In recent years, the South China Sea has become a locus of increasing importance in media and policy circles. The attention is in large part due to the growing competition over access to its shipping routes and resources. Yet, discussions about and political claims over the South China Sea are often framed in reductive strategic terms. This preponderance limits our capacity to think critically about the South China Sea as a contested maritime space and its possible futures. The proposed workshop will seek to look at the South China Sea through different lenses. Ones that bring into focus the diverse ways in which it is possible to understand and imagine the South China Sea. The aim is to expand the terms of debate on the South China Sea towards an accommodation of more fine-grained sets of historical, linguistic and cultural perspectives. (Re-)conceptualising the South China Sea as a “mediterranean sea” would allow us to compare it with and draw lessons from other landlocked seas in Asia and elsewhere. For further details access https://sites.google.com/site/iasubd/home