Bringing together themes from the discourses around "new materialism" and "postcolonial ecologies," Allewaert weaves her narrative around the colonial anxiety that Europeans would become "a different kind of organization of matter and thus a different kind of being" in more extreme climates (2013: 4). In this she is guided by the human-nature interplay in Ariel’s song (especially the "Full Fathom Five" stanza), which serves as a prompt for reinterpretations of references to bodily dismemberment, intrusion and convergence as a potential for resistance to imperialist and capitalist projects.

Tolia-Kelly provides a detailed account of her methodological approach that calls for grounding theory through participatory action research that seeks to enable the voices of South Asian migrant women.