Der Schwerpunkt meiner Forschung liegt auf Wissensgerechtigkeit(epistemic justice), zunehmend im Kontext der globalen autoritären Wende. Mein Buch Tainted Tools: New Materialisms as a Decolonial Project (2026, Manchester University Press) beschäftigt sich kritisch mit der Beziehung zwischen (neuen) Materialismen und post-/dekolonialen Ansätzen. Als Mitglied der RGS-IBG Race, Culture & Equality Working Group fördere ich Wissensgerechtigkeit auch im Lehrkontext. Unter anderem habe ich 2020 ein Area Spezialheft mit James Esson zum Thema Anti‐Racist Learning and Teaching in British Geography (2018) zusammengestellt. Das Thema habe ich in meiner Humboldt-Fellowship für Erfahrene Wissenschaftler*innen an der Universität Bonn vertieft, dieses Mal mit einem Bezug auf Deutschland. Aufgrund meines interdisziplinären Hintergrunds habe ich auch zu Forschungsmethodik publiziert, zum Beispiel als Mitherausgeber*in des Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Methods (Lury et al, 2018).

An der FU arbeite ich an meinen Projekten ‘Left-to-far-right transitions’ und ‘Geopoetics under Censorship’.

Derzeitige Projekte/Current Projects

1)      Left-to-far-right transitions

Transitions of left or centre-left politicians to the far right are often dismissed, either as natural consequences of left authoritarian tendencies, or as missteps of individuals who succumbed to the lure of fascism. What both positions avoid addressing through these stereotypical dismissals are the pathways that enable these transitions. In this project, transitions are shown to emerge from overlaps of political targets such as capitalism, identity politics or (post)modern aesthetics. They are also shown to emerge from theoretical overlaps around social coherence, nature, spirituality and, importantly, from identities as ‘marginal’ or ‘radical’ thinkers/visionaries. These overlaps inform justifications of far-right approaches while enabling ‘left’ activists to uphold a left identity to themselves and potentially also others around them. Rather than marginal phenomena, left-to-far right transitions foreshadow issues that affect the political mainstream. At a time where political identities are shifting more than ever, especially in the West, it is important to not simply understand these wider shifts as the result of mainstream politicians’ attempts at ‘controlled populism’. Instead, this project looks at ostensibly extreme political shifts to explain fascist desires as present and rationalised across political directions.

2)      Geopoetics under censorship

Poetics have often functioned as a means to subvert censorship. Geography carries legacies of such subversions, as well as erasures of geographical knowledge. In this project I move between historical and current examples to show how the pressures exerted by censorship have also translated into creative responses whose ambiguities led to new concepts and geographical interconnections. One example is the censorship enacted under the current Trump administration which is hindering the free development, maintenance and exchange of geographical knowledge. Not only are scientists forced to delete vital data, but hundreds of scientific and social scientific terms have been banned. One consequence of growing Western censorship is that academics that are based in the West have been looking ‘elsewhere’ for advice and support. Their engagement with practices in disciplines, countries and forms of activism that they had so far regarded with a pathological gaze also lead to new forms of understanding and solidarity. Another example is Germany’s ‘memory culture’ and its fraught relationship with colonial memory, whose denial arguably underpins the country’s current ‘democratic backsliding’. Here, the second project also connects to the first one.

Bücher/Books:

• Last, A. (2026) Tainted Tools: New Materialisms as a Decolonial Project. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Lury, C., Fensham, R., Heller-Nicholas, A., Lammes, S., Last, A., Michael, M. and Uprichard, E (eds) (2018)Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Methods. London: Routledge.
• Artikel/Articles (Auswahl/Selection):
• Last. A. (2025) Ecologies of Theory. Dialogues in Human Geography.
• Kinkaid, E, Craig, B, Noble-Varney, R,  Last, A, Ashutosh, I, Ehrkamp, P, Lave, R, Sundberg, J, Wilson, M (2025) Whose geography, whose history?: Reimagining how we teach the history of geography? The Professional Geographer.
• Last, A (2025) The ‘Creative Thesis’ in the Academic ‘Anxiety Machine’. Area
• Esson, J., Last, A. (2020) Anti‐Racist Learning and Teaching in British Geography. Area
• Bhambra, G. K., Last, A., Mayblin, L., Tilley, L. (2018) Global Social Theory: Building Resources. Area (Race and Teaching Special Issue) [online first]
• Last, A. (2017) ‘Re-reading Worldliness: Hannah Arendt and the Question of Matter’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
• Last, A. (2015) ‘We are the world? Anthropocene Cultural Production Between Geopoetics and Geopolitics’, Theory, Culture & Society, GeoSocial Formations Special Issue.
• Last, A. (2015) Fruit of the Cyclone: Undoing Geopolitics Through Geopoetics. Geoforum 64
• Last, A. (2013) ‘Negotiating the Inhuman: Bakhtin, Materiality and the Instrumentalisation of Climate Change’, Theory, Culture & Society 30(2).
• Last. A. (2012) ‘Experimental Geographies’, Geography Compass 6(12).

Buchkapitel/Book chapters (Auswahl/Selection):

• Last, A. (forthcoming) ‘Reconnecting’. In: J. Brigstocke, F. Ferretti, E. Hayes, and M. Lamego (eds) The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of History and Philosophy of Geography. London: Wiley Blackwell.
• Last, A. (2019) Geopoetics, via Germany. In E. Magrane, L. Russo, S. de Leeuw, C. Santos Perez (eds) Geopoetics in Practice. London & New York: Routledge.
• Esson, J. and Last, A. (2019) Learning and Teaching About Race and Racism in Geography. In: H Walkington, J Hill and S Dyer (eds) Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Geography. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• Last, A. (2018) ‘Against ‘terrenism’: Léopold Sédar Senghor, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the fear of a de-spiritualised Earth’. In A Bobbette and A Donovan (eds) Political Geology: Active Stratigraphies and the Making of Life. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Last, A. (2018) ‘Internationalisation and the Academy: sharing across boundaries?’. In G.K. Bhambra, K Nisancioglu and D Gebrial (eds) Decolonising the University. London: Pluto.
• Last, A. (2018) ‘Of Interdisciplinarity’. In C. Lury, R. Fensham, S. Lammes, A. Last, M. Michael, E. Uprichard (eds) Routledge International Handbook of Interdisciplinary Methods. London: Routledge.
• Last, A. (2017) ‘Anti-colonial Ontologies’. In M. Jackson (ed) Coloniality, Ontology and the Question of the Posthuman. London: Routledge.