Contact
Biography
I am a political and environmental geographer interested in border violence, toxic geographies, and environmental justice. Since joining the University of Nottingham in 2018, after working on the Toxic Expertise project at the University of Warwick, I've been exploring how environmental and political systems intersect to produce social inequalities. I have also taught Human Geography at the University of Birmingham.
My research investigates the political dimensions of social injustice, particularly in relation to migration and environmental pollution. I am especially interested in how power and resistance shape border violence and toxic landscapes. My work has been published in journals such as Antipode, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Geoforum, EPD: Society and Space, and others. In addition, I have written about my research for the Guardian and the Independent, contributing to broader public discussions on these issues.
Currently, I'm involved in two major research projects. One is funded by the ESRC, looking into the UK government's response to 'small boats' crossing the English Channel. The other, funded by the Antipode Foundation, examines border violence experienced by refugees in the Balkans, titled Fragile resistance on the EU border: the peaceful geographies of the refugee crisis. I recently completed a UKRI-funded project exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the UK waste sector. My ongoing research continues to look at the slow, often invisible political violence of pollution across various toxic landscapes.
Alongside my research, I serve as an editor for Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space an international journal that critically engages with the complex relationships between politics and space. I am also on the editorial board of The SAGE Handbook of Global Social Theory, and I previously co-edited Toxic News, an e-magazine covering toxic pollution and its social impacts. Recently, I co-edited a special issue of Emotion, Space and Society about the role "failure" in academic research. I also hold the position of Membership Officer for the 'Waste, Pollution, and Toxicities' Working Group.
My first co-edited book, 'Toxic Truths: Environmental Justice and Citizen Science in a Post Truth Age' was published in 2020 with Professor Alice Mah (Manchester University Press).
My pronouns are he/him. Twitter here | Google Scholar here.
Expertise Summary
Media Engagement:
I recently worked with investigative journalists from Lighthouse Reports, alongside media partners Der Spiegel, iNews, and Tagesschau (German TV News) to investigate the increasing deaths of people on the move at EU borders. This project was nominated for a One World Media Award in 2024, recognising "compelling stories that generate empathy, understanding and are reported on accurately and fairly". My work regularly features in the media, including interviews with BBC Future, the Guardian, and Newsweek.
I have been interviewed on podcasts including Surviving Society discussing Racialised EU border violence (2021), and on the Sociology podcast Who Do We Think We Are? , discussing the idea of "Fortress Britain" (2024).
Media publications include:
- They freeze to death in forests, drown in rivers. 2023, [German] Der Spiegel (contributing author)
- Dead refugees in the Balkans: Bribe to find your relative [Greek]. 2023, Solomon
- Europe's Nameless Dead, 2023, Lighthouse Reports
- Talking tough won't stop migrant crossings of the English Channel, 2022, Financial Times (contributing author)
- Colonial Fantasies of the Offshore. 2021, History Workshop
- The violence and filth of a camp in Bosnia defines the EU's legacy on refugees. 2019, The Independent
- The violent reality of the EU border: police brutality in the Balkans. 2018, Open Democracy
- Finger on the button: should Trump's nuclear weapons access be restricted? 2017, The Guardian.
- If nuclear war broke out where's the safest place on Earth? 2016, The Guardian
- 'Is this really Europe?': refugees in Calais speak of desperate conditions. 2015, The Conversation
Policy Impact
After co-producing the first public health investigation of a European refugee camp-An Environmental Health Assessment of the New Migrant Camp in Calais (2015)-with Surindar Dhesi and Arshad Isakjee, I provided written evidence to key governmental bodies, including the Home Affairs Committee's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration. This included contributions to the Migration crisis inquiry (2015) and the Commons Select Committee's European responses to irregular migration (2019). Additionally, I submitted evidence to the International Development Committee's inquiry into the effects of COVID-19 on developing countries and refugee-hosting nations (2020), working with the Department for International Development (DFID).
At the EU level, I have presented ongoing research on border violence to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the European Commission in Brussels. My interdisciplinary research on the impacts of COVID-19 on the waste industry also contributed to the UK Waste Sector COVID-19 Response and Resilience Report (CIWM, 2020).
Teaching Summary
I do an enormous amount of teaching across a wide range of modules. These include:
Globalisation: Economy, Power and Space | Techniques in Human Geography | Exploring Human Geography | Research Tutorials | Dissertation Supervision | Dissertation Preparation | Political Geography | Health Geography | First Year Tutorials | the Lake District Field trip | Project in Environmental Leadership and Management | and People and the Environment (MSc core module conveynor)
My teaching has been commended by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education and Student Experience. I hold an Associate Fellowship with the Higher Education Academy and have published the following peer-reviewed teaching article:
Davies, T., Lorne, C. and Sealey-Huggins, L., 2019. Instagram photography and the geography field course: snapshots from Berlin. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 43(3), pp.362-383.
