Theoria

This special issue aims to illustrate how the emerging approach of archipelagic thinking can contribute to political theory and international relations theory, and it attempts to grapple with the geopolitical and ontological complexities of the South China Sea and Western Pacific. Archipelagic thinking is an emerging interdisciplinary approach in island studies, political anthropology and political ecology. The interest of archipelagic thinking for political theorising rests on the following considerations: (1) it builds on the legacy of global anti-colonial and postcolonial movements that gained traction from the 1960s onwards and led to the development of decolonial and postcolonial critiques, subaltern studies and political ecology (Braverman and Johnson 2020); (2) it challenges dominant configurations of sovereignty over the state, population and territory, and reimagines political subjectivity and the possibilities of relationality (Espejo 2020; Youatt 2020). Third, it overlaps with, and is theoretically informed by, the advent of ‘geophilosophy’ (Povinelli 2016), posthumanism (Braidotti 2013; Haraway 2016) and the political ecology based on science and technology studies, or STS (Latour 2017; Liboiron 2021).

Archipelago theory presents a vision of the world that transcends nation-states, linking islands, history, ethnicity and geography. Its conceptualisation, however, remains tethered to the maritime realm. This article proposes a space-oriented approach to extending the archipelago paradigm. In doing so, it revisits and advances Carl Schmitt's concept of a planetary spatial revolution through a case study of China. Using China as a focal point, this study examines two divergent forms of planetary thought: one nationalistic, potentially harmful, and the other cosmopolitan, offering a radically new vision of Earth as a singular, precious vessel.

Though it is most often imagined as an island continent, Australia is an archipelago set within a complex of archipelagoes. It is a relationship that must be seen as a dynamic historical process implying that the archipelagic chains of connection between Australia and the Indo-Australian Archipelago are processual, performative and complexly intertwined. Archipelagic thinking shifts the ‘geography of reason’ from one that is essentialist and co-produced with a Eurocentric, geolocational, property-based understanding of territorialisation and governance, to one that is heterotopic, multi-scalar, multi-ontological, dynamic and emergent. Its multi-spatiality not only embraces Indigenous perspectives and the geopolitical processes through which Island Southeast Asia came to be occupied, it also creates a knowledge space for the development of postcolonial justice. Archipelagic thinking is inherently cosmopolitical, given its emphasis on multiplicity and real difference. Establishing a regenerative cultural and environmental commons is the best way forward.

This article brings into dialogue the debate on the governance of the global commons and the emergent postcolonial discourse on ‘archipelagic thinking’ on the basis of an interpretation of Carl Schmitt's idea of the Grossraum in international law. It analyses two axioms in Schmitt's discourse on international law: the first is that the character of law as nomos varies depending on the elements of planetary habitability, such as earth, sea, air and energy/fire, in which it operates. The second concerns the relation that Schmitt establishes between maritime imperialism, settler colonialism and the practice of islanding. The article proposes to understand archipelagic thinking as a deconstructive intervention in the imperial geopolitical dualism between land and sea, shows the ‘archipelagic’ dimensions of the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea, and offers a defence of the Common Heritage of Mankind principle.

This article examines China's artificial island-building in the South China Sea as a form of ‘un-islandic’ violence that undermines ecological and relational principles central to archipelagic thinking. Drawing on Carl Schmitt's theory of nomos and land appropriation, it analyses how Chinese political theorists and state planners have embraced Schmittian concepts to justify territorial expansion and sovereign authority. It argues that the transformation of coral reefs into militarised landforms, framed as ‘green engineering’, exemplifies a technocratic logic of green colonialism rather than environmental stewardship. Contrasting this with the relational ontology advanced by islandic thinking – particularly in the works of David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh – the article shows how China's island-making disrupts multi-species ecologies and dispossesses existing social relations, thereby enacting a form of spatial violence rooted in statist modernity, calling for a shift away from land-centric paradigms towards a more ecologically attuned politics of space.

D. A. J. Richards. 2023. Revolution and Constitutionalism in Britain and the U.S.: Burke and Madison and Their Contemporary Legacies. London: Routledge. 252 pp., ISBN: 9781003410966 (ebk)

R. Crilley, N. Manchanda, L. J. Shepherd, C. Wilkinson, C. Biddolph, and S. Fishel. 2025. Thinking World Politics Otherwise: A Diverse Introduction to International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 408pp., ISBN: 9780192897701 (pbk)