Unaddressed Citizenship: wet ontologies and mobile citizenship on Britain's waterways.

Herman, Agatha ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0646-9726 and Yarwood, Richard 2025. Unaddressed Citizenship: wet ontologies and mobile citizenship on Britain's waterways. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Citizenship is a fluid and contested relation, dependent on both locality and mobility; yet, the necessity of a fixed address to access social and political rights acts to exclude those who do not conform to this terrestrially-informed governance structure. The longstanding precarity of itinerant communities therefore ensures equivocal experiences of citizenship. Through a focus on liveaboard boaters on the UK’s inland waterways, we explore how water matters in the relations, skills, practices, experiences and identities of these denizens, and the possibilities offered by the mobility of waterscapes to ‘unearth’ citizenship. Challenges in accessing healthcare and voting demonstrate the difficulties experienced by such mobile communities, as well as their informal strategies to manage and subvert such socio-structural inequalities. The consequent practiced and connective watery citizenship has implications for support and welfare within this community, as the fluidity of water offers simultaneous opportunities to connect and disconnect. Nonetheless, the leaky potential of water emphasizes the surprising porosity of the seemingly immovable borders imposed by the state, and helps map the hidden routes to navigate through them

Item Type:	Article
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	0263-7758
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 November 2025
Date of Acceptance:	20 November 2025
Last Modified:	25 Nov 2025 09:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/182598

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