Roffey’s 2012 novel, Archipelago, provides a fruitful context for readers to consider the possibility of an archipelagic ontology and its potential as an alternative model to understand and address the climate crisis. This essay begins with a reflection on modern society’s control-oriented approach to the environments and relates it to a terracentric way of life and worldview. It then uses the idea of ‘wet ontologies’ to examine how water in its various forms frustrates humanity’s tendency to control the environments and, in doing so, attunes humanity to a less controlling way of life and relationship with the environments. Thinking with Glissant and new materialism, the essay further shows that an archipelagic ontology can lead to two affective-ethical components: ‘oceanic care’ and ‘non-controlling responsibility.’ Both are instrumental in facilitating a global transition to a less individualistic and less anthropocentric way of life in the Anthropocene.

ArchipelagosIsland StudiesMonique RoffeyAnthropoceneCaribbean Literature