Staff profile

My work focuses primarily on the political, economic and historical geographies of development. I am particularly interested in the ways in which the meanings and relations of development, as a discourse, an apparatus and an aspiration, have been geopolitically imagined and enframed, themes I explore in my book  Geopolitics and Development (Routledge, 2019).

My understanding of development is very much historically grounded, exploring its emergence as a form of governmentality from the enlightenment, through the Cold War to the War on Terror. This has involved research on how 'the Tropics' were imagined by geographers and in wider programmes of improvement during the age of empire as well as work concerned with the complex challenges of decolonisation as they relate both to Geography, International Relations and Development Studies as academic disciplines. Empirically, much of my research has been focused on Southern Africa (particularly Mozambique and Angola) and I have a long-standing interest in the cultural, historical and political geographies of the Portuguese empire. This has included research on the geopolitical imagination of Portuguese imperialism, on decolonisation and counterinsurgency in Portugal’s African colonies and on post-colonial geographies in Portugal and the wider Lusophone world.

I also have a strong interest in the intersections between (audio)visual culture and geopolitics. Some of my earliest work explored the ways in which radio, television and cinema have shaped cultural identities in colonial and post-colonial Southern Africa. This included work on Cinema and Popular Geo-politics. I have also conducted research concerned with Hollywood film in relation to Cold War America, Gulf War II and the scripting, enactment and performance of Africa as the ‘dark continent’. More work has also examined the role of popular video games in contemporary militarisation, the construction of terrorist ‘others’ and in soliciting support for US imperialism.

Much of my research has also examined the economic geographies of neoliberalism and development. Initially this included work on questions of politico-economic transformations in the post-socialist spaces of the global South and on the dissemination of neoliberalism through Investment Promotion Authorities (IPA’s) and global development institutions such as UNCTAD and the Commonwealth. More recent work has sought to trace the unravelling of ‘national’ projects of development in Africa and has involved research on post-colonial urban change and spaces of enclosure and enclavisation Maputo and Tete (Mozambique) and Luanda, Angola. Most recently my work has looked at the financialisation of development. 

A key strand of my latest research has been to examine the rise of (re)emerging development donors like China and the growing importance of ‘South-South’ development cooperation, along with what this means for foreign aid practices and for notions of development ‘partnership’. This first included work on China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa that stemmed from an ESRC-funded project exploring China’s evolving political and economic role in Africa and the impacts Chinese aid, trade and investment are having on recipient states, on poverty reduction and on development trajectories in Africa. I also led an ESRC-funded project looking at how, why and to what extent China, Brazil and India are enabling the transition to low carbon energy systems in South Africa and Mozambique, looking at how ‘rising power’ actors are shaping the provision of energy services for productive uses (such as cooking, lighting and mobility) and the consequent implications for the affordability, accessibility, and sustainability of energy services in Southern Africa. My work has since gone on to explore themes of energy statecraft, resource diplomacy and infrastructural geographies as they come to shape contemporary spaces of South-South co-operation.

In the last three years I've been working on two GCRF-funded projects: (1) Sajag-Nepal which is a partnership to improve preparedness for the mountain hazard chain in Nepal (where I have been exploring the geopolitics of Nepal's relations with (re)emerging donors like China & India) and (2) Community Energy Systems and Sustainable Energy Transitions in Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique (CESET).

I am on X and Bluesky

Previous Appointments

• Lecturer in Human Geography, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
• Lecturer in Human Geography, School of Geography, University of Leeds
• Teaching Assistant in Human Geography, School of Geography, University of Leeds

Qualifications & Education

• 1994 - 1997: ESRC funded PhD research 'Territory, the State and Cultural Identities in 'Post-Colonial' Mozambique' School of Geography, University of Birmingham, (supervised by Dr J.D. Sidaway)
• 1993 - 1994: MA in the Geography of Third World Development (with distinction), Department of Geography, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London
• 1990 - 1993: BA Hons. Geography, Department of Geography, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

• Energy geographies and low carbon transitions
• critical geographies and genealogies of (post)development
• post-colonialism, Portugal and Lusophone Africa
• post-socialist transformations in Southern Africa
• China-Africa engagement
• vision, visuality and 'popular' geopolitics

