Dr. Matt Barlow
Postdoctoral Researcher
Sustainable Urban Environments
Matt Barlow is an environmental anthropologist interested in different ways of knowing and living with water. He completed his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Adelaide in 2023 and subsequently held postdoctoral positions at both the University of St Andrews and University of Pennsylvania before joining TUM in September 2025. His doctoral thesis examined how different conceptualizations of monsoonal weather were central to contestations over how best to address a waste crisis in the coastal city of Kochi in South India. Matt is currently working on his first book tentatively titled ‘Backwater Urbanism: Reimagining Waste in a Saturated City’ and co-editing a book with Professor Nikhil Anand titled ‘Climates of the City: Infrastructure, Uncertainty, and Social Life’.
Collins, A; Theo Reeves-Evison, Matt Barlow, and Lydia Cole. 2025. ‘Mine the Volume: Excess and the Voluminous Ecological Politics of Capitalist Frontiers’. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.
Barlow, M. 2023. ‘Burning wet waste: Environmental particularity, material specificity, and the universality of infrastructure’. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology. Vol. 24, No. 2, pp.134-152. DOI: 10.1080/14442213.2022.2146179
Barlow, M. 2022. ‘Floating Ground: Wetness, Infrastructure, and Envelopment in Kochi, India’. Shima, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 26–44.
Barlow, M & Georgina Drew. 2021. ‘Slow infrastructures in times of crisis: unworking speed and convenience’, Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 212-233. doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2020.1804105