Staff profile

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

Authored book

• Baldwin, W. (2022). The Other of Climate Change: Racial Futurism, Migration, Humanism. Rowman & Littlefield

Book review

• Baldwin, W. (2010). A Political Space: Reading the Global through Clayoquot Sound. The Canadian Geographer, 48(1), 83-84. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1085-9489.2004.bkrev01.x
• Baldwin, W. (2010). Handbook of Global Environmental Politics. Review of European Community and international environmental law, 15(1), 118-120. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9388.2006.00507.x
• Baldwin, W. (2010). Contentious Geographies: Environmental knowledge, meaning and scale. Human geography, 3(2),
• Baldwin, W. (2010). Griffith Taylor: visionary, environmentalist, explorer. Journal of Historical Geography, 36(1), 106-107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2009.11.002
• Baldwin, W. (2010). Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico. Journal of Historical Geography, 34(4), 674-675. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2008.07.010
• Baldwin, W. (2007). Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters and Social Imagination. Environmental History, 12(4), 1005-1006. https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/12.4.1005
• Baldwin, W. (2007). States of Nature: Conserving Canada's Wildlife in the Twentieth Century. Journal of Historical Geography, 33(3),
• Baldwin, W. (2007). Nature and the City: Making Environmental Policy in Toronto and Los Angeles. Historical geography, 35, 275-277
• Baldwin, W. (2007). Logjam: Deforestation and the Crisis of Global Governance. Review of European Community and international environmental law, 16(3),

Chapter in book

• Baldwin, W. A. (in press). Climate Crisis. In The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Geographies. Routledge
• Baldwin, W. A. (2023). Race, Migration, and Climate Change: A Cautionary Note. In Climate Migration: Critical Perspectives for Law, Policy and Research. Hart Publishing
• Baldwin, W. A. (2020). Climate change refugees. In A. Kobayashi (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (275-279). (2nd). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-102295-5.11000-5
• Baldwin, W. (2017). Concluding remarks: on the politics of climate change, migration and human rights. In D. Manou, W. A. Baldwin, D. Cubie, T. Thorp, & A. Mihr (Eds.), Climate Change, Migration and Human Rights: Law and Policy Perspectives. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315622217
• Baldwin, W., & Bettini, G. (2017). Introduction: Life adrift. In W. Baldwin, & G. Bettini (Eds.), Life adrift: climate change, migration, critique. Rowman & Littlefield
• Baldwin, W. (2017). Rearranging desire: on whiteness and heteronormativity. In W. Baldwin, & G. Bettini (Eds.), Life adrift: climate change, migration, critique. Rowman & Littlefield
• Baldwin, W., & Gemenne, F. (2013). Climate change and migration: context, paradox, and future directions. In H. Hackmann, & F. Caillods (Eds.), World Social Sciences Report 2013. International Social Sciences Council
• Baldwin, W., & Meltzer, J. (2012). Environmental Citizenship and Climate Security: Contextualizing Violence and Citizenship in Amazonian Peru. In A. Latta, & H. Wittman (Eds.), Environment and citizenship in Latin America (23-38). Berghahn Journals
• Baldwin, W., Cameron, L., & Kobayashi, A. (2011). Where is the Great White North? Spatializing history, historicizing whiteness. In W. Baldwin, L. Cameron, & A. Kobayashi (Eds.), Rethinking the Great White North : race, nature and the historical geographies of whiteness in Canada. University of British Columbia Press
• Baldwin, W., & Dalby, S. (2010). Canadian Middle Power Identity, Environmental Biopolitics, and Human Insecurity. In N. Hynek, & D. Bosold (Eds.), Canada's foreign and security policy : soft and hard strategies of a middle power (121-137). Oxford University Press
• Baldwin, W., & Dalby, S. (2010). Human Security and Canadian Environmental Policy. In N. Hynek, & D. Bosold (Eds.), Canada's New Foreign and Security Policy Strategies: Assessing Soft and Hard Dimensions of Middlepowerhood. Oxford University Press
• Baldwin, W. (2007). Boreal Forests. In P. Robbins (Ed.), Encyclopedia of environment and society (153-154). SAGE Publications
• Baldwin, W. (2007). Agenda 21. In P. Robbins (Ed.), Encyclopedia of environment and society (10-11). SAGE Publications

