Jacob Bolton

London School of Economics

Based in

United Kingdom
Europe

Jacob works around the political economy of shipping. His PhD research looks at speculation around future Arctic shipping routes that may soon open up as a result of rapidly melting sea ice. These routes would remake the world’s commodity flows, allowing cargo between China, Europe and the US to travel shorter distances and bypass key chokepoints like the Suez Canal. He is studying how different actors produce ideas about the future of the Arctic, examining the frictions between various versions of regional climate futures.

Before this, Jacob worked for an NGO researching migrant labour exploitation on UK farms, and taught at the Royal College of Art in the architecture department. He holds an MA from the Centre for Research Architecture, where he also worked with Forensic Architecture. He is a member of Liquid Time, a research-arts duo writing and making films about shipping, finance and the temporalities of maritime worlds.