This editorial conclusion looks back on how Island Studies Journal has developed from its start in 2006, up through the beginning of the current editorship in 2017, and through to the start of a new editorship in mid-2023. Island studies has transformed from being a close-knit community centred on a few key scholars to being a field composed of numerous loosely connected movements. There is no longer a clearly identifiable ‘mainstream’ island studies and no longer a canon of crucial island studies researchers. Island studies journals and scholars are now coming from and writing from a great diversity of locations and positions. The plurality of island studies means there is room in the field for everyone.