Prof. Dr. Martin Müller
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Assistant Professor
Profile Area "Cultures, Institutions, Markets"
Co-Director Center for Governance and Culture in Europe
Education
2008 Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main: PhD Human Geography
2005 University of Cambridge: MPhil Development Studies
2004 LMU München: BA (equiv.) Economic Geography
Assembling socio-material space
The world we live in is made up of the entanglement of social and material stuff. Separate one from the other and much of what our daily life is made up of comes apart at the seams.
How the social and the material come together and the political and spatial implications of this liaison are at the heart of my research. I trace these associations along several conceptual, methodological and empirical lines.
Research Interests
Fields
_ Political Geography
_ Regional Studies
_ Economic Geography
_ Political Ecology
_ Political Economy
_ International Political Sociology
Concepts
_ Actor-Networks
_ Discourse
_ Knowledge
_ Identities
_ Governance
Topics
_ Mega-Events and Mega-Projects
_ Parks and People
_ Sustainability
_ Organisations
Methods
_ Ethnography
_ Statistical Modelling
Regions
_ Russia
_ Eastern Europe
_ Germany
_ Switzerland
Current Research Projects
Materialising networks: moving knowledge, governing mega-events
EuroGaps: Exploring Europeanisation in Georgia, Ukraine, Kenya and Senegal
Past Research Projects
2008 - 2010 A political ecology of protected areas in post-Soviet Russia
2005 - 2008 Between Pravda and Prada: making post-Soviet identities at a Russian elite university
2007 - 2008 The regional economic impact of Bavarian Forest National Park
2007 - 2008 Human dimensions of natural disturbances in forest eco-systems: the social impact of bark beetle infestations in Bavarian Forest National Park
2004 - 2005 Postmodernism translated: towards hybrid development research
Visiting Fellowships
2013 University of Oxford | Oxford | UK
2012 University of North Carolina | Chapel Hill | USA
2010 University of British Columbia (UBC) | Vancouver | Canada
Professional Service
Student Skills Toolkit
This is an expanding work in progress where I try to build a resource base for essential study skills.
1) Mindmap
2) Poster Design
3) Summary
4) Essay
5) Research Project
6) Discussion
7) Research Paper
Discussion Pieces
Müller, M. (2011): Zu den Anforderungen an eine kumulative Dissertation. Rundbrief Geographie 231 (pdf)
Working Papers
Author Page at SSRN
Müller, M. and A. Stewart (2012): Does temporary geographical proximity predict learning? Evidence from the organisation of the Olympic Games 2012, 2014 and 2016. (pdf)
Recent Publications
complete publication list and full-text
Books
Awarded the Klaus-Mehnert-Prize of the German Association for East European Studies (DGO)
2009: Making great power identities in Russia: an ethnographic discourse analysis of education at a Russian elite university. LIT: Zürich.
This book examines how the discourse of a strong Russia makes geopolitical subjects at a Moscow elite university. In so doing, it provides an inside perspective on the education of the future Russian elites and thus, possibly, on the future directions of Russian foreign policy.
Through the prism of poststructuralist discourse theory this study tries to think the production of geopolitical identities, applying the work of theorists like Foucault and Laclau and Mouffe. It finds that what is at the heart of Russian great power identities is a constitutive lack that makes for a fundamental ambiguity: articulations of a strong Russia are always intertwined with the imminent possibility of a weak Russia.
Edited Collections
Special Issue (2012) (ed.): Mittendrin statt nur dabei: Ethnographie als Methodologie in der Humangeographie. Geographica Helvetica 67(4): 179-184. (link to full text)
Contributions to Reference Works
Müller, M. (2013): Text, discourse, affect and things. In: K. Dodds, J. Sharp and M. Kuus (eds.): The Ashgate research companion to critical geopolitics: 49-68. (pdf)
Journal Articles
2013: ______: Lack and jouissance in hegemonic discourse of identification with the state. Organization 20(2): 279-298. (link) (pdf)
Bringing together elements from discourse theory and psychoanalysis to explore how hegemonic discourses are sustained in organisations through the dynamic of lack and jouissance.
2012: ______: Think big! Das Grossprojekt Sotschi 2014. Osteuropa 62(6-8): 313-324. (pdf)
This contribution takes a critical look at the processes of preparation for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi 2014.
