Staff profile

I moved to Durham after nine years in Warwick University's Politics and International Studies department, where I also received also my PhD. Before moving to the UK in the early 2010s, I lived, studied and worked for long periods in different cities across China and Europe.

My trans-disciplinary research is at the intersection of Cultural/ Political Geography and Critical International Relations. My work is driven by a curiosity for conceptual art, disregarded things, unexpected places, and elemental experiments. I have written on holes, weather, air, breathing, skin, trust, and sand. A lot of my writing is inspired by the places I dwell in and the human and non-human animals I meet there. I am currently writing on respiratory dust, the lives and afterlives of back lanes, and toilets in elite politics. 

I consider situated engagement meaningful and politically important. I have done previous work and research in Coventry and I am currently interested in collaborations with organisations, artists, poets, and storytellers in the North East. I recently started to take a special interest in the sometimes forgotten worlds and lives of back lanes in England's Northeast.

I also serve on the advisory board of the Routledge Critical Perspectives on Breath and Breathing series. If you are interested in publishing your work with us, please get in touch.

Besides my academic writing, you can find me at OpenDemocracy, Somatosphere and elsewhere.

Supervision

I welcome PhD students interested in doing work on the poetics and politics of breathing, geographies of trust, and the worlds of unexpected places. I also welcome students to wanting to work with me on phenomenology and theory (especially Alphonso Lingis, Frantz Fanon, Luce Irigary, Georges Bataille, Peter Sloterdijk and others).

Widening Participation

As the first person in my family to go university, I know that university life can be challenging. In my role as the department's Widening Participation Coordinator, I am eager to support new and existing students. Please do get in touch. I would love to meet and hear from you. You can also find information and resources on our dedicated website.

• Geographies of Life

Authored book

• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn, Nassar, Aya & Leach, Carol (2019). Spon End: A Local Guide. Independent Publishing Network.

Book review

• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2020). Social Imaginaries of Space: Concepts and Cases. Bernard Debardieux Edward Elgar, 2019. Geographical Research 58(4): 426-429.
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2019). Atmospheric things: on the allure of elemental envelopment. Social & Cultural Geography 1.
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2018). China and the 21st Century Crisis. Human Geography 11(2).

Chapter in book

• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2019). Ephemeral language: communicating by breath. In Critical Methods for the Study of World Politics: Creativity and Transformation. Choi, Shine, Selmeczi, Anna & Strausz, Erzsébet Taylor & Francis.
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2018). The Politics of Breathing: Knowledge on Air and Respiration. In Atmospheres of breathing: the respiratory questions of philosophy. Škof, L. & Berndtson, P. SUNY Press.
• Nieuwenhuis. M. (2018). A grain of sand against a world of territory: experiences of sand and sandscapes in China. In Territory Beyond Terra. Steinberg, P., Peters, K. & Stratford, E. Rowman and Littlefield.
• Nieuwenhuis, M (2017). The Invisible Lines of Territory: An Investigation into the Makeup of Territory. In The Question of Space: Post-Disciplinary Interventions on the Spatial Turn. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. Nieuwenhuis, M & Crouch, D Rowman and Littlefield.
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). Imagining the Indo-Pacific Region. In New Regional Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific. Chacko, P. Routledge.

Edited book

• Nieuwenhuis, M & Crouch, D (2017). The Question of Space: Interrogating the Spatial Turn between Disciplines. Place, Memory, Affect. Rowman and Littlefield.

Journal Article

• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2023). Back lane geography: in praise of worlds behind. Cultural Geographies
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2022). The politics of subterranean atmospheres in China: a study of contemporary chinese mining art. Ambiances (8).
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2022). Geographies of Trust: Hitchhiking from Gateshead to Calais. GeoHumanities 8(1): 329-343.
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn & Knoll, Emily (2021). Towards a geography of voice-hearing. Emotion, Space and Society 40(August): 100812.
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2019). Porous skin: Breathing through the prism of the holey body. Emotion, Space and Society 33: 100595.
• Perlin, Jenny, Nieuwenhuis, Marijn & Nassar, Aya (2019). Feeling (y)our way in the dark: An interview with Jenny Perlin. Emotion, Space and Society 33: 100596.
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn & Nassar, Aya (2018). Dust: perfect circularity. Cultural Geographies 25(3): 501-507.
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2018). Atmospheric governance: Gassing as law for the protection and killing of life. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 36(1): 78-95.
• Marijn Nieuwenhuis & Aya Nassar (2018). (Porous cities: Coventry through 10 Holes). Livingmaps Review Spring: 1-12.
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). Introduction: atmospheric politics and state governance. Critical Studies on Terrorism 9(3): 478-481.
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). The Governing of the Air: A Case Study of the Chinese Experience. Borderlands 15(1): 1–23.
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). Breathing materiality: aerial violence at a time of atmospheric politics. Critical Studies on Terrorism 9(3): 499-521.
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2016). The emergence of materialism in geography: Belonging and being, space and place, sea and land. Social Science Information 55(3): 300–320.
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2015). Knowing the Weather: Heavens and Supercomputers in China. Scapegoat: Architecture, Landscape, Political Economy 5: 132-143.
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2015). On one breath all depend. Journal of Narrative Politics 1(2): 167-179.
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2015). Atemwende, or how to breathe differently. Dialogues in Human Geography 5(1): 90-94.
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2014). Review Essay: Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt: Geographies of the Nomos, written by Stephen Legg. Historical Materialism 22(2): 257-285.
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2014). Taking Up The Challenge Of Space: New Conceptualisations Of Space In The Work Of Peter Sloterdijk And Graham Harman. Continent 4(1): 16-37.

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2016). “Sur les Toits” A Symposium on the Prison Protests in Early 1970s France. Antipode
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2013). Intervention – Cartographic Nationalism and Territorial Confusion in East Asia. Antipode
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2012). Intervention – The London Olympics: Urban Geopolitics. Antipode

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2015). Skunk water: stench as a weapon of war. openDemocracy
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2015). A Right to Breathe. Critical Legal Thinking
• Nieuwenhuis, Marijn (2014). Terror In The Air In Istanbul. Society and Space