Planting flags in water

Abstract

In this commentary, I respond to James Riding and Carl Dahlman's article, Montage space: borderlands, micronations, terra nullius, and the imperialism of the geographical imagination. I build on their arguments about ‘more-than-dry landscapes’ to consider how the relationship between fluid and non-fluid landscapes sheds light on the construction and contestation of political space. To do so, I offer additional examples of how people plant flags in water, shedding light on the political implications of how physical territories are imagined, claimed, and sometimes, simply created at the fluid/non-fluid interface.