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Overview

Dr Jonathan Darling

Associate Professor


Affiliations
AffiliationRoom numberTelephone
Associate Professor in the Department of Geography406+44 (0) 191 33 41933

Biography

I am an urban and political geographer interested in the politics and ethics of migration and its relationship with the urban. I joined the Department of Geography in 2018 following a Senior Lectureship at the University of Manchester. Prior to this, I worked at the University of St Andrews as a Teaching Fellow in Geography following a BA, MA and PhD in Geography from Durham University. During my time at Durham, I have undertaken a range of administrative roles, including Deputy Director of Education and currently Director of the BA Programme. I occasionally tweet at: @Jonny_Darling

I have a broad range of research interests, primarily orientated around the politics of asylum and refuge. My work has been funded by the AHRC, British Academy, ESRC, Leverhulme Trust, and the European Commission. My current work seeks to explore:

1. The urbanisation of asylum. My work has been underpinned by a desire to understand how cities respond to forced migration. My work has theorised the urban as both a means to police, manage, and regulate the lives of refugees, and simultaneously as a complex social formation through which political acts, claims, and subjectivities are forged. In this field, I have also examined the emergence, development, and tactics of urban sanctuary movements, culminating in the co-edited collection Sanctuary Cities and Urban Struggles.

2. Asylum accommodation and support. I am interested in the structures of accommodation, support, dispersal and resettlement that surround asylum policy in the UK and across Europe. My work has explored the forms of distributed violence that surround asylum accommodation, leading to the book Systems of Suffering: Dispersal and the Denial of Asylum, and alongside colleagues in Australia and Switzerland I am currently examining the use of hotels as forms of contingent and carceral accommodation.

3. Intimate practices of care, hospitality, and solidarity. My past work has explored spaces of care such as drop-in centres and asylum support services, in order to examine the political potentials of radical caring practices. My current work, funded by a BA/Leverhulme Small Grant, focuses on forms of intimate solidarity and hospitality in refugee hosting programmes across the UK.

Beyond these research interests, I have a longstanding interest in pedagogy and geographical education. I am a co-editor of Research Ethics for Human Geography: A Handbook for Students, the first textbook within the discipline to offer a detailed account of research ethics within geography. I have also co-produced a range of open access teaching resources on precarious housing in Europe as part of an Erasmus + partnership, culminating in the open access book Precarious Housing in Europe: A Critical Guide.

Awarded Grants

  • 2021: Solidarity in Diversity(£216594.28 from Interreg (ERDF) Europe)
  • 2019: Precarious housing in Europe. Pushing for innovation in higher education(£48088.47 from Interreg (ERDF) Europe)
  • 2018: Rethinking Resistence: Creativity and Potentiality in the UK Asylum System(£93331.00 from ESRC Centre for Social and Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics (INNOGEN))

Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

  • Citizenship, state and governance: Refugees, asylum policy, and the impacts of migration
  • Policy and politics: Refugees, asylum policy, and the impacts of migration
  • Security, territory and boundaries: Refugees, asylum policy, and the impacts of migration
  • Social and ethical inequality: Refugees, asylum policy, and the impacts of migration

Publications

Authored book

  • Darling, J. (2022). Systems of Suffering: Dispersal and the Denial of Asylum. Pluto Press.

Book review

Chapter in book

  • Bolt, G. & Darling, J. (2022). Precariousness and the Right to Housing. In Precarious Housing in Europe: A Critical Guide. Munch, S. & Siede, A. Donatau Press. 11-35.
  • Darling, J. (2020). Vulnerable Subjects. In Research Ethics for Human Geography: A Handbook for Students. Wilson, H.F. & Darling, J. Sage. 159-169.
  • Darling, J. & Wilson, H.F. (2020). Geography and Ethics. In Research Ethics for Human Geography: A Handbook for Students. Wilson, H.F. & Darling, J. Sage. 6-22.
  • Darling, J. (2020). Expectations. In Research Ethics for Human Geography: A Handbook for Students. Wilson, H.F. & Darling, J. Sage. 73-81.
  • Darling, Jonathan (2020). ‘Another politics of the city’ Urban practices of refuge, advocacy and activism. In Refugee Imaginaries: Research Across the Humanities. Cox, Emma, Durrant, Sam, Farrier, David, Stonebridge, Lyndsey & Wooley, Agnes University of Edinburgh Press. 554-570.
  • Darling, Jonathan (2020). Out-sourcing refuge: distance, deferral, and immunity in the urban governance of refugees. In Displacement: Global Conversations on Refuge. Pasquetti, Silvia & Sanyal, Romola Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • Darling, J. (2020). Hosting the displaced: from sanctuary cities to hospitable homes. In The Handbook of Displacement. Adey, P. Bowstead, J. Brickell, K. Desai, V. Dolton, M. Pinkerton, A. & Siddiqi, A. Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Darling, Jonathan & Bauder, Harald (2019). Introduction: rescaling migration, citizenship, and rights. In Sanctuary Cities and Urban Struggles: Rescaling Migration, Citizenship, and Rights. Darling, Jonathan & Bauder, Harald University of Manchester Press.
  • Darling, Jonathan (2019). Sanctuary, presence, and the politics of urbanism. In Sanctuary Cities and Urban Struggles: Rescaling Migration, Citizenship, and Rights. Darling, Jonathan & Bauder, Harald Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • Darling, Jonathan (2017). Refugees. In International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology. 1.
  • Wilson, Helen F. & Darling, Jonathan (2016). The possibilities of encounter. In Encountering the City: Urban Encounters from Accra to New York. Wilson, Helen F. & Darling, Jonathan Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 1-24.
  • Darling, Jonathan (2016). Defying the demand to 'go home': from human rights cities to the urbanisation of human rights. In Global Urban Justice: The Rise of Human Rights Cities. Oomen, Barbara, Davis, Martha & Grigolo, Michele Cambridge University Press. 121-138.
  • Darling, Jonathan (2015). What role might cities play in UK asylum policy? In On Devo. Waddington, Alex Manchester University Press. 16-18.
  • Darling, Jonathan (2014). Welcome to Sheffield: the less-than-violent geographies of urban asylum. In Geographies of Peace. McConnell, Fiona, Megoran, Nick & Williams, Philippa IB Tauris. 229-249.
  • Darling, Jonathan & Squire, Vicki (2013). Everyday enactments of sanctuary: the UK City of Sanctuary movement. In Sanctuary Practices in International Perspectives. Lippert, Randy & Rehaag, Sean Routledge. 191-204.
  • Darling, Jonathan (2010). Just being there.: Ethics, experimentation, and the cultivation of care. In Taking-Place: Non-representational theories and geography. Anderson, Ben & Harrison, Paul Ashgate. 241-260.

Edited book

  • Wilson, Helen F. & Darling, Jonathan (2020). Research Ethics for Human Geography. Sage.
  • Darling, Jonathan & Bauder, Harald (2019). Sanctuary Cities and Urban Struggles: Rescaling Migration, Citizenship, and Rights. University of Manchester Press.
  • Darling, Jonathan & Wilson, Helen F. (2016). Encountering the City: Urban Encounters from Accra to New York. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Journal Article

Supervision students