How island spaces ‘contour and nudge’ youth sexual and reproductive health and rights: mapping assemblages of power and resistance in Aruba

(gossip culture) and reputation politics, produce affective flows that limit young people's capacities to act in support of their sexual and reproductive health and rights. Over 18 months of arts-based participatory research with 12 young people (aged 14-17), this study identified how the entanglement of colonial legacies, whose traces persist in religious institutions and small-island social surveillance, create restrictive conditions for meaning-making in respect of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Findings reveal how these dynamics fuel silence about sexual violence, restrict access to sexual and reproductive health services and limit the expression of gender and sexuality diversity. This paper offers both a theoretical contribution, operationalising assemblage theory to understand contour and nudge in an island setting and practical insights for sexual health provision in a small island developing state context where anonymity is rare, and community surveillance is pervasive.