Dr Sam Berlin

I joined Plymouth as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Atmospheres of (counter)terrorism in European cities project. Before coming to Plymouth, I completed my PhD in Human Geography at the University of Bristol in 2021. My PhD project used post-humanist theories to rethink the everyday politics of class, development and futurity in contemporary China in the form of an ethnography of a market street in a small Chinese city. Another strand of work has focused on the politics and ethics of trans and queer life. I am interested in using critiques from affect and non-representational theories to create fresh approaches to the politics of subjectivity and difference. Before returning to academia, I worked in China as a translator. 

Qualifications

PhD Human Geography, University of Bristol (2021)

• Thesis: Developmental Politics and Everyday Life: Working and Aspiring on Taohua Street

MSc Human Geography (Society and Space), University of Bristol (2015)

• Dissertation: Trans Ethics

BA Chinese and Geography, SOAS and King's College London (2010)

Research interests

• Affect and non-representational theories, continental philosophy, postcolonial and feminist theory
• Critical political economy: class, urbanization, migration, development
• LGBTQ+ politics, queer and trans theory
• Contemporary Chinese and British societies
• Qualitative research methodologies: ethnography, narrative, positionality