Background
He was born in Liverpool, United Kingdom and attended Quarry Bank School until 1976.
He was born in Liverpool, United Kingdom and attended Quarry Bank School until 1976.
He graduated in geography, philosophy and sociology from Liverpool Polytechnic in the mid-1980s. Merrifield received his Doctor of Philosophy in geography from Oxford University in 1993, supervised by David Harvey.
He left school at 16 and did office jobs and travelled. Merrifield spent most of his early career teaching geography at the University of Southampton and King"s College London, before moving to Clark University, United States of America in 2000. He was denied tenure in 2003, on grounds of collegiality, having chosen to live 178 miles away in Manhattan.
He moved to France with his partner, initially to Haute-Loire and then to Lavoûte-Chilhac, south of Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne in France as an "independent scholar".
He returned to the academic system in 2011. In 2011-2012 he was a Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Manchester.
He is currently Supernumerary Fellow in Human Geography at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge.
2012 Bread and Roses Award, shortlist, Magical Marxism.