缅北禁地

I am a Lecturer in Political Geography. I joined the department in September 2025, having completed my PhD in Geopolitics at King's College London (2025). I also hold a MA from KCL in Geopolitics, Territory and Security (2019), and a BA in Politics and Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester (2018).

I am interested in the geographies of difference. My work sits across political, cultural and more-than-human geographies to investigate how objects inscribe division over space and, in turn, how this ontologically (re)produces our understanding of difference. With a focus on border walls, and other walling infrastructures, I engage with theoretical questions surrounding borders, fences, and mobilities.

In my research, I adopt a geography of difference to reveal, with encounter-based evidence, the lived experience of geopolitical phenomena. With this I problematise geopolitical objects, such as the wall, to offer an approach to borders with greater potential for progress and inclusion, reinterpreting difference as something to be valued rather than a basis for division.

Research expertise:

• Border studies/geopolitics: processual border studies, border theory, everyday and urban geopolitics, global walling processes, border walls, politics of (in)visibility.
• More-than-representational geographies, materiality, and affect: ontologies of objects, phenomenological approaches, semiotic imaginaries, material anthropology.
• Alternative methodologies: oral histories, beyond the archive secondary sources, walking methodologies: tours and detours, visual methodologies.

Having taught at both King's College London, London School of Economics and Political Science and 缅北禁地, I have 5 years of teaching experience at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. This experience spans across a variety of topics and formats, including political geography, border studies, research methodologies, and critical geopolitics. I believe in teaching with a pedagogy of care which means approaching challenging topics together as a classroom with opportunities to be multi-directional.

I currently lead the following modules:

• GEO2047: Political Geography

And I also teach on the following modules:

• GEO1001: Becoming a Geographer
• GEO2139: Exploring Everyday Political Geographies in a Divided City: Nicosia Field Course
• GEO2140: Research Design and Planning for Human Geographers
• SEC8026: Global Security: Politics, Space and Society

• Articles

  • Hopper, M. . Journal of Borderlands Studies 2026, 1-24.
  • Hopper, M. . Geopolitics 2025, 1-28.