Sport on Maldivian Islands. At the Intersection of Tourism, Development, and Power Relations

In the Maldivian archipelago, sport appears to be in strong expansion and is currently the focus of important government policies. The chapter explores and discusses the relevance of this sector as a driver for local development and as a key factor in territorial transformation. The Republic of the Maldives is an archipelagic state composed of 1192 coral islands stretching out into the Indian Ocean. Insularity is a fundamental concept for the Maldives, given that its territory is 97% water. The archipelago is geographically dispersed, with its land and population covering twenty-six natural atolls. According to the Act on Decentralization of the Administrative Divisions of the Maldives (2010), each island corresponds to an administrative sector on which the political-administrative geography is organised. Approximately 38% of the total population lives in the capital city, Malé. The polarisation between Malé and the outlying islands is even more clear when it comes to socio-economic or religious issues, or in the construction of a national identity, where it is possible to detect completely different models. Life on the outer islands is managed by means of small-scale policies which are often completely detached from the capital city. Reiterating the importance of land in this country, the Maldives turned to a different form of geo-engineering: the processes of land reclamation. Those may be defined as the process of creating new land from maritime spaces. In the Maldives, this process consists of dredging sand from shallow lagoons. Although this process triggers the development of projects and infrastructures and tries to be an action to tackle the immigration from peripheral Island to the capital city, it can also destroy coral reefs or create vast plumes of sediment travelling to other reef platforms. However, land reclamation is a common fact of Maldivian life. The case study we investigated is a major sporting event on the island of Magoodhoo: the “Raajje Atoll Volleyball Championship.” This Atoll Inter-Island/Zonal Volleyball competition is contested by men and women teams of all Maldivian atolls, representing their island. The competition attracts large amounts of athletes, spectators, and local and national authorities. It will highlight the production and development of sport areas and the relationships of the social groups with the land, the tourist, and the local people. Indeed, sport embedded several concepts in Magoodhoo. For instance, it facilitates the building of new sport infrastructures on the island and it means a privileged way to move and have connections with other ones. Concerning this specific tournament, this study aims to observe the national tourism increase, as well as infrastructure development (guest houses, restaurants, volleyball courts, means of transport). In the chapter, we will see how this event is crucial from several perspectives. On the one hand, it is an important ground around which political relations are developed, which are essential in the construction of links and shared planning between the different territorial scales (island, atoll, country). The event is also an opportunity to develop the island’s tourist resources and to make Magoodhoo visible to the outside world. Finally, the tournament imparts a territorial transformation to the island: immediately through the construction of new sports spaces, and in the medium term, by putting the demand for land reclamation policies on the political agenda. By discussing the social relevance of the relationship between tourism and sport on local islands, the chapter contributes to re-articulate the oversimplified definition of islands as marginal and isolated places. Intra-archipelagic power relationships and political negotiations, indeed, show how the relationality, the connections, the familiar alliances are what really define the local politics. Historically, Maldivian tourism has been confined to the resorts and sport was a mere ingredient of the tourist offer (particularly water sports). Today, the opening up of inhabited islands to tourism—with a rapidly evolving offer of guest houses—coagulates multiple aspects around sports, interweaving tourism policies, identity and social dimensions, local branding and territorial development strategies, and political relations. This study combines approaches from cultural, islands, and sport studies. The research has been held by integrating different techniques: participant observation; analysis of visual materials (pictures, maps) and government documents; semi-structured interviews with local actors on the island of Magoodhoo; analysis of secondary data made available by the government of the Maldives and local authorities; and direct involvement as assistant coach of Magoodhoo volleyball team. Sport is a means usefully used for understanding various aspects of societies. The innovative approach of this study relies into the depth of it and the geographical characteristics of Maldives. In particular, the analysis of this case study shows how sport tourism interacts with both local and national soft power. Moreover, studying sport tourism in the Maldivian archipelago is also precious for its characteristics. Indeed, it has to be developed in one nation where the themes of fragmentation, centre–periphery paradigm, and space perceived as isolated by those who do not live there is a privileged territory for observing relationality. Sport is declined as an important resource for the development of the territory, largely linked to its visibility and tourist attractiveness. Alongside this “manifest function,” there are several “latent functions.” Firstly, as job careers, mutual alliances, and political games; another one is linked with economic strategies (land reclamation, urban development, control of the land); in addition, it is also precious for internal cohesion policies (at different scalar levels: island, atoll, etc.) but also for international positioning, being a factor in the contemporary geopolitics of the Maldives.