My work lies at the intersection between space, security and mobility, and Cultural and Political Geography. I am former Chair of the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group, one of the largest research groups of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). In 2011 I was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for my contributions to Human Geography.

Many of my contributions have been to the field of ‘mobility studies’ an interdisciplinary area of study which explores the centrality of movement, or mobility, to social life at multiple scales – from the experience of the body to planetary socio-ecological systems. In this space my empirical research orbits around three interrelated concerns surrounding the cultures, geopolitics of security, and aesthetics of, mobility (including transport and migration). These are: 1. Air-travel, infrastructures and emerging technologies; 2. The climate emergency and just transitions to decarbonisation and low-carbon mobilities; 3. A climate of emergency, examining the emotions, affects and mobilities of emergency and its governance. While my home discipline is Human Geography my research and teaching also intersect fields such as Sociology, Anthropology, International Relations, History and Design.

Research

Much of my research has revolved around mobility futures and infrastructures– especially in the context of airports and aeromobilities. I published my first books Mobility ( 2009; 2017 2^nd edition), Aerial Life: spaces, mobilities, affects (2010) and Air (2014) on the topics. I am a co-editor of the journal Mobilities, one of the leading journals for research on mobility, migration and transport, as well as a co-editor of the Handbook of Mobilities (2014), The Handbook of Displacement (2020), From Above: war, violence and verticality (2013), and with Monika Büscher (Lancaster) I am co-editor of the Changing Mobilities book series.

With Tim Cresswell, Jane Jeonjae Lee, Andre Novoa, Anna Nikolaeva and Cristina Temenos, our book Moving Towards Transition: commoning mobility for a low carbon future came out with Zed Books in 2021. Our mobility transitions research builds on a 3 year research programme which was led by Tim Cresswell and funded by the Mobile Lives Forum. I have continued these interests on transition within a British Academy funded project Just Transitions in Australia (2021-22) which led in partnership with Sarah Pink and Rob Raven at Monash University and a large team of researchers. 

I am also the co-I of the Music, Migration and Mobility project led by the Royal College of Music (https://www.musicmigrationmobility.com/) which has featured an array of storymaps, created by Michael Holden, on the migrations and mobilities of musicians who fled persecution to Britain from Nazi occupied Europe during the Second World War. 

I am involved in several international collaborations as co-investigator, chair of advisory board, and as a project advisory board member,  regarding research on aeromobilities and Covid 19 in China; automation in the air-travel industry in Asia; migration policy and emergency mobility governance in Poland and Lithuania. 

Key books include:

• Adey, P. (2024) The Way We Evacuate: emergency politics and the aesthetics of mobility, Duke University Press, Durham, NC.
• Adey, P. (2017) Mobility (2^nd edition),Routledge, London. Recently translated into Korean by the Academy of Mobility Humanities.
• Adey, P. (2017) Levitation: the science, myth and magic of levity, Reaktion, London; Chicago University Press, Chicago
• Adey, P., Godfrey, B. and Cox, D. (2016) Crime, Regulation and Control during the Blitz, Bloomsbury, London.
• Adey, P. (2014) Air. Reaktion, London; Chicago University Press, Chicago.
• Adey, P. (2010) Aerial Life: spaces, mobilities, affects. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford.
• Adey, P. (2009) Mobility. Routledge, London.

Edited volumes

• Adey, P., Bowstead, J., Brickell, K., Dalton, M., Desai, V., Pinkerton, A., Siddiqi, A., (2020) The Handbook of Displacement, Palgrave, Basingstoke.
• Adey, P., Whitehead, M. and Williams, A. (2013) From Above: war, violence and verticality. Hurst; Oxford University Press: London.
• Adey, P., Bissell, D., Hannam, K., Merriman, P. and Sheller, M. (2013) Handbook of Mobilities, Routledge, London.

Teaching and Supervision

I love teaching mobilities (!) and I have co-taught or taught undergraduate courses on the topic since 2006. I am lead for the Geopolitics and Security strand of the MSc in Global Futures.

I am on the steering group and am co-investigator of the EPSRC funded Royal Holloway Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security and the Everyday.

I have supervised a range of extraordinary PhD students. Their work ranges from airports and artistic practice to the geopolitics of video games, from the politics of the search algorithm to the mobilities of run-commuting. I would be interested to hear from prospective students interested in projects that relate to:

-       Verticality and the volumetric; airpower; aerial and subterranean spatialities

-       Mobilities governance; borders; biopolitics of security; airports and port security

-       Affect and materiality; intimacy, sensation and touch, atmospheres

-       Futures, emergencies and crisis management; civil contingencies; evacuation mobilities; disaster and development; autonomy