Professor Philip Steinberg

Professor

Affiliations
Affiliation	Telephone
Professor in the Department of Geography	+44 (0) 191 33 41945
NINE DTP Director and Durham Arctic Director in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health
Associate Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Study

Biography

I came to Durham in Autumn 2013 after sixteen years in Florida State University’s Department of Geography, punctuated by one-year interludes at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers (2002-2003), the University of California, Santa Cruz’ Center for Cultural Studies (2005-2006), and Royal Holloway, University of London’s Department of Geography (2012-2013). Prior to Florida State, I attended Clark University’s Graduate School of Geography (1990-1996), where I received my MA and PhD degrees, as well as teaching briefly in Bucknell University’s Department of Geography (1997).

My research focuses on the historical, ongoing, and, at times, imaginary projection of social power onto spaces whose geophysical and geographic characteristics make them resistant to state territorialization. These spaces include the world-ocean, the Arctic, and the universe of electronic communications. Within these spaces, I study everything from artistic depictions to governance institutions to the lifeways of individuals who inhabit (or cross) their expanses. In addition to these major research themes, I frequently conduct research in complementary areas including urban planning politics; utopianism (especially as projected onto islands); intersections between geography and international law; critical theories of development and nature; and the links between art, cartography, visualisation, and representation.

My present research is primarily in two main areas: Wet Ontologies and Ocean Governance; and Arctic Politics and the Liveliness of Sea Ice. In the first of these areas, I explore how the ocean — in its liquid mobility but also in its other states (sea ice, mist, etc.) and in its depths and volumes — challenges the notion of ‘territory’ as it is typically conceptualised on land and inscribed through legal norms and state practice. While much of my work in this area is highly conceptual, it also engages with issues in the governance of marine resources, particularly on the seabed, as well as encounters with water by coastal peoples. In the second of these areas, I focus on the Arctic, where the presence of sea ice challenges norms of ocean governance inherited from temperate, continental regions. This research is complemented by a wider ranging set of enquiries concerning the place of the frozen, inhabited ocean in a world that is typically understood, outside the polar regions, as divided into solid, bounded land and liquid, unbounded water.

I also have a strong, secondary interest, in cross-disciplinary research and, in particular, cross-disciplinary doctoral and professional training. This is reflected in the three centres that I direct at Durham:

IBRU: Durham University's Centre for Borders Research. IBRU spans the areas of cartography, diplomacy, and international law to offer a suite of online and offline training courses, as well as supporting research that seeks to facilitate enhanced understanding of border areas, contribute to the peaceful resolution of boundary disputes, and engage with broader geographic questions concerning the changing nature of sovereignty, territory, citizenship, and the political organisation of space.
The Durham Arctic Research Centre for Training and Interdisciplinary Collaboration (DurhamARCTIC). Following successful completion of a six-year grant to coordinate PhD training for 15 students across seven disciplines in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, DurhamARCTIC now focuses on facilitating internal and external facing Arctic research collaborations among Durham staff and students.
The Northern Ireland / Northeast England Doctoral Training Partnership (NINE DTP). NINE DTP is a seven-university partnership funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council to fund training of five cohorts of 50-55 students per year across all social science disciplines and research areas.

Additionally, I have a strong interest in the practices and norms of academic publishing. As former editor-in-chief of the journal Political Geography (2016-2019) as well as through service on a number of other publishing initiatives, I have contributed to debates on the ways in which academic dialogue is framed, limited, and enabled by the institutional, state, and corporate structures that govern the production and circulation of knowledge.

For more on my research, publications, and internal and external leadership activities, as well as a complete c.v., please visit my personal web page.