In this paper, I reflect on and explore the challenges of trying to determine an area within which to place my fieldsites that span across multiple regional categories and political geographies. My ongoing research is situated in both Tunisia and the United Kingdom, tracing the work of energy companies in the UK to develop large-scale energy infrastructures within and beyond North Africa. But which ‘area’ do these sites belong? Should they be placed into two separate categories, or brought together under a single regional imagination? What area could capture the longstanding colonial and imperial legacies and the ongoing entanglements between these two countries? I begin by exploring the institutional and disciplinary structures that made it necessarily for me to grapple with this problem, and the methodological and epistemological challenges the problem of area invoked in my research. I trace the path I took in deconstructing multiple potential areas and regions, before arriving at the category of the Mediterranean as a framework for researching and writing. At the same time, I show how invoking the Mediterranean to capture the relations, processes, and actors involved at my fieldsites required rethinking the concept of ‘region’ in altogether new ways.