John Childs

I am particularly interested in the political and justice-based dimensions of resource extraction, specialising in oceanic contexts. For most of the last decade, he has been focused on the political geography of deep-sea mining which is part of an emergent 'blue economy' discourse. I have held an ESRC Future Research Leaders fellowship investigating the kind of geopolitics that emerges when the materiality and dynamism of the deep sea is taken seriously alongside the political ecological concerns of how it is managed. 

Previous work has focused on (1) the political geography of the blue economy, especially deep-sea mining (2) the political economy of 'resource nationalism' in sub-Saharan Africa.

Published Research

My most recent work has been centred on the geopolitics of deep oceans, especially deep-sea mining. It seeks to understand from different perspectives how the industry is being constructed as a new frontier for resource politics.

Teaching

I teach on several undergraduate and postgraduate geography modules, and convene:

LEC488 Approaches to Political Ecology

LEC222 Political Geography

I am also the Director of Studies for the MA Political Ecology, the first of its kind in the UK.

(https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/postgraduate-courses/political-ecology-ma/2025/)

Other Roles

I am an editorial board member of Extractive Industries and Society (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/the-extractive-industries-and-society/)