PhD Supervision:
I welcome PhD prospective candidates interested in any area of research. I am particularly interested in supervising PhD projects focusing on: Toxic Geographies | Border violence | No Borders Activism | Environmental justice | Critical Migration | Refugees | Violent geographies | Slow violence | Structural violence
PhD students:
- Tony Shenton: "Exploring the emerging environmental dimensions of antimicrobial resistance from a human geography perspective" (Completed 2023)
- Luisa Aldrete Flores Daran: "Rethinking Urban Land Grabbing: A Decolonial Political Ecology Perspective to Reveal a Pluriverse of Alternatives"
- Emmanuel Etim: "Comparative Analysis of Municipal Solid Waste Management: Regulatory, Behavioral, and Environmental Justice Perspectives in Nigeria and the UK"
- Stephen Parkinson: "Households and digital technology in a 'circular society'"
- Irene Quadrelli: "Reporting violence at the border: investigatve journalism, activism and epistemic justice in narratives on migration"
MRes Students:
- Freya Peters: 'Considering a Spectrum of Necropolitical Harms: Geographies of Asylum in Nottingham, Calais and Beyond'
- Holly Judson: 'Exploring the differential treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK'
Research Summary
Externally Funded Research Projects
- 2022-2025 'Channel Crossing: Irregular journeys, policies and politics in the English Channel' ESRC [Project Website], Co-I (£584,000)
- 2021-2022 'Modern Slavery Risk GEOBarometer: Supporting Transparency in Supply Chains and Due Diligence' UK Space Agency, Co-I (£502,050)
- 2020-2021: 'Waste management during the COVID-19 outbreak: investigating a critical sector in crisis' ESRC "UKRI Ideas to Address COVID-19", Co-I (£271,000)
- 2019- 2021: 'Fragile Resistance on the EU Borderzone: The Peaceful Geographies of the Refugee Crisis' Antipode Foundation Scholar Activist Project [Working alongside activist-group No Name Kitchen] Co-PI (£10,000)
- 2015-2016: 'Environmental Health in the Calais Refugee Camp' ESRC Impact Accelerator. Co-PI (£5,000)
- 2014: 'From Chernobyl to Fukushima: the social fallout of Japan's nuclear meltdown' Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) PI (£6,000)
Recent Publication:
'Channel Crossings: offshoring asylum and the afterlife of empire in the Dover Strait'
This recent Ethnic and Racial Studies article [available Open Access here] explores responses to irregular crossings of the English Channel in small boats, fantasies of offshoring, and legacies of colonialism at the UK border. It's the first academic output from the ESRC funded 'Channel Crossings' project, with an interdisciplinary team including Dr Arshad Isakjee (University of Liverpool), Dr Joe Turner (University of York) and Dr Lucy Mayblin (University of Sheffield).
Snapshot from the field:
Above: a pre-Covid photograph from fieldwork in Bosnia for the Antipode Foundation Scholar Activist Project, as discussed in The Independent, here.
Selected Publications
THOM DAVIES, ARSHAD ISAKJEE and JELENA OBRADOVIC-WOCHNIK, 2022. Epistemic Borderwork: Violent Pushbacks, Refugees, and the Politics of Knowledge at the EU Border Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 169-188 THOM DAVIES, ARSHAD ISAKJEE, LUCY MAYBLIN and JOE TURNER, 2021. Channel crossings: offshoring asylum and the afterlife of empire in the Dover Strait Ethnic and Racial Studies. ARSHAD ISAKJEE, THOM DAVIES, JELENA OBRADOVIC-WOCHNIK and KAROLINA AUGUSTOVA, 2020. Liberal Violence and the Racial Borders of the European Union Antipode. 1-23
If you would like to collaborate with me on a research idea, writing project, or any other initiative, please do not hesitate to get in touch: thom.davies@nottingham.ac.uk
I have worked alongside some fantastic people and organisations, including:
Investigative journalism newsrooom Lighthouse Reports and the grassroots movement No Name Kitchen, as well as Arshad Isakjee (University of Liverpool), Alice Mah (University of Warwick), Becky Alexis-Martin (Manchester Metropolitan University), Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik (Aston University), Karolína Augustová (University of Glasgow) Surindar Dhesi (University of Birmingham), Tom Disney (Northumbria University), Elly Harrowell (Coventry University), Joe Turner (University of York), Lucy Mayblin (University of Sheffield), Angeliki Balayannis (University of Exeter), and Doctors of the World, among many others. I am also indebted to the many research participants and communities who have informed my work over the years.