Astrid Wood
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3584411 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Astrid Wood |
| NOMBRES | Astrid |
| APELLIDO | Wood |
| FIRMA | WOOD A |
| AFILIACIONES | Newcastle University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3155-1396 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 23 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 228 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 23 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2014 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Urban transport as a social construct
This special issue emerges from the Urban Studies journal’s Critical and Conceptual Advances in Urban Studies initiative and features the development and application of a transport-as-a-social-construct framework. The collection of articles demonstrates the framework’s conceptual breadth as well as its empirical relevance across diverse geographic contexts and transport modes. We begin by outlining three conceptual articles that establish key the…
The myth of the “Brasília of the North”
Urban transport as a social construct
This essay seeks to cultivate a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the social dimensions of urban transport. Through a historical account of theoretical developments and an overview of contemporary trends, we propose a framework for conceptualising urban transport as a social construct. This perspective encourages a shift away from seeing transport as physical and spatial entities to emphasising the complex social dynamics that underpin the…
African Urban Studies
Scholarship on African cities represents a growing yet still scarce subfield in urban studies, especially considering the scale and variety of African urbanisation patterns. The purpose of this Virtual Special Issue is to review the scholarship published on urban Africa in Urban Studies over the past five decades. In this Editorial, we reflect on the contributions of African urban scholarship and present a selection of articles to highlight the w…
Trans-paw-tation
This paper contributes to the robust dialogue in animal geographies by adding a focus on mobilities. Trans-paw-tation establishes a framework for understanding animal mobilities by drawing on a range of epistemological and methodological approaches, all of which aim to better understand animals and their role in the world. It goes on to propose three approaches to trans-paw-tation and the theoretical possibilities of thinking across animal geogra…
Bringing Transport into Black Geographies
This article contributes to the burgeoning dialogue in Black geographies by adding a focus on transport. Because there is no singular, all-encompassing framework for Black geographies, this article draws on a long history of Blackness and Whiteness in the discipline of geography and beyond. It contextualizes the contemporary conversation within critical reflections from feminist, indigenous, and queer as well as decolonial and postcolonial studie…
Problematizing the concept of walkability in Johannesburg
Walkability is generally defined by the extent to which the built environment supports and encourages walking by promoting pedestrian comfort, connectivity and convenience. This paper scrutinizes the steps taken in Johannesburg to develop walkability policies and projects. It draws on empirical evidence from the pedestrian policies (e.g., the Corridors of Freedom) and pedestrian projects (e.g., the Grayston Pedestrian Bridge) recently introduced.…
Tracing as comparative method
Urban scholarship is bursting with comparison. We use comparison as an explicit and implicit tool to frame our urban analysis. But how do we actually do comparison? This commentary presents a fine-tuned analysis of ‘tracing’ as both a conceptual framework and a methodological process for doing comparative urbanism. It draws on the many excellent contributions in this special issue to argue for three methodological approaches to tracing – followin…
Problematising concepts of transit-oriented development in South African cities
Transit-oriented development (TOD) is generally defined as planned high-density development containing a mixture of residential, retail, commercial and community uses around a transit hub and surrounded by a high-quality urban realm that prioritises the pedestrian (and more recently the cyclist) over the automobile. This article analyses the steps taken in Cape Town and Johannesburg to develop TOD schemes. In so doing, it problematises both the c…
Decolonising cities of the global South in the classroom and beyond
In the post-colonial context, the global South has become the approved nomenclature for the non-European, non-Western parts of the world. The term promises a departure from post-colonial development geographies and from the material and discursive legacies of colonialism by ostensibly blurring the bifurcations between developed and developing, rich and poor, centre and periphery. In concept, the post-colonial literature mitigates the disparity be…
Tracing the absence of bike-share in Johannesburg
Decolonial approaches to urban transport geographies
Circulating planning ideas from the metropole to the colonies
In the early part of the twentieth century, South African cities were segregated in accordance with British city planning concepts that embodied the belief that social order can be manipulated through the urban form. This paper surveys the history of South African planning practices to understand the spread of segregation policies and practices. Whereas scholars tend to agree that the apartheid city (post−1948) is a more highly organized and stru…