Authored book

• Power, M. (2019). Geopolitics and Development. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203494424
• Power, M., Mohan, G., & Tan-Mullins, M. (2012). China's Resource Diplomacy in Africa: Powering Development?. Palgrave Macmillan
• Power, M. (2003). Rethinking Development geographies. Routledge

Chapter in book

• Power, M. (2019). Mahbub Ul Haq (1934-1998). In D. Simon (Ed.), Key Thinkers on Development (436-442). (2nd ed). Routledge
• Kirshner, J., & Power, M. (2019). Electrification and the everyday spaces of state power in postcolonial Mozambique. In S. Abram, B. Winthereik, & T. Yarrow (Eds.), Electrifying Anthropology: Exploring Electrical Practices and Infrastructures (139-159). Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350102675.0013
• Power, M. (2018). Modernization Theories of Development. In H. Callan (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1888
• Power, M. (2016). Worlds Apart? The changing geographies of global development. In P. Daniels, M. Bradshaw, D. Shaw, J. Sidaway, & T. Hall (Eds.), An Introduction to Human Geography (170-185). (5th edd). Pearson
• Power, M., & Mohan, G. (2016). Towards a Critical Geopolitics of China’s Engagement with African Development. In T. Young (Ed.), Readings in the International Relations of Africa (322-337). Indiana University Press
• Power, M. (2015). The Rise of the BRICS. In J. Agnew, V. Mamadouh, A. Secor, & J. Sharp (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell companion to political geography (379-392). John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118725771.ch28
• Sidaway, J., Mamadouh, V., & Power, M. (2013). Reappraising Geopolitical Traditions. In K. Dodds, M. Kuus, & J. Sharp (Eds.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Critical Geopolitics (165-188). Ashgate Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315612874.ch9
• Campbell, D., & Power, M. (2010). The Scopic Regime of Africa. In F. MacDonald, R. Hughes, & K. Dodds (Eds.), Observant States: Geopolitics and Visual Culture (167-198). I.B. Tauris
• Power, M., & Mohan, G. (2010). China and the geo-political imagination of African ‘development’. In C. Dent (Ed.), China and Africa Development Relations (42-67). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203845028
• Power, M. (2009). 'Digital war games and post 9/11 geographies of militarism'. In R. Schubart, F. Virchow, & D. White-Stanley (Eds.), War Isn't Hell, it's Entertainment: Essays on Visual Media and the Representation of Conflict (198-215). McFarland
• Power, M. (2007). National States. In I. Douglas, R. Huggett, & C. Perkins (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Geography. Routledge
• Power, M. (2007). War veterans, disability and post-colonial citizenship in Lusophone Africa. In E. Gilbert, & E. Cowen (Eds.), War, Citizenship, Territory. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203938126
• Phelps, N., Power, M., & Wanjiru, R. (2007). Learning to compete: communities of investment promotion practice and the spread of global neoliberalism. In K. England, & K. Ward (Eds.), Neoliberalization: States, Networks, Peoples (83-109.). Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470712801.ch4
• Power, M. (2006). Dependency Theory. In B. Wharf (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Geography. SAGE Publications
• Power, M. (2005). Decolonization. In T. Forsyth (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Inernational Development (138-140). Routeldge
• Power, M. (2005). 'Mahbub Ul Haq (1934-98)'. In D. Simon (Ed.), Fifty key thinkers in development (264-270). Routledge
• Power, M. (2005). 'War'. In T. Forsyth (Ed.), Encyclopedia of International Development (745-746). Routledge
• Power, M. (2005). 'Cold War'. In T. Forsyth (Ed.), Encyclopedia of International Development (88-89). Routledge
• Power, M. (2004). 'Worlds apart: global difference and inequality'. In P. Daniels, M. Bradshaw, D. Shaw, & J. Sidaway (Eds.), An Introduction to Human Geography: Issues for the twenty-first century (185-209). Pearson Prentice Hall
• Power, M. (2004). ‘Geographies of governance and regional politics’. In D. Potts, & T. Bowyer-Bower (Eds.), Eastern and Southern Africa: Development challenges in a Volatile region (255-294). Pearson
• Power, M. (2003). 'Exploding the myth of Portugal’s ‘maritime destiny’: A postcolonial voyage through EXPO ’98’. In A. Blunt, & C. McEwan (Eds.), Post-colonial Geographies. Continuum
• Power, M. (2001). 'Enlightenment and the era of modernity’. In V. Desai, & R. Potter (Eds.), The Companion to Development Studies (65-70). Arnold
• Power, M., & Sidaway, J. (1998). ‘Sex and Violence on the wild frontiers: the aftermath of state socialism in the periphery’. In J. Pickles, & A. Smith (Eds.), Theorizing the transition: the political economy of change in Post-Communist Societies (145-178). Routledge

