Troubling the politics of island relation: The Comoros in between, on the edge, and as microcosm

Relational approaches are gaining strength in political geography and the field of island studies but are often insufficiently reflexive of their own relational positioning. This paper uses the case of the Comoro Islands to explore how scholars render places comprehensible and useful by setting them in general discourses of relation. In this case, relational approaches frequently construct Comoro as an island in-between, island on the edge, or island as microcosm. Based on a reading of English-language scholarship concerning the Comoros, the paper narrates the history of the Comoro Islands from these various relational perspectives before analysing their limitations in terms of serving islanders' needs and representing islanders’ experiences. The paper ultimately argues for the necessity of scholars to acknowledge that the relational narratives they construct are necessarily partial, oversimplified, and politicised representations of a much more complex geographic reality.