Reconceptualising the red sea neighbourhood: Bab-el-Mandeb, maritime space, and regional boundaries

This article reconceptualises the Red Sea as an interregional geopolitical space central to the contemporary political geography that connects North Africa and West Asia. It challenges territorially bounded and land-centric approaches to regionhood that dominate International Relations and North African studies, arguing that such frameworks obscure the geopolitical significance of maritime corridors and chokepoints. Drawing on a hybrid analytical framework that combines International Relations with Political Geography, the article foregrounds spatiality, mobility, infrastructure, and circulation as key mechanisms through which regional order is produced. Focusing on the Red Sea corridor linking the Arabian Peninsula, the Nile Valley, and the Horn of Africa, the analysis demonstrates how security dynamics emerge through the governance of movement rather than territorial enclosure. Empirical illustrations, including maritime insecurity linked to the war in Yemen, Gulf state engagements across the Red Sea littoral, Djibouti’s role as a nodal hub, Ethiopia’s pursuit of maritime access, and the governance legacies of piracy, highlight how localised developments acquire interregional significance when embedded within critical maritime infrastructures. By framing the Red Sea as a constitutive space of regional formation, the article contributes to studies of North Africa by foregrounding maritime governance as a core dimension of interregional politics.