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Professor in the Department of Geography+44 (0) 191 33 41985

Biography

I joined the Geography Department at Durham in 2009. Prior to that I held appointments at the University of Manchester and at Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario). From 2011-2015 I was Chair of COST Action IS1101 Climate Change and Migration, and from 2013-2016 I was Co-Director of the Institute for Hazard, Risk and Resilience (Durham University). 

Research

My research examines the intersections of race, nature and geography in relation to three broad phenomena: 1) climate change and human migration; 2. mobility and the Anthropocene; and 3. settler colonialism. I'm especially interested in how each relate to questions of humanism, posthumanism, politics, culture and urbanism. Informed by a mix of theoretical perspectives, including postcolonialism, poststructuralism, feminism, anti-racism and Black studies, my work is motivated to ask how political authority is adapting to looming geohistorical phenomena like climate change and the Anthropocene. 

Many of these themes come together in my recently published book The Other of Climate Change: Racial Futurism, Migration, Humanism, which theorises how race and racism shape epistemological discussions about climate change and human migration in the realm of international relations. It examines how race and racism are woven into the tropes, forms of knowledge, and habits of speech that comprise the discourse and what they can tell us about a wider set of concepts including the political, neoliberalism, sovereignty, humanism, race, Blackness, and the international.

I am currently Co-investigator on a major ESRC-funded project called Inclusive Urban Infrastructure with colleagues from Sussex and Durham and our international partners in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Somaliland. This work builds on several other projects with colleagues at Sussex and SOAS: Migrants on the Margins (funded by the Royal Geographical Society), Supporting the Mobility of Trapped Populations (ESRC-DFID funded) and The Unknown City (ESRC-AHRC funded - Forced Displacement Programme). 

Fellowships
  • 2014 Institute for Advanced Studies Fellowship, Durham University
  • 2006 - 2008 SSHRC Council Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • 2004 - 2005 SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship Scholarship

Publications

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