, page 3:

     Another ramification of islandism is the strong sense that people must look after people from their own community in government, business and social obligations.

   • 2018, Eric D. Duke, Building a Nation: Caribbean Federation in the Black Diaspora:

     It also allowed competing islandisms in more “advanced” colonies to view their own advancement as being impeded by the other colonies, if not by the Federation itself.

   • 2018, Matthew G. Allen, Resource Extraction and Contentious States, page 68:

     At the same time, however, tensions over the reopening of the mine are fracturing the space of islandism, just as they are the space of landownership.

2. A word, phrase, or custom that is local to one island.
   • 1982, Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association. Meeting, Actes de la ... Réunion Annuelle de L'Association de Linguistique Des Provinces Atlantiques, page 77:

     It is certainly a dialect word, possibly even that rare item, an Islandism.

   • 1996, Terry Kenneth Pratt, Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English, page xiii:

     By now the reader will be forewarned that this is not a dictionary of 'Islandisms,' of words or meanings apparently unique to Prince Edward Island.

   • 2009, Althea Prince, Being Black, page 16:

     There were "small island" jokes ("I hear the roads in antigua are so narrow, the dogs have to wag their tails up & down") and other islandisms.

3. A state of social isolation and the concomitant self-sufficiency; a failure to be aware of or rely on others.
   • 1994, Jane Alison, Brigitte Lardinois, Soundings:

     The story of Kent is an example of 'islandism' and its consequences. Looked at in practical terms , a re-connection of this part of England into the Continental economy promises all gain and no loss.

   • 2001, Tony W York, Russell Colling, Hospital and Healthcare Security, page 135:

     Protection service lends itself particularly to a system's concept because one of the major problems in healthcare security is one referred to as "islandism.” Islandism simply means standing alone, attempting to protect oneself without the benefit of knowing what is happening in the other local or systems healthcare facilities.

   • 2009, Jason Wilson, The Andes, page 108:

     The novel also reveals the terrible isolation of a mountain community as a clue to Andean reality, what essayist Fernando Chaves called "islandism".