Jennifer Robinson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3659342 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jennifer Robinson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jennifer |
| FAMILY NAME | Robinson |
| SIGNATURE | ROBINSON J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7716-4770 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 80 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2565 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 79 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 20 |
Pathways to healing
Objectives: This study aimed to examine the strengths and challenges of running a managed alcohol program for Indigenous adults in a non-Indigenous organization and posit areas to embed cultural practices as a necessary aspect for healing. Methods: Grounded in a Two-Eyed Seeing approach that weaved western and Indigenous ways of knowing and a community-based research design, this project included staff group and individual interviews followed by …
On Your Mind, Not in Your Face
In this mostly conceptual article, we address calls to promote heterodox thinking within business schools to develop alternative approaches to management, alternative economies and organizations that can better address societal-level ‘grand challenges’ from social justice to ecological sustainability. We illustrate our thinking by discussing the ideas behind a project: Re-Organise. Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed, we consider the performative d…
Seeking immortality
This paper draws on in-depth interviews to explore whether work is metaphysically meaningful to ‘Nones’: those who do not have faith in religious traditions or spiritual movements. In particular, it asks how this meaning is a reflection of their beliefs, and why work is metaphysically meaningful if they deny religious and/or spiritual conceptualisations of existence. It argues that although the beliefs held by ‘Nones’ vary considerably, work rema…
When work becomes home
This article examines whether belief affects how employees respond to managerial approaches that draw on metaphysical rhetoric, discourses, and values. Drawing on in-depth, qualitative interviews with participants who hold various metaphysical and secular beliefs, it argues that those who identified as religious were less likely to respond positively to spiritualised management despite wanting to express their faith through work compared to those…
Reframing urban development politics
This paper develops the idea of transcalarity to reframe analyses of urban development politics. Our analysis starts from African contexts but is relevant to, and in conversation with, experiences on other continents. Accounts of the politics of urban development have rarely benefitted from the experiences of African urban settings. Characterised by relatively weakly resourced municipalities, informality of the urban setting and of the state, and…
The agency of national government in negotiating resilient urban infrastructure development
Generating new concepts in global urban studies
s book, The Commodification Gap, is a landmark in the now very long history of gentrification studies and has something new and distinctive to say in this crowded field.It is also much more than just another book on gentrification as it provides a thoughtful and rigorously developed example of how urban studies might approach building insights and stretching concepts through attending to the variety of experiences across the globe.For those who a…
Towards the desired city of compromise
How to reinvent Johannesburg, a metropolis whose geography of inequality has remained stubbornly entrenched since the end of apartheid? By launching the ‘Corridors of Freedom’ (CoF) initiative in 2013, the municipal government decided to take bold and deliberate steps towards conceiving and promoting a more inclusive and people-centred city. The goal was to disrupt the prevailing spatial and social pattern by connecting different parts of the cit…
Comparison and community engagement
Rapid urban growth and ubiquitous experiences of extending and dispersed urban forms give rise to new territories of urban politics, including large-scale developments which have significant impacts on communities. Given the commitment that many urban scholars have to community based and social justice-oriented research, the possibility to build understandings of these developments from the perspective of community-based actors is a high priority…
Settings of community engagement
Drawing on an in-depth analysis of the politics of a large-scale urban development in London, as part of a wider comparative project, this paper reconsiders the post-political conclusions of an earlier round of research on large scale developments in Europe. Through a critical re-reading of Jacques Rancière’s analysis and attending to insights from wider accounts of urban politics from the majority urban world, including our own comparative resea…
The Routledge Handbook of Comparative Global Urban Studies
International audience
Translating the lived experience of illicit drinkers into program guidance for cannabis substitution
A small but growing body of research has suggested the potential for cannabis substitution to support Managed Alcohol Program (MAP) service users to reduce acute and chronic alcohol-related harms. In 2022, researchers from the Canadian Managed Alcohol Program Study (CMAPS) noted a dearth of accessible, alcohol-specific educational resources to support service users and program staff to implement cannabis substitution pilots at several MAP sites i…
Persistent, pragmatic and prolific
