Jonathan Pugh is Reader in Island Studies, Department of Geography, Newcastle University, UK. He has more than 70 publications and is particularly noted for his work on the ‘relational’ and ‘archipelagic’ turns in island studies, disrupting the figure of the insular island. He has held a number of visiting fellowships, given international keynote addresses, and/or invited lectures, including at Princeton, Harvard, Virginia Tech, London, Cornell, Vienna, Zurich, Trinity College Dublin, Rutgers, California, University of West Indies and National Taiwan Normal University.  

Jonathan's present work examines how work with islands is playing an increasingly prominent role in the generation of wider approaches to critical thinking, knowledge and policy practices associated with the Anthropocene (particularly in the prolific development of relational ontologies and epistemologies in opposition to modern reasoning). Establishing a platform for discussion and debate, in 2021 he launched the 'Anthropocene Islands' initiative (https://www.anthropoceneislands.online/). This includes a monthly reading group, dedicated section of Island Studies Journal, early career study spaces, workshops, agenda-setting publications and talks. The initiative gains its initial impetus from the book Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds (Pugh and Chandler, 2021) and Dialogues in Human Geography paper Anthropocene Islands: there are only islands after the end of the world (Chandler and Pugh, 2021).