--- - |2 Abstract This article introduces the key contributions of the special issue on ‘Maritime networks and transnational spaces’. It draws attention to three key thematics that the papers develop. These are a set of engagements between law, space and maritime networks; a set of questions around maritime spaces, subaltern histories and transnational networks and finally a set of concerns around the forms of ‘geopolitical literacy’ articulated by maritime actors (Troutman 2005). Through drawing together these interlocking problematics the articles contribute to a broad agenda highlighting the productive intersection of work on maritime networks and transnational spaces. The introduction sets out some of the ways in which engagements with maritime contexts and scholarship can offer new perspectives on the transnational spatialities of politics, resistance and regulation. - 'Global Networks, Volume 19, Issue 4, Page 447-457, October 2019. '