Introduction

This special section draws on the dynamic new field of Indian Ocean studies to rethink key concepts such as space and circulation (Jeremy Prestholdt), gender and kinship (Mahmood Kooria), and popular media and infrastructure (Bindu Menon Mannil). Through fresh interdisciplinary insights from the contributors' archives and fieldwork, the articles critically interrogate these concepts from a distinctive intellectual vantage point. Historians and anthropologists based in different parts of the globe come together in this special section to “think with the Indian Ocean.” The authors take a concept that is in wide currency in the humanities and social sciences and then reimagine it creatively in the contexts that they study. In doing so, they decenter familiar ways of seeing and knowing, offering a new decolonial lens to make sense of the circularities and connections that constitute our world.