Galen Murton image

Dr. Murton is a human geographer with broad research and teaching interests in the politics of international development. His ongoing research projects examine the social and geopolitical implications of infrastructure development throughout the Himalayan borderlands of Highland Asia. This includes relations between China, Tibet, and Nepal but also wider interactions across overlapping regions of East Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia. He also studies local experiences with international aid in post-disaster landscapes and the impacts of Chinese aid and work programs at different scales.

More recently, he has been asking what’s the matter with infrastructure in America and is curious about the possibilities for infrastructural justice in post-industrial national contexts.

Related to these projects and my classroom instruction, he likes to teach and research with students in the mountain regions of Asia and the Americas. Recent highlights include the co-direction of JMU study abroad programs to Nepal.

Education
  • Ph.D. Geography, University of Colorado Boulder
  • M.A. International Relations, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
  • B.A. Religion, Middlebury College
Experience
  • Associate Professor, Geography Program, James Madison University (2023-present)
  • Assistant Professor, Geography Program, James Madison University (2017-2023)
  • Marie S. Curie Fellow, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2018-2019)
  • Graduate Teaching Instructor, Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder (2016-2017)
  • Course Director and Lead Instructor, Bhutan Program, School for Field Studies (2013)

External Experience

  • Membership Chair, Executive Council member, Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (2014-present)
  • Governing Board Member, Political Geography Specialty Group, American Association of Geographers (2020-21)
  • Development, direction, and risk management for international study abroad programs (India, China/Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal: 2005-2013)
  • Instructor for Hurricane Island Outward Bound School/Outward Bound USA (2005-2008)
Research Interests
  • Political Geography
  • Cultural Geography
  • Development Studies
  • Critical Cartography
  • Nepal, Tibet, and Himalaya Region
  • Infrastructures
  • Borders
  • Disasters
Courses Taught
  • GEOG 280: Human Geography
  • GEOG 305: History and Philosophy of Geography
  • GEOG 344: Globalization and Development
  • GEOG 350: Himalayan Geographies
  • GEOG 350: Climate and Society in South Asia
  • GEOG 380: Cultural Geography
  • GEOG 470: Critical Cartography
  • GEOG 470: Political Geographies of Infrastructure
  • GEOG 491: International Studies
  • GEOG 495/497/499: Independent Study/Honors Capstone/Internship Research
Recent Publications

Books

Heslop, L. and G. Murton, eds. 2021. Highways and Hierarchies: Ethnographies of Mobility from the Himalaya to the Indian Ocean. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. DOI: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463723046/highways-and-hierarchies

Journal Articles

Sharma, A. and G. Murton. 2025. “Introduction to Special Issue: Revisiting the Frontier: Colonial Legacies and Lived Realities of Himalayan Border Worlds.” Territory, Politics, Governance 13(8): 1059-1067. DOI: 10.1080/21622671.2025.2499007

Murton, G. and T. Narins. 2024. “Corridors, Chokepoints, and the Contradictions of the Belt and Road Initiative.” Area Development and Policy 9(4): 445-465. DOI: 10.1080/23792949.2024.2311904

Murton, G. 2024. “From Goats to Gold Stars: Consumption, Bureaucracy, and Territory in the Nepal-China Borderlands.” Territory, Politics, Governance 13(8): 1129-1149. DOI: 10.1080/21622671.2024.2322162

Murton, G. 2024. “Beyond the BRI: The Volumetric Presence of China in Nepal.” Territory, Politics, Governance 12(01): 72-92. DOI: 10.1080/21622671.2023.2186475

Szadziewski, H., M. Mostafanezhad, and G. Murton. 2022. “Territorialization on Tour: The Tourist Gaze along the Silk Road Economic Belt in Kashgar, China.” Geoforum 128: 135-147. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.12.010

Murton, G. 2021. “The Power of Blank Spaces: A Critical Cartography of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.” Asia Pacific Viewpoint 62(3): 274-280. DOI: 10.1111/apv.12318

Murton, G. 2020. “Roads to China and Infrastructural Relations in Nepal.” Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 38(5): 840-847. DOI: 10.1177/2399654420911410g

Oliveira, G., G. Murton, A. Rippa, T. Harlan, and Y. Yang. 2020. “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Views from the Ground.” Political Geography 82. DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102225=

Murton, G. and A. Lord. 2020. “Trans-Himalayan Power Corridors: Infrastructural Politics and China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Nepal.” Political Geography 77. DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.102100

Murton, G. 2019. “Facing the Fence: The Production and Performance of a Himalayan Border in Global Contexts.” Political Geography 72. DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.03.001

