Reimagining the complexities of securitized waters and borders

Paper by Nanneke Winters, Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits and Helena Perez Nino

In this paper, Dr Nanneke Winters, Dr Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits and Dr Helena Pérez Niño introduce Édouard Glissant’s 'archipelagic thinking' as a new way to study securitized water bodies and borders.

Boat with refugees on water
Gerd Altman

Focusing on evidence gathered in Sri Lanka, Panama and the Philippines, the authors use this approach to deconstruct and challenge discourses that rely on threatening metaphors of water which emphasize fear, instability and control. Instead they highlight water's  agentive, relational, life-sustaining and identity-forming qualities.

Read the article online - 'Making sense of securitised water bodies and borders through the lens of Glissant’s archipelagic thinking' Goeforum Vol. 173, July 2026.

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Water, Securitization Anxieties and Border Imaginaries research project

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