Conference Paper

• Baldwin, W. (2012, December). Pre-empting race: climate change, migration and the future conditional. Paper presented at Critical Approaches to Environmental Displacement, Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University
• Baldwin, W. (2008, May). Whiteness, Nature and Canadian Conservation Politics. Presented at International Council for Canadian Studies Biennial Conference, Ottawa
• Baldwin, W. (2007, April). Carbon-nation: the relational ontology of carbon scarcity in Canada's boreal forest. Presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California
• Baldwin, W. (2007, December). The White Geography of Lawren Stewart Harris: whiteness and the performative coupling of wilderness and multiculturalism in Canada. Presented at Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon

Edited book

• Manou, D., Baldwin, W., Cubie, D., Thorp, T., & Mihr, A. (Eds.). (2017). Climate Change, Migration and Human Rights: Law and Policy Perspectives. Routledge
• Baldwin, W., & Bettini, G. (Eds.). (2017). Life Adrift: climate change, migration, critique. Rowman & Littlefield
• Baldwin, W., Cameron, L., & Kobayashi, A. (Eds.). (2011). Rethinking the Great White North: race, nature and the historical geographies of whiteness in Canada. University of British Columbia Press

Journal Article

• Rahman, M. F., Lewis, D., Kuhl, L., Baldwin, A., Ruszczyk, H., Nadiruzzaman, M., & Mahid, Y. (online). Managed Urban Retreat: The Trouble with Crisis Narratives. Urban Geography, 45(1), 23-32. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2023.2228094
• Baldwin, A. (2025). Racial Futurism: Redux. Environment and Planning F, 4(1), 69-79
• Baldwin, A., & Waters, R. (2025). Calculating ‘climate migrants’: An emerging topology of power. Security Dialogue, 56(1), 21-37. https://doi.org/10.1177/09670106241269714
• Tilley, L., Ranawana, A., Baldwin, A., & Tully, T. (2023). Race and Climate Change: Towards Anti-Racist Ecologies. Politics, 43(2), 141-152. https://doi.org/10.1177/02633957221127166
• Ayeb-Karlsson, S., & Baldwin, A. (2022). Who is the climate-induced trapped figure?. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 13(6), Article e803. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.803
• Baldwin, W. A. (2022). Force and Forcing in Baucom's Heterochronic Philosophy of Freedom for the Anthropocene (Review of History 4° Celsius by Ian Baucom. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020)
• Baldwin, W., & Erickson, B. (2020). Introduction: Whiteness, coloniality, and the Anthropocene. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 38(1), 3-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775820904485
• Baldwin, A. (2019). Thinking with Protevi: difference, the present, and the political. Political Geography, 70, 137-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.02.002
• Baldwin, W. A., Fröhlich, C., & Rothe, D. (2019). From Climate Migration to Anthropocene Mobilities: Shifting the Debate; Editors introduction. Mobilities, 14(3), 289-297. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2019.1620510
• Boas, I., Farbotko, C., Adams, H., Sterly, H., Bush, S., van der Geest, K., Wiegel, H., Ashraf, H., Baldwin, A., Bettini, G., Blondin, S., de Bruijn, M., Durand-Delacre, D., Fröhlich, C., Gioli, G., Guaita, L., Hut, E., Jarawura, F., Lamers, M., Lietaer, S., …Hulme, M. (2019). Climate migration myths. Nature Climate Change, 9(11), 901-903. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0633-3
• Baldwin, W., & Fornalé, E. (2017). Adaptive migration: pluralising the debate on climate change and migration. The Geographical Journal, 183(4), 322-328. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12242
• Baldwin, W. (2017). Decolonising geographical knowledges: the incommensurable, the university and democracy. Area, 49(3), 329-331. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12374
• Baldwin, W. (2017). Resilience and race, or climate change and the uninsurable migrant: towards an anthroporacial reading of ‘race’. Resilience (Abingdon, U.K. : Online), 5(2), 129-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/21693293.2016.1241473