Utilizing technology-enhanced learning in geography
This paper explores the benefits and drawbacks of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) to engage undergraduate students in geography modules at Newcastle University. I consider the efficacy of “student response systems” (hereafter SRS, also known as audience response systems, clickers or personal response systems) in large lectures by experimenting with Mentimeter, an online platform designed to allow real-time response to questions. The rationale …
Tracing urbanism
This paper locates itself within comparative urbanism by employing the concept of 'tracing' as the starting point through which to think across a range of urban experiences. It first reflects on the historical development of comparative urbanism in particular considering the way in which contemporary understandings have been shaped by this long record of debate. From there, the paper refines its focus to 'tracing' as one method of actually doing …
Advancing development projects through mega-events
In 2010, the focus of the sporting world was on South Africa, the first African country to host a Football World Cup, and the largest mega-event ever held on the continent. Mega-events like the World Cup have become instruments for governments seeking material improvements to highways and telecommunications as well as the more elusive nation-building and sanguine legacies. Whereas the literature typically concentrates on stadia and sports-related…
Tracing policy movements
Policy flows are not quantifiable and calculating processes but part of the uneven movement of ideas and experiences that involves power and personalities. Processes of learning and policy circulation have thus proven difficult to study especially as the exchanges taking place between actors and localities rarely lead directly to uptake. This paper outlines a conceptual and methodological framework for conducting policy mobilities research by att…
Competing for Knowledge
The Politics of Policy Circulation
This paper utilizes the introduction of bus rapid transit (BRT) in South Africa to unravel the role of South–South connections in local policymaking. While the South African systems are unmistakably modeled after Bogotá's Transmilenio, whose accomplishments have been touted as the low-cost, high-quality transport solution, the process through which other Southern cities influenced the circulation of BRT remains underexplored. In so doing, this pa…
Multiple Temporalities of Policy Circulation
In 2006, bus rapid transit (BRT) swept across South African cities. Within three years of learning of the Bogotá model of BRT, Johannesburg's Rea Vaya opened, followed shortly by Cape Town's MyCiTi, while several other cities are at various stages of planning and implementation. This article traces the circulation of BRT across the South African urban context to expose the multiple and varied temporalities through which BRT came to appear as the …
Uncertainty and Urban Life
This essay examines the influence of uncertainty on how contemporary cities are planned, built, governed, and inhabited. This influence is demonstrated through the analysis of various domains of urban planning and governance (disaster, security, energy, and transportation) across four cities of the global South (Bogotá, Karachi, Accra, and Johannesburg). In each city, uncertainty is produced by historical conditions and productive of future possi…
Moving policy
In this paper, I explore the variety of actors who circulate international best practice around the world. I trace the introduction and adoption of bus rapid transit (BRT) projects and policies across six South African cities through international and municipal policy actors, to expose the role of individuals moving policy within the messy and tangled process of policy circulation. The analysis demonstrates the particularly important role of loca…
Learning through Policy Tourism
Study tours, a form of 'policy tourism' in which local actors travel elsewhere to see best practice and meet with those in the exporting locality who implemented it, have become a basic tenet for policy exchange. In the pursuit of these lessons, hundreds of South African public transport enthusiasts visited South America, particularly Bogota, to learn of its thriving bus rapid transit (BRT) network. This paper evaluates the influence of these exc…
Uncertainty and Urban Life
This essay examines the influence of uncertainty on how contemporary cities are planned, built, governed, and inhabited. This influence is demonstrated through the analysis of various domains of urban planning and governance (disaster, security, energy, and transportation) across four cities of the global South (Bogotá, Karachi, Accra, and Johannesburg). In each city, uncertainty is produced by historical conditions and productive of future possi…
Moving policy
In this paper, I explore the variety of actors who circulate international best practice around the world. I trace the introduction and adoption of bus rapid transit (BRT) projects and policies across six South African cities through international and municipal policy actors, to expose the role of individuals moving policy within the messy and tangled process of policy circulation. The analysis demonstrates the particularly important role of loca…
