Emilie Canova is a political geographer and PhD candidate at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof. Richard Powell. She holds a Master’s degree in Geopolitics from Panthéon-Sorbonne University and graduated from the École Normale Supérieure (Paris) in Geography. She has experience working with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Her PhD focuses on the geopolitical relations between the European Union (EU) and the Arctic region. Both the EU and the Arctic are complex geographical entities with multiple overlapping institutions and territories. In her PhD she is using region-building and critical geopolitics perspectives to explore if and how world regions are becoming geopolitical actors and shaping international relations. One key aspects of her research involve studying geographical imaginary/mental representations. She specifically analyses cartographic representations and their use in different political contexts. In her PhD she also uses creative visual interviewing methods involving mental maps drawing.
