Locating the Indian Ocean: notes on the postcolonial reconstitution of space

The networks of human relation that define the Indian Ocean region have undergone significant reconfiguration in the last half-century. More precisely, the economic insularity of the region has diminished while the postcolonial nation has both restricted movement and reoriented the political imaginations of people along the rim. At the same time, the Indian Ocean has been revivified as a unit of social exchange and analysis, particularly since the end of the Cold War. This article explores the meaning of Indian Ocean Africa in the context of a multipolar world by focusing on how the dictates of nations have transformed the region and how the petroleum economy as well as shifting means of social engagement have engendered new linkages. The essay argues that although the postcolonial era affected the closure of certain historical routes of connectivity, relationships structured by contemporary nations and air travel, among other things, have encouraged perceptions of regional coherence. What we might term basin consciousness has begun to reverse the introverted politics of the early postcolonial era and animate the Indian Ocean as an idea.