Learning through Policy Tourism
Study tours, a form of 'policy tourism' in which local actors travel elsewhere to see best practice and meet with those in the exporting locality who implemented it, have become a basic tenet for policy exchange. In the pursuit of these lessons, hundreds of South African public transport enthusiasts visited South America, particularly Bogota, to learn of its thriving bus rapid transit (BRT) network. This paper evaluates the influence of these exc…
Tracing policy movements
Policy flows are not quantifiable and calculating processes but part of the uneven movement of ideas and experiences that involves power and personalities. Processes of learning and policy circulation have thus proven difficult to study especially as the exchanges taking place between actors and localities rarely lead directly to uptake. This paper outlines a conceptual and methodological framework for conducting policy mobilities research by att…
Multiple Temporalities of Policy Circulation
In 2006, bus rapid transit (BRT) swept across South African cities. Within three years of learning of the Bogotá model of BRT, Johannesburg's Rea Vaya opened, followed shortly by Cape Town's MyCiTi, while several other cities are at various stages of planning and implementation. This article traces the circulation of BRT across the South African urban context to expose the multiple and varied temporalities through which BRT came to appear as the …
The Politics of Policy Circulation
This paper utilizes the introduction of bus rapid transit (BRT) in South Africa to unravel the role of South–South connections in local policymaking. While the South African systems are unmistakably modeled after Bogotá's Transmilenio, whose accomplishments have been touted as the low-cost, high-quality transport solution, the process through which other Southern cities influenced the circulation of BRT remains underexplored. In so doing, this pa…
Decolonial approaches to urban transport geographies
Tracing urbanism
This paper locates itself within comparative urbanism by employing the concept of 'tracing' as the starting point through which to think across a range of urban experiences. It first reflects on the historical development of comparative urbanism in particular considering the way in which contemporary understandings have been shaped by this long record of debate. From there, the paper refines its focus to 'tracing' as one method of actually doing …
Tracing the absence of bike-share in Johannesburg
Bringing Transport into Black Geographies
This article contributes to the burgeoning dialogue in Black geographies by adding a focus on transport. Because there is no singular, all-encompassing framework for Black geographies, this article draws on a long history of Blackness and Whiteness in the discipline of geography and beyond. It contextualizes the contemporary conversation within critical reflections from feminist, indigenous, and queer as well as decolonial and postcolonial studie…
Problematising concepts of transit-oriented development in South African cities
Transit-oriented development (TOD) is generally defined as planned high-density development containing a mixture of residential, retail, commercial and community uses around a transit hub and surrounded by a high-quality urban realm that prioritises the pedestrian (and more recently the cyclist) over the automobile. This article analyses the steps taken in Cape Town and Johannesburg to develop TOD schemes. In so doing, it problematises both the c…
Advancing development projects through mega-events
In 2010, the focus of the sporting world was on South Africa, the first African country to host a Football World Cup, and the largest mega-event ever held on the continent. Mega-events like the World Cup have become instruments for governments seeking material improvements to highways and telecommunications as well as the more elusive nation-building and sanguine legacies. Whereas the literature typically concentrates on stadia and sports-related…
Urban transport as a social construct
This essay seeks to cultivate a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the social dimensions of urban transport. Through a historical account of theoretical developments and an overview of contemporary trends, we propose a framework for conceptualising urban transport as a social construct. This perspective encourages a shift away from seeing transport as physical and spatial entities to emphasising the complex social dynamics that underpin the…
Tracing as comparative method
Urban scholarship is bursting with comparison. We use comparison as an explicit and implicit tool to frame our urban analysis. But how do we actually do comparison? This commentary presents a fine-tuned analysis of ‘tracing’ as both a conceptual framework and a methodological process for doing comparative urbanism. It draws on the many excellent contributions in this special issue to argue for three methodological approaches to tracing – followin…
Trans-paw-tation
This paper contributes to the robust dialogue in animal geographies by adding a focus on mobilities. Trans-paw-tation establishes a framework for understanding animal mobilities by drawing on a range of epistemological and methodological approaches, all of which aim to better understand animals and their role in the world. It goes on to propose three approaches to trans-paw-tation and the theoretical possibilities of thinking across animal geogra…