This paper interrogates the persistence of urban master planning in African cities. Critiques of master planning in Africa label it as a stifling product of colonial legacies, an inappropriate imposition of external ideas, or a device to achieve the goals of global actors, all seen as being at odds with the rapidly changing settlement patterns and needs of many African urban contexts. This paper instead focuses on the role of local planning actor…
Comparative Urbanism
So many expectations
Early-career music teachers are described in the literature as being in the first few years of the profession. This research explores the motivation, sense of value, and areas of stress affecting early-career music teachers in Australian secondary high schools. The research is a part of a larger qualitative study which contains a national survey ( n = 263) and interviews ( n = 41) of secondary school music teachers across a number of career stage…
The influence of social support on cognitive health in older women
Social support is associated prospectively with cognitive decline and dementia among the elderly; however, little is known about the impact of social support on healthy neurological aging. The current study investigates whether perceived social support has an influence on neurological health among a large sample of healthy postmenopausal women. Social support and neuropsychological outcomes were measured annually for six years through the Women's…
Introduction
This Introduction to the special issue, ‘ Comparative Methods for Global Urban Studies’, outlines the basis for a reformatted comparative method inspired by the complex spatialities of the urban world. The articles in the volume each bring forward innovative approaches to comparative methods which support wider conceptualisations of urban processes and urban experiences. The articles in this volume consider a wide range of urban contexts and coll…
Beyond variegation
Large-scale urban development projects are a significant format of urban expansion and renewal across the globe. As generators of governance innovation and indicators of the future city in each urban context, large-scale development projects have been interpreted within frameworks of ‘variegations’ of wider circulating processes, such as neoliberalisation or financialisation. However, such projects often entail significant state support and inves…
Financing urban development, three business models
The now-times of (post) apartheid
This commentary explores the multi-temporalities of the pasts which relate to South African cities ‘now’. Inspired by Myriam Houssay-Holzchuch’s article in this volume, and the wider engagements of French scholars in the South African context, this commentary takes as a starting point Walter Benjamin’s idea of history as thought through ‘now-time’. In doing so, I assess the declining relevance of the ‘post’ in thinking the futures of South Africa…
Australian super veteran secondary school music teachers
Veteran teachers are defined as having over 15 years’ teaching experience. This research introduces a new career stage of ‘super veteran’ for music teachers that have worked for 30 plus years and seeks to identify the influences on, and contributions of, Australian secondary school music teachers of this career stage. This article reports on survey data gathered in a larger qualitative study that contained a national survey and interviews. The an…
Contesting density
Density is often a major focus of contestation in imagining the future city. The built form of the future city, including its height and density, is a crystallization of current and projected urban growth, as well as a realization of policy ambitions. However, also determinant of future built form are present capacities to extract value from urban development, on the part of both private and public actors. This tight ‘nexus’ of concerns and inter…
Territorial Integrity and Consent in the Chagos Advisory Opinion
A key element of the right to self-determination is territorial integrity. This has usually been considered solely in relation to the territorial integrity of an existing State seeking to resist claims by peoples for the right to self-determination. Yet the Chagos Opinion by the International Court of Justice examines a different type of territorial integrity—that of the colonial territory itself. This article explores the consequence of the Cour…
Extracting Value, London Style
The AuThors. InTernATIonAl JournAl of urbAn And regIonAl reseArch publIshed by John WIley & sons lTd on behAlf of urbAn reseArch publIcATIons lImITed We are very grateful for the support we received from Sharon Hayward from the London Tenants Federation, our partners in the research project), Robin Brown of Just Space, and members of the Grand Union Alliance and Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum. We thank all interviewees and informants, who generously…
Re-directing developers
The role of developers in shaping the built environment has attracted considerable critical attention, often focussing on the overbearing role of powerful, globalised actors in urban development. But there is also evidence that regulatory pathways shape outcomes. Through the case of a large-scale initiative in Johannesburg, South Africa, the "Corridors of Freedom", we consider whether there is potential for developmental benefit to be gained from…
Ordinary Cities
With the urbanization of the world's population proceeding apace and the equally rapid urbanization of poverty, urban theory has an urgent challenge to meet if it is to remain relevant to the majority of cities and their populations, many of which are outside the West. This groundbreaking book establishes a new framework for urban development. It makes the argument that all cities are best understood as ‘ordinary’, and crosses the longstanding di…
