page_title: Origins of Falkland Islanders
section_title: Evolution of Falkland Islander identity
hierarchical_section_title: Origins of Falkland Islanders / Evolution of Falkland Islander identity
caption_attribution_description: Hon. Lewis Clifton OBE. Speaker, Falklands Legislative Council
context_page_description: Falkland Islanders derive from various origins. Earliest among these are the numerically small but internationally diverse early 19th century inhabitants of the Falkland Islands, comprising and descended in part from settlers brought by Luis Vernet, and English and American sealers; South American gauchos who settled in the 1840s and 1850s; and since the late 1830s, settlers largely from Britain with a minority from other European countries. There has also been significant recent contributions from Saint Helena and Chile.
context_section_description: The Falkland Islanders are British by citizenship, and by either origins or naturalization.  They are one of the nations and mini-nations of the United Kingdom and the British overseas territories, including also the English, Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish, Channel Islanders, Gibraltarians, Saint Helenians, Bermudians, Caymanians etc. Along with their common British identity, each of these has its own distinct identity shaped in the respective particular circumstances of political, economic, social and cultural evolution history.  According to Lewis Clifton, Speaker of the Falklands Legislative Council, the Falkland Islanders are no exception:
  British cultural, economic, social, political and educational values create a unique British-like, Falkland Islands.  Yet Islanders feel distinctly different from their fellow citizens who reside in the United Kingdom.  This might have something to do with geographical isolation or with living on a smaller island – perhaps akin to those British people not feeling European.
  Besides geographical isolation, the emerging of a distinct Falkland Islander national identity along with the originally undifferentiated British identity was possibly influenced by the devolution processes taking place among the United Kingdom nations:
  The recent devolution aspirations of Wales and Scotland may be a factor.  No sociological study has ever been commissioned to try to identify a plausible theory, and therefore it is difficult to elaborate on this emerging dichotomy, but significant sociological change has occurred.
  Since the 1960s, the political dimension of Falklander identity has evolved around the campaign for recognition of the Islanders' right to self-determination. Key to this was the formation of the Falkland Island Committee in 1968, Britain's recognition of the right to self-determination after the Islanders turned down the so-called "leaseback proposal" put forward by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1980, and the new Falklands Constitution enacted in 1985. The constitution vests political power in the elected Falklands Legislative Council rather than the old style colonial governors.
  A specific regional aspect of identity is the human relationship the Islanders traditionally maintain with Chile and Uruguay, and the well-known Islander rejection of the Argentine sovereignty claim:
  In the Falkland Islands a national identity dynamic also exists: it is constructed upon the Islanders' desire not to deal with Argentina.
  The Falklands War had tremendous security, economic and social implications for the Falkland Islanders.  The War opened the prospects for long needed reforms, reversing the demographic, economic and social decline that the Falklands had suffered for several decades.  The Islanders became self-confident masters of their natural resources, and managers of a vibrant economy that attracted a wide range of new technical and managerial personnel to immigrate.
  The Falkland Islanders consider themselves a nation, the ethnogenesis of which is no different from that of other immigrant nations typical of the Americas, Australia or New Zealand; indeed no different from the case of neighbouring South American nations, as pointed out by Councillor Mike Summers:
  We are as much a people as those in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile and many other South American countries whose inhabitants are of principally European or African descent.
caption: Hon. Lewis Clifton OBE. Speaker, Falklands Legislative Council.
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