Problematizing the concept of walkability in Johannesburg
Walkability is generally defined by the extent to which the built environment supports and encourages walking by promoting pedestrian comfort, connectivity and convenience. This paper scrutinizes the steps taken in Johannesburg to develop walkability policies and projects. It draws on empirical evidence from the pedestrian policies (e.g., the Corridors of Freedom) and pedestrian projects (e.g., the Grayston Pedestrian Bridge) recently introduced.…
Utilizing technology-enhanced learning in geography
This paper explores the benefits and drawbacks of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) to engage undergraduate students in geography modules at Newcastle University. I consider the efficacy of “student response systems” (hereafter SRS, also known as audience response systems, clickers or personal response systems) in large lectures by experimenting with Mentimeter, an online platform designed to allow real-time response to questions. The rationale …
Moving policy
In this paper, I explore the variety of actors who circulate international best practice around the world. I trace the introduction and adoption of bus rapid transit (BRT) projects and policies across six South African cities through international and municipal policy actors, to expose the role of individuals moving policy within the messy and tangled process of policy circulation. The analysis demonstrates the particularly important role of loca…
Learning through Policy Tourism
Study tours, a form of 'policy tourism' in which local actors travel elsewhere to see best practice and meet with those in the exporting locality who implemented it, have become a basic tenet for policy exchange. In the pursuit of these lessons, hundreds of South African public transport enthusiasts visited South America, particularly Bogota, to learn of its thriving bus rapid transit (BRT) network. This paper evaluates the influence of these exc…
Competing for Knowledge
The Politics of Policy Circulation
This paper utilizes the introduction of bus rapid transit (BRT) in South Africa to unravel the role of South–South connections in local policymaking. While the South African systems are unmistakably modeled after Bogotá's Transmilenio, whose accomplishments have been touted as the low-cost, high-quality transport solution, the process through which other Southern cities influenced the circulation of BRT remains underexplored. In so doing, this pa…
Multiple Temporalities of Policy Circulation
In 2006, bus rapid transit (BRT) swept across South African cities. Within three years of learning of the Bogotá model of BRT, Johannesburg's Rea Vaya opened, followed shortly by Cape Town's MyCiTi, while several other cities are at various stages of planning and implementation. This article traces the circulation of BRT across the South African urban context to expose the multiple and varied temporalities through which BRT came to appear as the …
Uncertainty and Urban Life
This essay examines the influence of uncertainty on how contemporary cities are planned, built, governed, and inhabited. This influence is demonstrated through the analysis of various domains of urban planning and governance (disaster, security, energy, and transportation) across four cities of the global South (Bogotá, Karachi, Accra, and Johannesburg). In each city, uncertainty is produced by historical conditions and productive of future possi…
Tracing policy movements
Policy flows are not quantifiable and calculating processes but part of the uneven movement of ideas and experiences that involves power and personalities. Processes of learning and policy circulation have thus proven difficult to study especially as the exchanges taking place between actors and localities rarely lead directly to uptake. This paper outlines a conceptual and methodological framework for conducting policy mobilities research by att…
Advancing development projects through mega-events
In 2010, the focus of the sporting world was on South Africa, the first African country to host a Football World Cup, and the largest mega-event ever held on the continent. Mega-events like the World Cup have become instruments for governments seeking material improvements to highways and telecommunications as well as the more elusive nation-building and sanguine legacies. Whereas the literature typically concentrates on stadia and sports-related…
Circulating planning ideas from the metropole to the colonies
In the early part of the twentieth century, South African cities were segregated in accordance with British city planning concepts that embodied the belief that social order can be manipulated through the urban form. This paper surveys the history of South African planning practices to understand the spread of segregation policies and practices. Whereas scholars tend to agree that the apartheid city (post−1948) is a more highly organized and stru…
Utilizing technology-enhanced learning in geography
This paper explores the benefits and drawbacks of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) to engage undergraduate students in geography modules at Newcastle University. I consider the efficacy of “student response systems” (hereafter SRS, also known as audience response systems, clickers or personal response systems) in large lectures by experimenting with Mentimeter, an online platform designed to allow real-time response to questions. The rationale …
