This paper examines the changing role of islands in the age of globalization and
in an era of enhanced and diversified mobility. There are many types of islands, many
metaphors of insularity, and many types of migration, so the interactions are far from
simple. The mobilities turn in migration studies recognizes the diversification in
motivations and time-space regimes of human migration. After brief reviews of island
studies and of migration studies, and the power of geography to capture and distil the
interdisciplinarity and relationality of these two study domains, the paper explores various
facets of the generally intense engagement that islands have with migration. Two particular
scenarios are identified for islands and migration in the global era: the heuristic role of
islands as spatial laboratories for the study of diverse migration processes in microcosm;
and the way in which, especially in the Mediterranean and near-Atlantic regions, islands
have become critical locations in the geopolitics of irregular migration routes. The case of
Malta is taken to illustrate some of these new insular migration dynamics.