(Re)theorizing Cities from the Global South
The demographic transition of the late 20th and early 21st centuries has shifted the locus of urbanizing populations from the global North to the global South. As the theoretical epicenter of urban scholars and policymakers adjusts to accommodate this transition, some realignment in how ideas are weighted and applied is inevitable. This recalibration, while not necessarily comfortable for those in established positions of intellectual power, is d…
Global and world cities
Attention to global and world cities has directed the field of urban studies to the significance of international and transnational processes in shaping city economies. This article evaluates these approaches, from a position off their maps. I argue that the circulation of these approaches in academic and policy realms adversely impacts on cities which do not fall into these categories by setting up the idea of the global city as a 'regulating fi…
Thinking cities through elsewhere
Inspired by postcolonial critiques, urban studies today is characterized by conceptual and methodological experimentation in pursuit of a more global approach to understanding cities. The challenge is to develop methods and theoretical practices which allow conceptual innovation to emerge from any urban situation or urbanization process, sustaining wider conversations while insisting that concepts are open to revision. This maps well on to the co…
Cities in a World of Cities
Cities exist in a world of cities and thus routinely invite a comparative gesture in urban theorizing. However, for some decades urban studies have analytically divided the world of cities into, for example, wealthier and poorer, capitalist and socialist, or into different regional groupings of cities, with subsequently very little comparative research across these divides. Interest in drawing comparisons among different cities has escalated in a…
Postcolonialising Geography
Within geography, postcolonialism has generated a strong interest in colonial histories and contemporary postcolonial politics, but this has not displaced the dominant parochial forms of theorising in the discipline. The paper argues for a more cosmopolitan theoretical project within geography, one whose routes through a range of intellectual traditions and contexts might encourage a broader scope to conversations about space and nature, and prod…
Comparative Urbanism
In response to the growing interest in ways to take forward an agenda for a more global urban studies, this essay advocates a comparative approach to theory building which can help to develop new understandings of the expanding and diverse world of cities and urbanization processes, building theory from different contexts, resonating with a diversity of urban outcomes but being respectful of the limits of always located insights. The essay is ins…
Debate on Global Urbanisms and the Nature of Urban Theory
Urban studies is undergoing a phase of rich experimentation, with a proliferation of paradigms and exploration or invention of various methodologies inspired by the diversity and shifting geographies of global urbanization. In particular, there has been an effort to rethink the Euro-American legacy of urban studies and consider the relational multiplicities, diverse histories and dynamic connectivities of global urbanisms. Such a task is especial…
Introduction—Experiments in Comparative Urbanism
(2012). Introduction—Experiments in Comparative Urbanism. Urban Geography: Vol. 33, Comparative Urbanism, pp. 765-773
The Sage Handbook of Political Geography
The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography provides a highly contextualized and systematic overview of the latest thinking and research. Edited by key scholars, with international contributions from acknowledged authorities on the relevant research, The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography is divided into six sections: - Scope and Development of Political Geography - key debates; the geography of knowledge; conceptualisations of power; and conceptu…
Urban geography
Urban Geography Plenary Lecture—The Travels of Urban Neoliberalism
The influence of neoliberal policy ideas in urban government is widespread across the world of cities, making it a useful focus for assessing the internationalization of urban theory. To this end, the paper addresses three aspects of studies of urban neoliberalism that speak to the promise of methodological experiments in urban studies and potentially contribute to the internationalization of urban theory. These are the analytical potential of tr…
Developing Ordinary Cities
This paper adopts a perspective which views all cities as unique combinations of social, political, and economic configurations-which sees all cities as 'ordinary', and which resists attempts to determine hierarchical relations amongst cities as potentially damaging to rich and poor cities alike. While current urban theories tend to draw attention to the dynamism of globalising economic sectors, much urban policy directed at poorer countries is p…
Arriving At' Urban Policies
Spatial vocabularies are stretched to their limits by the complexities of policy mobilities. Using the example of city-wide strategic policymaking in Johannesburg, this essay argues for an enrichment of our vocabularies for appreciating how wider circuits of urban policy shape localized policy outcomes. Rather than tracing policies until they arrive somewhere, a more nuanced spatiality of policy mobility emerges when considering how policies are …
The urban now