Tracing urbanism
This paper locates itself within comparative urbanism by employing the concept of 'tracing' as the starting point through which to think across a range of urban experiences. It first reflects on the historical development of comparative urbanism in particular considering the way in which contemporary understandings have been shaped by this long record of debate. From there, the paper refines its focus to 'tracing' as one method of actually doing …
Decolonising cities of the global South in the classroom and beyond
In the post-colonial context, the global South has become the approved nomenclature for the non-European, non-Western parts of the world. The term promises a departure from post-colonial development geographies and from the material and discursive legacies of colonialism by ostensibly blurring the bifurcations between developed and developing, rich and poor, centre and periphery. In concept, the post-colonial literature mitigates the disparity be…
Tracing the absence of bike-share in Johannesburg
Decolonial approaches to urban transport geographies
Problematizing the concept of walkability in Johannesburg
Walkability is generally defined by the extent to which the built environment supports and encourages walking by promoting pedestrian comfort, connectivity and convenience. This paper scrutinizes the steps taken in Johannesburg to develop walkability policies and projects. It draws on empirical evidence from the pedestrian policies (e.g., the Corridors of Freedom) and pedestrian projects (e.g., the Grayston Pedestrian Bridge) recently introduced.…
Tracing as comparative method
Urban scholarship is bursting with comparison. We use comparison as an explicit and implicit tool to frame our urban analysis. But how do we actually do comparison? This commentary presents a fine-tuned analysis of ‘tracing’ as both a conceptual framework and a methodological process for doing comparative urbanism. It draws on the many excellent contributions in this special issue to argue for three methodological approaches to tracing – followin…
Problematising concepts of transit-oriented development in South African cities
Transit-oriented development (TOD) is generally defined as planned high-density development containing a mixture of residential, retail, commercial and community uses around a transit hub and surrounded by a high-quality urban realm that prioritises the pedestrian (and more recently the cyclist) over the automobile. This article analyses the steps taken in Cape Town and Johannesburg to develop TOD schemes. In so doing, it problematises both the c…
Bringing Transport into Black Geographies
This article contributes to the burgeoning dialogue in Black geographies by adding a focus on transport. Because there is no singular, all-encompassing framework for Black geographies, this article draws on a long history of Blackness and Whiteness in the discipline of geography and beyond. It contextualizes the contemporary conversation within critical reflections from feminist, indigenous, and queer as well as decolonial and postcolonial studie…
African Urban Studies
Scholarship on African cities represents a growing yet still scarce subfield in urban studies, especially considering the scale and variety of African urbanisation patterns. The purpose of this Virtual Special Issue is to review the scholarship published on urban Africa in Urban Studies over the past five decades. In this Editorial, we reflect on the contributions of African urban scholarship and present a selection of articles to highlight the w…
Trans-paw-tation
This paper contributes to the robust dialogue in animal geographies by adding a focus on mobilities. Trans-paw-tation establishes a framework for understanding animal mobilities by drawing on a range of epistemological and methodological approaches, all of which aim to better understand animals and their role in the world. It goes on to propose three approaches to trans-paw-tation and the theoretical possibilities of thinking across animal geogra…
The myth of the “Brasília of the North”
Urban transport as a social construct
This essay seeks to cultivate a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the social dimensions of urban transport. Through a historical account of theoretical developments and an overview of contemporary trends, we propose a framework for conceptualising urban transport as a social construct. This perspective encourages a shift away from seeing transport as physical and spatial entities to emphasising the complex social dynamics that underpin the…
Urban transport as a social construct
This special issue emerges from the Urban Studies journal’s Critical and Conceptual Advances in Urban Studies initiative and features the development and application of a transport-as-a-social-construct framework. The collection of articles demonstrates the framework’s conceptual breadth as well as its empirical relevance across diverse geographic contexts and transport modes. We begin by outlining three conceptual articles that establish key the…
Sociology (17 obras) · Political science (16 obras) · Urban Planning and Governance (14 obras) · Geography (12 obras) · Engineering (10 obras) · Economic geography (9 obras) · Urban Transport and Accessibility (9 obras) · Computer Science (8 obras) · Mobilities (8 obras) · Social science (8 obras)