Philip Steinberg

Professor, Department of Geography, Durham University

Philip Steinberg is professor of political geography and director of IBRU: The Centre for Borders Research at Durham University, UK, where he also directs the Durham Arctic Research Centre for Training and Interdisciplinary Collaboration (DurhamARCTIC).

His research focuses on the projection of social power to spaces whose geophysical and geographic characteristics make them resistant to state territorialization, including the ocean (The Social Construction of the Ocean [2001]), the Arctic (Contesting the Arctic [2015]), the universe of electronic communication (Managing the Infosphere [2008]), the delta city (What Is a City? [2008]), and a variety of other spaces beyond the limits of land (Territory Beyond Terra [2018]). He researches these topics through analyzing legal, artistic, cartographic, and literary modes of governance and representation.

In addition to Contesting the Arctic, Steinberg’s Arctic research has been published in journals including Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Harvard International Review, Limes, Ocean Development & International Law, Polar Record, Polar Geography, Political Geography, Journal of Borderland Studies, and Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie and he has delivered plenary addresses at key Arctic science and policy conferences including Arctic Circle and Arctic Frontiers. His Arctic research has been funded by the International Council for Canadian Studies (‘Contested Materialities in Northwest Passage Sovereignty Claims’, 2008-2009), the US National Science Foundation (‘Territorial Imaginaries and Arctic Sovereignty Claims’, 2009-2013), the European Commission (Global Alternatives for an Interconnected Arctic (GAIA), 2012-2013), the Leverhulme Trust (The Project on Indeterminate and Changing Environments: Law, the Anthropocene, and the World [the ICE LAW Project], 2016-2019; and Interdisciplinary Understanding for a Changing Arctic, 2018-2023), and Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Studies (Exploring Arctic Soundscapes, 2021-2022).

Philip Steinberg can be contacted at philip.steinberg@durham.ac.uk