Urban studies has aligned cities closely with modernity, with strong implications for their conceptualisation. Through the 20th century the founding analyses of urban studies drew on a specific (western) version of urban modernity to define universal accounts of urbanity, excluding many cities from contributing to broader theorisations of the urban. In addition, urban theory has often been inspired by the modernity of cities, identifying ‘the new…
Introduction to a Virtual Issue on Comparative Urbanism
Comparative urbanism has been a core feature ofIJURR's editorial agenda since its founding. This virtual issue comprises 30 articles reflectingIJURR's contribution to comparative urbanism, reinforced by the growing postcolonial insistence on a more global scope for urban studies widely aired in this journal. This introductory article discusses the contemporary potential of comparative urbanism to contribute to a more global urban studies and cons…
In the tracks of Comparative Urbanism
In a globalizing world, the importance of appreciating the wide range of different kinds of cities around the world is becoming increasingly apparent to urban scholars. However, this paper argues that if urban studies is to engage with this diversity of cities, some of the core assumptions which frame urban theory need to be challenged. The concept of urban modernity, for example, has assumed a privileged link between modernity and certain kinds …
A Perfect System of Control'? State Power and 'Native Locations' in South Africa
In this, paper I draw upon recent accounts of the state, notably that developed by Michael Mann, in order to investigate the formation of 'Locations' (segregated and separately administered residential areas for African people) in South Africa. The central argument is that the Location was a territorial strategy employed by the state (amongst others) to enhance its powers and capacities with respect to South Africa's black population. This argume…
Starting from anywhere, making connections
This paper offers a commentary on the papers in this special issue, drawing out the ways in which they bring forward tactics for comparative and global urbanism, contributing to urban theory on the basis of experiences in a range of post-socialist contexts. The paper begins with an analysis of a short story by the South African novelist, Ivan Vladislavič, which provocatively brings post-apartheid and post-socialist contexts into conversation. Ins…
Development and Urban Policy
City development strategies (CDS) have emerged as an important new initiative in international policy and practice. This paper considers their significance by exploring recent initiatives to formulate a city strategy for Johannesburg, South Africa. The Johannesburg CDS emerged out of the local demand for a post- apartheid vision for South African cities as well as a renewed enthusiasm for city-level economic planning within international developm…
Spaces of Democracy
Democracy is associated with particular kinds of spatialities. In this paper I address two aspects of the spatiality of democracy through an assessment of transitional arrangements for local government in South African cities. Political identities, as well as spatial arrangements, involved in democratic politics are associated with instability, uncertainty, and ongoing contestation. In democracies, the contestation both of identities and of space…
Feminism and the Spaces of Transformation
Feminist political theory draws on particular spatial imaginations in elaborating a politics of transformation. This paper establishes this in relation to two familiar accounts of feminist transformation – those of Judith Butler and Luce Irigaray. Respectively I read their work as suggesting that transformation of gender relations takes the form of ubiquitous revolution, taking place everywhere, or a distant dream of an (im)possible future – else…
Beyond variegation
Large-scale urban development projects are a significant format of urban expansion and renewal across the globe. As generators of governance innovation and indicators of the future city in each urban context, large-scale development projects have been interpreted within frameworks of ‘variegations’ of wider circulating processes, such as neoliberalisation or financialisation. However, such projects often entail significant state support and inves…
Re-directing developers
The role of developers in shaping the built environment has attracted considerable critical attention, often focussing on the overbearing role of powerful, globalised actors in urban development. But there is also evidence that regulatory pathways shape outcomes. Through the case of a large-scale initiative in Johannesburg, South Africa, the "Corridors of Freedom", we consider whether there is potential for developmental benefit to be gained from…
The geopolitics of South African cities
Employment change in manufacturing industry in Cleveland, 1965–1976
Robinson J. F. F. and Storey D. J. (1981) Employment change in manufacturing industry in Clevelend, 1965–1976, Reg. Studies 15, 161–172. This paper presents findings from a study of employment change in manufacturing industry in Cleveland County, an area of Northern England which is dominated by the chemical and iron and steel industries. The scale of employment contraction in these heavy industries is demonstrated and the impact of new openings …
Local authorities and the attraction of industry — The case of Cleveland county council
1981). Local authorities and the attraction of industry — The case of Cleveland county council. Local Government Studies: Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 21-37
Human Territoriality
Progressive port Elizabeth
Progressive port Elizabeth
A Perfect System of Control'? State Power and 'Native Locations' in South Africa