Edited book

• Power, M., & Alves, A. (Eds.). (2012). China and Angola: A Marriage of Convenience?. Fahamu
• Power, M., & Crampton, A. (Eds.). (2007). Cinema and Popular Geo-Politics. Routledge

Journal Article

• Power, M. (online). Mozambique needs a community-driven approach to electrification
• Power, M. (online). ‘Post-colonial cinema and the reconfiguration of Moçambicanidade’
• Power, M., & Taggart, J. (2024). Rendering development investible: The anti-politics machine and the financialisation of development. Progress in Human Geography, 48(5), 552-574. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325241240741
• Taggart, J., & Power, M. (2022). The irony of choice in the “New Development Financing Landscape”. The Geographical Journal, 188(1), 109-117. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12411
• Gebreslassie, M. G., Cuvilas, C., Zalengera, C., To, L. S., Baptista, I., Robin, E., Bekele, G., Howe, L., Shenga, C., Macucule, D. A., Kirshner, J., Mulugetta, Y., Power, M., Robinson, S., Jones, D., & Castán Broto, V. (2022). Delivering an off-grid transition to sustainable energy in Ethiopia and Mozambique. Energy, Sustainability and Society, 12(1), Article 23. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-022-00348-2
• Power, M. (2020). Leaving no one behind. Journal of Historical Geography, 69, 91-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2020.04.004
• Power, M. (2020). (Luso)tropicality and the materiality of decolonization. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 41(1), 154-158. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12310
• Power, M., & Kirshner, J. (2019). Powering the State: The political geographies of electrification in Mozambique. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 37(3), 498-518. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654418784598
• Kumar, A., Ferdous, R., Luque-Ayala, A., McEwan, C., Power, M., Turner, B., & Bulkeley, H. (2019). Solar energy for all? Understanding the successes and shortfalls through a critical comparative assessment of Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Mozambique, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Energy Research and Social Science, 48, 166-176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.10.005
• Shen, W., & Power, M. (2017). Africa and the export of China’s clean energy revolution. Third World Quarterly, 38(3), 678-697. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1199262
• Power, M., Newell, P., Baker, L., Bulkeley, H., Kirshner, J., & Smith, A. (2016). The political economy of energy transitions in Mozambique and South Africa: The role of the Rising Powers. Energy Research and Social Science, 17, 10-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2016.03.007
• Kirshner, J., & Power, M. (2015). Mining and extractive urbanism: Postdevelopment in a Mozambican boomtown. Geoforum, 61, 67-78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.02.019
• Power, M. (2012). Angola 2025: The future of the 'world's richest poor country' as seen through a Chinese rear-view mirror'. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 44(3), 993-1014. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00896.x
• Power, M. (2012). Commentary on Arturo Escobar's (2008) Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Progress in Human Geography, 36(1), 143-151. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132511406676
• Tan-Mullins, M., Mohan, G., & Power, M. (2010). Redefining ‘Aid’ in the China-Africa Context. Development and Change, 41(5), 857-881. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2010.01662.x
• Power, M., & Mohan, G. (2010). Towards a critical geopolitics of China’s engagement with African development. Geopolitics, 15(3), 462-495. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650040903501021
• Power, M. (2010). Geopolitics and Development: An Introduction. Geopolitics, 15(3), 433-440. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650040903500999
• Power, M., & Campbell, D. (2010). The State of Critical Geopolitics. Political Geography, 29(5), 243-246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2010.06.003
• Sidaway, J., & Power, M. (2009). Lisbon to Macao: The Occluded Geographies of Portugal’s Discoveries
• Mohan, G., & Power, M. (2009). ‘Africa, China and the ‘new’ economic geography of development'. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 30(1), 24-28. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9493.2008.00352.x
• Power, M. (2009). 'The Commonwealth, ‘development’ and post-colonial responsibility'. Geoforum, 40(1), 14-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.04.008