• Baldwin, W. (2017). Climate change, migration, and the crisis of humanism. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 8(3), Article e460. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.460
• Baldwin, W. (2017). Postcolonial Futures: Climate, Race, and the Yet-to-Come. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 24(2), 292-305. https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isx008
• Baldwin, W. (2017). Theorising Climate Change and Migration: Affect, Politics and the Future Conditional. Insights, 10-11,
• Baldwin, W. (2016). Premediation and white affect: climate change and migration in critical perspective. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41(1), 78-90. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12106
• Baldwin, W. (2015). Responsibility, politics, and reason: a sympathetic comment on Castree. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5(3), 317-321. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820615613217
• Baldwin, W., Methmann, C., & Rothe, D. (2014). Securitizing ‘climate refugees’: the futurology of climate-induced migration. Critical Studies on Security, 2(2), 121-130. https://doi.org/10.1080/21624887.2014.943570
• Baldwin, A. (2014). The political theologies of climate change-induced migration. Critical Studies on Security, 2(2), 210-222. https://doi.org/10.1080/21624887.2014.932509
• Baldwin, A. (2014). Pluralising climate change and migration: an argument in favour of open futures. Geography Compass, 8(8), 516-528. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12145
• Baldwin, W. (2013). Vital ecosystem security: emergence, circulation, and the biopolitical environmental citizen. Geoforum, 45, 52-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.01.002
• Baldwin, W. (2013). Racialisation and the figure of the climate-change migrant. Environment and Planning A, 45(6), 1474-1490. https://doi.org/10.1068/a45388
• Baldwin, W., & Stanley, A. (2013). Risky natures, natures of risk. Geoforum, 45, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.12.016
• Baldwin, W. (2012). Whiteness and futurity: towards a research agenda. Progress in Human Geography, 36(2), 172-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132511414603
• Baldwin, W. (2012). Interivew with Andrew Baldwin. Miradas en movimiento, Special Volume - Naturally Immigrants, 176-182
• Baldwin, W. (2012). Orientalising environmental citizenship: climate change, migration, and the war on potential. Citizenship Studies, 16(5-6),
• Baldwin, W. (2010). Wilderness and tolerance in Flora MacDonald Denison: towards a biopolitics of whiteness. Social and Cultural Geography, 11(8), 883-901. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2010.523842
• Baldwin, W. (2009). Ethnoscaping Canada's Boreal Forest: liberal whiteness and its disaffiliation from colonial space. The Canadian Geographer, 53(4), 427-443. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2009.00260.x
• Baldwin, W. (2009). Carbon nullius and racial rule: race, nature and the cultural politics of forest carbon in Canada. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 41(2), 231-255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00671.x
• Baldwin, W. (2009). The White Geography of Lawren Stewart Harris: Whiteness and the Performative Coupling of Multiculturalism and Nature in Canada. Environment and Planning A, 41(3), 529-544. https://doi.org/10.1068/a40110
• Baldwin, W. (2004). An Ethics of Connection: Social-nature in Canada's Boreal Forest. Ethics, place & environment, 7(3), 185-194. https://doi.org/10.1080/1366879042000332970
• Baldwin, A. (2003). The Nature of the Boreal Forest: Governmentality and Forest-nature. Space and Culture, 6(4), 415-428. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331203253189

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• Baldwin, W. A. (2022). Why we should abandon the concept of the 'climate refugee'

Other (Print)

• Baldwin, W., Turhan, E., & Armiero, M. (2016). Alive and afloat

Report

• Baldwin, W. (2001). Agriculture Negotiations at the WTO: Context Setting and Intelligence Report February-April 2001. [No known commissioning body]