Nic Cook
About me
Nic is an interdisciplinary researcher interested in planning practice and policy, especially for inclusive mobility and the rhetoric-reality deficits that occur. She is a disability and climate justice activist affirming the expertise of Disabled people in creating environmental strategies for navigating climate and environmental breakdown.
She has a background in creative arts practice and completed her MA in Creative and Cultural Industries Management at Northumbria University in 2021. There, her research explored how an Ethics of Care might inform practices in gallery programming for civic engagement. Joining Newcastle University in 2024, her research explores how ethnographic understandings of travel planning practices might inform disability affirming transport policy, and how we might centralise disability in active travel futures.
She is a member of several DPO’s and community organisations and an experienced trainer in disability rights, accessibility, and digital accessibility. She lives by the sea with her son and likes to write poems about erosion.
Project Title
'Cripping Active Travel Futures'
Project Description
Active travel affords many personal and societal benefits, but opportunities to walk, wheel and cycle are not afforded equally. Barriers to active travel play a significant role in the disabling process for people with impairments, including being able to access vital healthcare services, execute caring responsibilities, and get and stay in employment. Similarly, Disabled people who wish to participate often find that the impetus is upon themselves to highlight and resolve accessibility problems, creating a further burden and potentially greater symbolic exclusion.
The empirical focus is on North East England, the region with the highest number of Disabled people in England. Through two ethnographic case studies and interviews with activists and policymakers the project seeks a route to impact change in active travel planning by centralising Disabled people.
Supervisors
Qualifications
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MA Creative and Cultural Industries Management, Northumbria University
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Post Graduate Certificate of Education, IOE: University of London
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BA Fine Art, University of the Arts London
Funding
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) doctoral studentship awarded by the Northern Ireland and North East Doctoral Training Partnership (NINE DTP)
Research Group Memberships
- Global Urban Research Unit (GURU)
Contact