2012: ______: Opening the black box of the organization: socio-material practices of ordering. Political Geography 31(6): 379-388. (pdf)
Along the lines of actor-network theory (ANT), this article proposes a novel conceptualisation of organisations as arising from socio-material practices of ordering.
2012: ______: Popular perception of urban transformation through mega-events: understanding support for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 30(4): 693-711. (pdf)
What aspects of the public perception of urban transformation in the wake of the preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics predict public support?
2011: ______: Market meets nationalism: making entrepreneurial state subjects in post-Soviet Russia. Nationalities Papers 39(3): 393-408. (link) (pdf)
Considers how the interaction of neoliberalism and nationalism engenders a new mode of subject-making that reframes Russian nationalism in entrepreneurial terms.
2011: ______: Education and the formation of geopolitical subjects. International Political Sociology 5(1): 1-17. (link) (pdf)
Engaging with the work of Foucault, this contribution examines how the interplay of discipline and knowledge produces docile geopolitical subjects at a Russian university.
2011: ______: State dirigisme in mega-projects: governing the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Environment and Planning A 43 (9): 2091-2108. (link) (pdf)
Weighing into debates on state rescaling and urban entrepreneurialism, this paper examines the planning and governance of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
2011: ______: How natural disturbance triggers political conflict: bark beetles and the meaning of landscape in the Bavarian Forest. Global Environmental Change 21(3): 935-946. (link) (pdf)
A discourse analysis of how landscape changes in the wake of a bark beetle epidemic affect political conflict around a protected area.
2011: ______, Evgeny Shvarts and Irina Onufrenya: Nationalparkboom in Russland. Natur und Landschaft 86(2): pp. 64-68. (link) (pdf)
A review of the political ecology of national parks in Russia in the post-Soviet era.
2011: ______ : Public opinion toward the European Union in Georgia. Post-Soviet Affairs 27(1): pp. 64-92.
A statistical exploration of attitudes towards the EU in Georgia and the major factors influencing it. (link) (pdf)
2010: ______ : Doing discourse analysis in critical geopolitics. L'Espace Politique 12: pp. 1-18. (pdf)
A contribution towards a more explicit discussion of the methodologies of discourse analysis within critical geopolitics.
2010: Mayer, Marius, ______, Manuel Woltering, Julius Arnegger and Hubert Job: The economic impact of tourism in six German national parks. Landscape and Urban Planning 97(2): pp. 73-82. (pdf)
We use data from tourist surveys and Keynesian multiplier analysis to estimate the regional economic impact of tourist expenditure.
2009: ______ and Hubert Job: Managing natural disturbance in protected areas: tourists' attitude towards the bark beetle in a German national park. Biological Conservation, 142(2): pp. 375-383. (pdf)
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is employed to predict tourists' attitude towards the bark beetle in Bavarian Forest National Park.
2009: Flint, Courtney G., Bonita L. McFarlane, and ______: Human dimensions of forest disturbance by insects: an international synthesis. Environmental Management, 43(6): 1174-1186. (pdf)
What have been the social and economic consequences of bark beetle outbreaks in a number of settings in North America and Central Europe?
2008: ______: Schutzgebiete in Russland: Katalysatoren nachhaltiger Entwicklung? [Protected areas in Russia: catalysts of sustainable development?]. Osteuropa 58 (4-5): pp. 419-437. (pdf)
A review article considering the situation and prospects of nature conservation and protected areas in Russia.
2008: ______ : Situating identities: enacting and studying Europe at a Russian elite university. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 37(1): pp. 3-25. (pdf)
Using the example of "Europe", this contribution conceptually and empirically rethinks the way identities have been dealt with in International Relations.
Awarded the Northedge Essay Prize.
2008: ________: Reconsidering the concept of discourse for the field of critical geopolitics: towards discourse as language and practice. Political Geography 27(3): pp. 322-338. (pdf)
From a poststructuralist position, this article asks what a broader concept of discourse as language and practice can contribute to the project of critical geopolitics.
This is the most frequently cited article in Political Geography since 2008.
2008: ________ and Paul Reuber: Empirical verve, conceptual doubts: looking from the outside in at critical geopolitics. Geopolitics 13(3): pp. 458-472. (pdf)
This article reviews the reception of critical geopolitics in German geography and highlights the main lines of critique.
2007: ________: What's in a word? Problematising translation between languages. Area 39(2): pp. 206-213. (pdf)
What are the challenges of translation in geographical research and how can we address them?
complete publication list and full-text