Murton, G. 2017. “Making Mountain Places into State Spaces: Infrastructure, Consumption, and Territorial Practice in a Himalayan Borderland.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers 107(2): 536-545. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2016.1232616

Murton, G., A. Lord and B. Beazley. 2016. “‘A Handshake across the Himalayas:’ Chinese Investment, Hydropower Development, and State Formation in Nepal.” Eurasian Geography and Economics, 57(3) (October): 403-432. DOI: 10.1080/15387216.2016.1236349

Book Chapters

Murton, G. and A. Rippa. (forthcoming 2026) “Doing Islandness in the Mountains.” Chapter 12 in Experiencing Islandness: Oceans and Beyond, eds. P. Schorch and F. Heidemann. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Murton, G. 2026. “Infrastructure.” Entry in Encyclopedia of Geopolitics, ed. Colin Flint. London: Edward Elgar. DOI: 9781803928821

Murton, G. 2025. “The Power of Blank Spaces: A Critical Cartography of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the Himalaya Region.” Chapter 6 in Seeing China’s Belt and Road, eds. E. Schatz and R. Silvey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780197789261

Plachta, N. and G. Murton. 2022. “The Tibetan Frontier: From Regional Boundaries to Disputed Borders.” Chapter 6 (pp. 79-90) in Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia, eds. M. Heneise and J. Wouters. London and New York: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429345746

Murton, G. and N. Plachta. 2021. “China in Nepal: On the Politics of BRI Development in South Asia.” Chapter 28 (pp. 332-341) in Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative, eds. J. Chinyong Liouw, H. Liu, an X Gong. London: Edward Elgar. ISBN: 9781789908701

Murton, G. and T. Sigdel. 2021. “Stuck on the Side of the Road: Mobility, Marginality, and Neoliberal Governmentality in Nepal.” Chapter 2 (pp. 39-68) in Highways and Hierarchies: Ethnographies of Mobility from the Himalaya to the Indian Ocean, eds. L. Heslop and G. Murton. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv207pj32.6

Murton, G. 2021. “Post-disaster Development Zones and Dry Ports as Geopolitical Infrastructures in Nepal.” Chapter 1 (pp. 33-54) in Development Zones in Asian Borderlands, eds. M. Chettri and M. Eilenberg. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pncrbr.5

Murton, G. 2018. “Nobody Stops and Stays Anymore: New Roads, Uneven Mobilities, and Conceptualizing Borderland Modernity in Highland Nepal.” Chapter 24 (pp. 315-324) in Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands, eds. A. Horstmann, M. Saxer, and A. Rippa. London: Routledge.

Selected Public Scholarship

Citrin, D., T. Wangmo, A. Shrestha, S. Craig, K. Rankin, and G. Murton. 2021. “Why we can’t ignore Nepal’s covid-19 crisis,” BMJ, September 17. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/09/17/why-we-cannot-ignore-nepals-covid-19-crisis/

Murton, G. 2021. “Geopolitical Gravity and Blanks on the BRI Map; or why what is missing really matters.” Transformations: Downstream Effects of the BRI – Belt and Road in Global Perspective, July 20. https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/beltandroad/article/geopolitical-gravity-and-blanks-on-the-bri-map-or-why-what-is-missing-really-matters/

Rankin, K., Citrin, D., Craig, S., and G. Murton. 2021. “With COVID 19 Cases Surging, Nepal Asks Global Community for Urgent Vaccine Help.” The Conversation online, May 26. https://theconversation.com/with-covid-19-cases-surging-nepal-asks-global-community-for-urgent-vaccine-help-161333

Murton, G. and A. Lord. 2021. “Deconstructing China’s Infrastructure Investments in Nepal.” Sambandh: Regional Connectivity Initiative, Center for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP online), May 11. https://csep.org/blog/deconstructing-chinas-infrastructure-investments-in-nepal/

Murton, G. 2015. “The Hills of Nepal Are Crying but Why Aren’t We Listening?” Guest blog, Savage Minds, May 4. http://savageminds.org/?s=Galen+Murton

Murton, G. 2015. “Taking the Long View on Recovery in Nepal.” Guest Commentary op-ed, The Denver Post. May 2. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_28023254/long-view-nepal

Selected Awards
  • 2024 Stanley Brunn Early Career Scholar Award, Political Geography Specialty Group, American Association of Geographers
  • 2024 Madison Scholar Award, College of Integrated Science and Engineering, James Madison University
  • 2022 Extraordinary Service Award, Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

Back to Top
College of Integrated Science and Engineering
King Hall
MSC 4116
701 Carrier Drive
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
CISE