Merrifield is currently a Supernumerary Fellow in Human Geography at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, and a leading scholar in the field of critical urban theory. He received his PhD in geography from the University of Oxford in 1993, where he was supervised by David Harvey. Merrifield is the author of many books including The Politics of Encounter (2013), Magical Marxism (2011), Dialectical Urbanism (2002) and Metro Marxism (2002).
In addition, he has written several intellectual biographies on key thinkers such as Henri Lefebvre, Guy Debord, and John Berger; a popular meditation on slow travel (The Wisdom of Donkeys, 2008); as well as numerous articles and essays on urban art and politics. Merrifield refers to himself as magical Marxist, and while his scholarship clearly bears the imprint of Marxist urban theorists such as Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey, Merrifield’s wide interests and library of references makes him a both brave and unique voice within the urban studies discipline. His latest book is called The New Urban Question (2014), and grapples with establishing new coordinates for urban research and politics under the current conditions of planetary urbanization.