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.

Authored book

• Nieuwenhuis, M., Nassar, A., & Leach, C. (2019). Spon End: A Local Guide. Independent Publishing Network

Book review

• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2020). Social Imaginaries of Space: Concepts and Cases. Bernard Debardieux Edward Elgar, 2019. Geographical Research, 58(4), 426-429. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-5871.12407
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2019). Atmospheric things: on the allure of elemental envelopment. Social and Cultural Geography, 20(9), 1337-1339. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2019.1616874
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2018). China and the 21st Century Crisis. Human geography, 11(2),

Chapter in book

• Nieuwenhuis, M., & Colls, R. (2025). Geographies of Bodies. In B. Warf (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Human Geography (1-6). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25900-5
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2019). Ephemeral language: communicating by breath. In S. Choi, A. Selmeczi, & E. Strausz (Eds.), Critical Methods for the Study of World Politics: Creativity and Transformation. (1). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315104997
• Nieuwenhuis., M. (2018). A grain of sand against a world of territory: experiences of sand and sandscapes in China. In P. Steinberg, K. Peters, & E. Stratford (Eds.), Territory Beyond Terra. Rowman & Littlefield
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2018). The Politics of Breathing: Knowledge on Air and Respiration. In L. Škof, & P. Berndtson (Eds.), Atmospheres of breathing: the respiratory questions of philosophy. SUNY Press
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2017). The Invisible Lines of Territory: An Investigation into the Makeup of Territory. In M. Nieuwenhuis, & D. Crouch (Eds.), The Question of Space: Post-Disciplinary Interventions on the Spatial Turn. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. Rowman & Littlefield
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). Imagining the Indo-Pacific Region. In P. Chacko (Ed.), New Regional Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific. Routledge

Edited book

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

Journal Article

• Nieuwenhuis, M., & Mcfarlane, C. (2024). “There, seated upon the toilet, apparently in the midst of defecation, was the president of the United States” : Toilets and Elite Politics in the USA and UK. Political Geography, 115, Article 103228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2024.103228
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2024). Back lane geography: in praise of worlds behind. Cultural Geographies, 31(1), 137-144. https://doi.org/10.1177/14744740231161561
• Nieuwenhuis, M., & Chen, H.-Y. (2024). Respiratory negotiations: The elemental biopolitics of medical masks in times of atmospheric crisis. Political Geography, 108, Article 103018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.103018
• Pribiag, I., & Nieuwenhuis, M. (2023). Introduction: Locations of Politics. Theory and Event, 26(3), 524-530. https://doi.org/10.1353/tae.2023.a901576
• Nieuwenhuis, M., & Strausz, E. (2023). Atmospheric Pedagogies: Everyday Ethnographies of the (Post) Pandemic Classroom. Theory and Event, 26(3), 597-625. https://doi.org/10.1353/tae.2023.a901580
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2022). The politics of subterranean atmospheres in China: a study of contemporary chinese mining art. Ambiances (En ligne), https://doi.org/10.4000/ambiances.4409
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2022). Geographies of Trust: Hitchhiking from Gateshead to Calais. Geohumanities, 8(1), 329-343. https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566x.2021.1990102
• Nieuwenhuis, M., & Knoll, E. (2021). Towards a geography of voice-hearing. Emotion, Space and Society, 40(August), Article 100812. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2021.100812
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2019). Porous skin: Breathing through the prism of the holey body. Emotion, Space and Society, 33, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2019.100595
• Perlin, J., Nieuwenhuis, M., & Nassar, A. (2019). Feeling (y)our way in the dark: An interview with Jenny Perlin. Emotion, Space and Society, 33, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2019.100596
• Nieuwenhuis, M., & Nassar, A. (2018). Dust: perfect circularity. Cultural Geographies, 25(3), 501-507. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474017747252
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2018). Atmospheric governance: Gassing as law for the protection and killing of life. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(1), 78-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775817729378
• Nieuwenhuis, M., & Nassar, A. (2018). (Porous cities: Coventry through 10 Holes). Livingmaps review, Spring, 1-12
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). The Governing of the Air: A Case Study of the Chinese Experience
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). The emergence of materialism in geography: Belonging and being, space and place, sea and land. Social Science Information, 55(3), https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018416638949
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). Introduction: atmospheric politics and state governance. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 9(3), 478-481. https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2016.1199419
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). Breathing materiality: aerial violence at a time of atmospheric politics. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 9(3), 499-521. https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2016.1199420
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2015). Knowing the Weather: Heavens and Supercomputers in China
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2015). On one breath all depend
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2015). Atemwende, or how to breathe differently. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5(1), 90-94. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820614565876
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2014). Taking Up The Challenge Of Space: New Conceptualisations Of Space In The Work Of Peter Sloterdijk And Graham Harman. Continent (Atlanta, GA), 4(1), 16-37
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2014). Review Essay: Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt: Geographies of the Nomos, written by Stephen Legg. Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, 22(2), 257-285. https://doi.org/10.1163/1569206x-12341360

Other (Print)

• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2016). “Sur les Toits”: A Symposium on the Prison Protests in Early 1970s France
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2015). A Right to Breathe
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2015). Skunk water: stench as a weapon of war
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2014). Terror In The Air In Istanbul
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2013). Intervention – Cartographic Nationalism and Territorial Confusion in East Asia
• Nieuwenhuis, M. (2012). Intervention – The London Olympics: Urban Geopolitics