This article takes stock of two decades of scholarship on micronationality and islands, tracing the evolution of the field from marginal curiosity to a conceptually rich interdisciplinary domain. Drawing on Shima's Micronationality Anthology, related special issues, and wider contributions, the review identifies six recurring motifs: identity and performance, governance and community, legal and political sovereignty, islandness and spatiality, tourism and branding, and digital micronations. Micronations are shown to enact sovereignty through performative artefacts (e.g., flags, constitutions, rituals) while islands provide bounded and legible stages for these experiments. Legal analyses highlight the paradox of contingent sovereignty, where recognition proves more decisive than criteria of statehood. Island Studies frames micronations as laboratories of scale, enclosure, and connectivity, while cultural and media perspectives emphasise their entanglement with tourism, art, and digital infrastructures. Methodological pluralism underscores the interdisciplinarity of the field. This article advances a synthetic framework of performative relational sovereignty, positioning micronations as sites for rethinking legitimacy, recognition, and the cultural practice of statehood.

MicronationsmicropatriaIsland Studiesislandnesssovereigntyperformativity