In this, paper I draw upon recent accounts of the state, notably that developed by Michael Mann, in order to investigate the formation of 'Locations' (segregated and separately administered residential areas for African people) in South Africa. The central argument is that the Location was a territorial strategy employed by the state (amongst others) to enhance its powers and capacities with respect to South Africa's black population. This argume…
Administrative strategies and political power in South Africa's black townships 1930–1960
The political economy of South Africa
(Dis)locating Historical Narrative
The geopolitics of South African cities
Melancholia and Transformation
Octavia Hill Women Housing Managers in South Africa
Spaces of Democracy
Democracy is associated with particular kinds of spatialities. In this paper I address two aspects of the spatiality of democracy through an assessment of transitional arrangements for local government in South African cities. Political identities, as well as spatial arrangements, involved in democratic politics are associated with instability, uncertainty, and ongoing contestation. In democracies, the contestation both of identities and of space…
Gaps, Intellectual Enthusiasms, Personal Insecurities
Shorter notice. Gender and the Making of a South African Bantustan
Journal Article Shorter notice. Gender and the Making of a South African Bantustan: A Social History of the Ciskei, 1945-1959. AK Mager Get access J Robinson J Robinson The Open University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 115, Issue 462, June 2000, Pages 776–777, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/115.462.776 Published: 01 June 2000
Feminism and the Spaces of Transformation
Feminist political theory draws on particular spatial imaginations in elaborating a politics of transformation. This paper establishes this in relation to two familiar accounts of feminist transformation – those of Judith Butler and Luce Irigaray. Respectively I read their work as suggesting that transformation of gender relations takes the form of ubiquitous revolution, taking place everywhere, or a distant dream of an (im)possible future – else…
Context and Change
Drug courts in the United States are still relatively young, but they have proliferated dramatically since the first innovation in Miami in 1989. Research focusing on drug courts is now beginning to gain momentum, though it still lags considerably behind the growth of the movement itself. This article describes findings from a first “longitudinal” examination of two of the nation’s first and longest operating courts in Portland and Las Vegas, foc…
Global and world cities
Attention to global and world cities has directed the field of urban studies to the significance of international and transnational processes in shaping city economies. This article evaluates these approaches, from a position off their maps. I argue that the circulation of these approaches in academic and policy realms adversely impacts on cities which do not fall into these categories by setting up the idea of the global city as a 'regulating fi…
A five-year plan? Providing a forum for excellence and diversity in geography
Postcolonialising Geography
Within geography, postcolonialism has generated a strong interest in colonial histories and contemporary postcolonial politics, but this has not displaced the dominant parochial forms of theorising in the discipline. The paper argues for a more cosmopolitan theoretical project within geography, one whose routes through a range of intellectual traditions and contexts might encourage a broader scope to conversations about space and nature, and prod…
Johannesburg's 1936 Empire Exhibition
The staging of an Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg in 1936 brought together people, objects and ideas from across South Africa and the Empire. This paper will explore the implications of the encounters and juxtapositions that took place there for understanding the meanings of interaction, and segregation, in South African cities at that time. The Exhibition also brings into relief many of the practices of observation and presentation that had de…
In the tracks of Comparative Urbanism
In a globalizing world, the importance of appreciating the wide range of different kinds of cities around the world is becoming increasingly apparent to urban scholars. However, this paper argues that if urban studies is to engage with this diversity of cities, some of the core assumptions which frame urban theory need to be challenged. The concept of urban modernity, for example, has assumed a privileged link between modernity and certain kinds …
A world of cities
Amin , Ash and Thrift , Nigel 2002 Cambridge : 192 pp. £ 50.00 (hardback) £ 14.99 (paperback) Beall , Jo , Crankshaw , Owen and Parnell , Susan 2002 London : 200 pp. £ 60.00 (hardback) £ 19.99 (paperback) Bridge , Gary and Watson , Sophie (eds) 2002 Oxford : 600 pp. £ 65.00 (hardback) £ 19.99 (paperback) Le Galès , Patrick 2002 Oxford : 280 pp. £ 60.00 (hardback) £ 19.99 (paperback) Orum , Anthony M. and Chen , Xiangming 2003 Oxford : 192 pp. £ 5…
Urban geography
Development and Urban Policy
City development strategies (CDS) have emerged as an important new initiative in international policy and practice. This paper considers their significance by exploring recent initiatives to formulate a city strategy for Johannesburg, South Africa. The Johannesburg CDS emerged out of the local demand for a post- apartheid vision for South African cities as well as a renewed enthusiasm for city-level economic planning within international developm…
Political science (48 works) · Sociology (43 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (35 works) · Geography (31 works) · Law (29 works) · Economics (25 works) · Law (23 works) · Politics (23 works) · Economic geography (22 works) · Economic growth (18 works)