An assemblage approach to performances of sovereignty through Gibraltar's hosting of the 2019 International Island Games

This article examines performances of sovereignty using as its entry-point the 2019 International Island Games (IG) held in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. We do so by applying assemblage theory to scales, actors, materialities, and practices that have been under-considered in existing work on assemblage in political geography, to illustrate the ways sovereignty was exercised and experienced, as well as challenged, impeded, and negotiated in the daily life of Gibraltar and Gibraltarians. We draw on emerging work that brings into dialogue feminist geopolitics and assemblage approaches to shed light on under-explored elements and scales of geopolitics, as well as recent scholarship that seeks to broaden debates regarding where, how and by whom sovereignty is practiced and performed. To do this we firstly show how the hosting of the IG enabled Gibraltar to perform sovereignty in certain ways, setting these performances in the context of Spain's long-standing territorial claim. We then demonstrate how these performances of sovereignty were not straightforward because of the wider geopolitical assemblages constitutive of Gibraltar. These were animated through overlapping and emerging events – not least the detaining of the Grace 1 oil tanker in Gibraltar's territorial waters during the games – as well as the challenges presented by geopolitics, geography, and the very materialities of Gibraltar's elemental and geological formation. The article shows how various human and non-human agencies seldom explored in political geography scholarship, collided to generate tensions that complicated or even challenged the performances of sovereignty at several sites in Gibraltar both before and during the IG.