Thinking Ontological (In)Security with Water: The Place of the Ocean in Boat Migration

Abstract The article aims to examine how Ocean Studies and Blue Humanities, and especially the concepts of more than wet ontology and bodies of water, can contribute to a more than wet approach to Ontological Security Studies (OSS) that allows us to rethink the ways that migrants and refugees construct their narratives of resistance on a liquid surface. OSS reproduces the territorial ontology and epistemology of the broader field of International Relations, characterized by divisions between Land and Sea, and inside and outside. One of the tenets of the term ‘a body of water’ is to highlight the ontological similarity, not identity, between water and other elements, inside and outside. Through these lenses, it is possible to analyse the wet assemblages formed when migrants/refugees merge with the Ocean, boats, and jackets, producing a complex, fluid, and unstable dynamic of Ontological Security/Insecurity.