• Mohan, G., & Power, M. (2008). 'New African Choices? The Politics of Chinese Engagement'. Review of African Political Economy, 35(115), 23-42. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056240802011394
• Power, M., & Mohan, G. (2008). 'Good friends and good partners: The 'New' face of China-Africa co-operation'. Review of African Political Economy, 35(115), 5-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056240802011311
• Power, M. (2007). Digitized Virtuosity: Video War games and post-9/11 Cyber-deterrence. Security Dialogue, 38(2), 271-288. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010607078552
• Power, M., Mohan, G., & Mercer, C. (2006). ‘Post-colonial geographies of development: Introduction’. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 27(3), 231-234. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9493.2006.00259.x
• Power, M. (2006). 'Anti-racism, deconstruction and 'overdevelopment'. Progress in Development Studies, 6(1), 24-39. https://doi.org/10.1191/1464993406ps125oa
• Power, M., & Sidaway, J. (2005). 'Deconstructing twinned towers: Lisbon's Expo '98 and the occluded geographies of discovery'. Social and Cultural Geography, 6(6), 865-883. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360500353228
• Power, M. (2005). 'Working the Spaces of Neoliberalism'. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 37(3), 605-612. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0066-4812.2005.00513.x
• Crampton, A., & Power, M. (2005). Frames of reference on the geopolitical stage: Saving Private Ryan and the Second World War/Second Gulf War intertext'. Geopolitics, 10(2), 244-265. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650040590946575
• Power, M., & Crampton, A. (2005). 'Reel Geopolitics: Cinemato-graphing Political Space'. Geopolitics, 10, 193-203. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650040590946494
• Sidaway, J., & Power, M. (2005). 'The tears of Portugal': empire, identity, 'race', and destiny in Portuguese geopolitical narratives. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 23(4), 527-554. https://doi.org/10.1068/d345t
• Power, M., & Sidaway, J. (2004). The degeneration of tropical geography'. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 94(3), 585-601. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.2004.00415.x
• Mercer, C., Mohan, G., & Power, M. (2003). New perspectives on the politics of development in Africa. Geoforum, 34(4), 417-418. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0016-7185%2803%2900047-2
• Power, M. (2003). 'The Scripting, Staging and Projection of 'Popular' Geo-political Discourse'. Geopolitics, 8(2), 181-189. https://doi.org/10.1080/714001024
• Power, M. (2003). ‘Re-Imagining Postcolonial Africa: A Commentary on Michael Watts' 'Development and Governmentality'. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 24(1), 49-60
• Mercer, C., Mohan, G., & Power, M. (2003). 'Towards a critical political geography of African development’. Geoforum, 34, 419-436. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0016-7185%2803%2900045-9
• Power, M. (2001). Geo-politics and the representation of Portugal's African colonial wars: examining the limits of 'Vietnam syndrome'. Political Geography, 20(4), 461-491. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0962-6298%2801%2900003-8
• Power, M. (2001). ‘Patrimonialism and petro-diamond capitalism: geo-politics and the economics of war in Angola'. Review of African Political Economy, 90(28), 489-502
• Power, M. (2001). ‘Geographies of Disability and Development in Southern Africa'. Disability Studies Quarterly, 22(1), 11-22. https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v21i4.320
• Power, M. (2000). '21st Century Foxed: global media broadcasting and the reconfiguration of Moçambicanidade'. South African Geographical Journal, 82(1), 47-55. https://doi.org/10.1080/03736245.2000.9713684
• Power, M. (2000). 'The Short-cut to international development: representing Africa in 'New Britain'. Area, 32(1), 91-100. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2000.tb00118.x
• Power, M. (2000). 'Aqui Lourenço Marques!! [Lourenço Marques here!!]: 'Radio-Colonization' and cultural identity in colonial Mozambique 1932-1974'. Journal of Historical Geography, 26(4), 605-628. https://doi.org/10.1006/jhge.2000.0240
• Power, M. (1998). 'The Dissemination of development'. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 16, 577-598. https://doi.org/10.1068/d160577
• Sidaway, J., & Power, M. (1995). ‘Socio-spatial transformations in the ‘post-socialist’ periphery: the case of Maputo, Mozambique’. Environment and Planning A, 27(2), 1463-1491. https://doi.org/10.1068/a271463