I am Filippo Menga, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Bergamo and Editor-in-Chief of Political Geography. My work focuses on water politics, environmental politics, political geography, and the infrastructures through which power is exercised. I am also Senior Fellow at the Lisbon Council and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading. I am the author and co-editor of several books, including Thirst: The Global Quest to Solve the Water Crisis (Verso, 2025), published in Italian as Sete (Ponte alle Grazie); Power and Water in Central Asia (Routledge, 2018); and the edited volumes Political Geography in Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) and Water, Technology and the Nation-State (Routledge Earthscan, 2018).
This website brings together my research, publications, editorial work, media appearances, and occasional public writing. It is intended both as a record of my academic work and as a space for public-facing commentary and engagement. I am also actively involved in the design, management, and delivery of EU-funded research projects. I am available for media interviews, public speaking, workshops, and selected advisory or consultancy work related to water governance, environmental politics, political geography, and related issues. For collaborations, invitations, media requests, or consultancy enquiries, please see the Contact page.
My research sits at the intersection of political geography, political ecology, and development studies, with a particular interest in how water, infrastructure, territory, and environmental crisis are entangled with power and governance. I have published in journals including Development and Change, Political Geography, Environment and Planning C, Environment and Planning E, Area, Geoforum, Nationalities Papers, Water Alternatives, Journal of Political Ecology, Ecology and Society, and Water Policy.
From 2017 to 2021, I was Lecturer and then Associate Professor of Human Geography at the University of Reading, where I also led the Human Geography Research Cluster. Before that, I held a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship at the University of Manchester for the project Dam-nations?, on dams, nation-building, and transboundary water relations in Ethiopia and Tajikistan. I have also held research and teaching positions at Oxford Brookes University, Tallinn University, the University of St Andrews, and King’s College London, and before my doctoral studies at the University of Cagliari I worked as a UN Fellow at the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
Beyond my role at Political Geography, I serve on the editorial boards of Global Networks, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, and Central Asian Survey. I regularly review for academic journals and funding bodies, including the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe programmes, and my work has been recognized with awards including the Scopus Early Career Researcher UK Award 2018 in Social Sciences.
Filippo Menga 