The metamorphosis of Madeira’s Ilhéu do Diego into Forte de São José and the short-lived Principado do Ilhéu da Pontinha

Abstract

This article examines the serial transformation and resignification of a small islet off the coast of Madeira over the last 250 years. The first phase saw the Ilhéu do Diego modified into a fort (Forte de São José), linked to the mainland, and the second saw the fort incorporated into the seawall that forms the southern edge of the port of Funchal. The history of the fort area subsequently provided the pretext for its assertion as an independent micronation performed in various ways in the period 2007-2017 by a Madeiran resident, Renato Barros, who had become disenchanted with the local government over a disputed development application. The article identifies that history and residual place identities enabled the fort site to be imagined as the Principado do Ilhéu da Pontinha by Barros, in the face of counter-imaginations and interventions by local authorities. and that Barros constructed an entitativity for his claimed principality through the development of symbols, rhetoric and performances.