Staff Profile

Astrid Wood is a critical urban geographer concentrating on governance and the built environment. Her research expertise includes comparative urbanism, critical urban theory, development, the Global South, governance, inclusive cities, mobilities, policy mobilities, postcolonial studies, South(ern) Africa, sustainability, transport and urban studies.

Over the past decade, Astrid has been involved in studying and shaping the urban form of cities in Albacete, Ankara, Boston, Cape Town, Chicago, Dar es Salaam, Edinburgh, Erode, eThekwini, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Madras, Madrid, New Orleans, New York, Shenzhen and Washington DC.

Astrid holds a PhD in Geography from University College London (UCL), a Master of City Planning and a certificate in Urban Design, City Design and Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College. Previously, she held posts at Cardiff University, Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL), University College London (UCL) and London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

For more information: Email - astrid.wood(at)newcastle.ac.uk

Also see: Google Scholar Citations; Imagining Urban Futures: Researching Policy Mobilities and Urban Politics;  LinkedIn Profile

Research area

Astrid specializes in Southern cities and their mechanisms for circulating urban policy. Her research considers how and why cities are increasingly constituted through relational connections with distantiated sites by focusing on the range of engagements taking place in order to localize a particular case of best practice. This research draws on her experience working with South African cities to develop new mechanisms for cooperation by circulating information, knowledge and best practice for urban planning and municipal governance. Astrid has published research papers in Antipode, Environment and Planning A, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Public Culture, Urban Forum and Urban Geography. 

Research projects

The geography of bus rapid transit 

The project traces the mobility of BRT from Latin Americans cities to (South) African cities through the social and material exchanges between importing and exporting localities. 

Decolonializing transport 

In departing from the predominately technical, Northern and formalist approaches to mobility, this project explores a decolonial view of urban transport by attending more closely to policy, practice and knowledge of transport infrastructures. This project advocates for a repoliticisation of transport, to explicitly frame it as urban and to reconnect it with critical urban studies. 

Deconstructing the global south

The project develops new understandings of cities of the global south by deconstructing the binaries that hinder practices of learning, and perhaps in doing so, debate the very categorization itself.

PhD projects related to cities, comparative urbanism, mobilities, policy mobilities, South(ern) African urbanism are most welcome.

Geo1096 - Geographical Study Skills
Geo2111 - Doing Geographical Research
Geo2224 - Urban Geographies of Economic and Environmental Sustainability: Barcelona Experience
Geo2099 - Economic Geography
Geo3099 - Dissertation

Geo3141 - Cities of the Global South (module leader)

This module introduces students to contemporary urban debates concerning cities of the Global South. The lectures, seminars and readings examine the divergent challenges and opportunities, emphasizing the connections and contentions influencing urban culture, economies, governance, morphologies, politics and planning. It builds on ideas explored at Stage 2 and students should be comfortable with concepts in development, economic, political and/or social geography. Students will be expected to write two essays and lead as well as participate in weekly discussions.

Postgraduate teaching

Geo8017 - Human Geography: Concepts in Action

• Articles

  • Wood A. Trans-paw-tation: on animal geographies and mobilities in South African cities. Mobilities 2023, 1-15.
  • Wood A. Bringing Transport into Black Geographies: Policies, Protests and Planning in Johannesburg. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 2023, 113, 1020-1033.
  • Acuto M, Moeller AK, Mittal G, Wood A. Book review forum: How cities learn. Urban Studies 2023, 60, 2941-2950.
  • Wood A. Tracing as Comparative Method. Urban Studies 2022, 59, 1749-1753.
  • Wood A. Problematizing the concept of walkability in Johannesburg. Journal of Urban Affairs 2022, 1-15.
  • Wood A. Problematising concepts of transit-oriented development in South African cites. Urban Studies 2022, 59(12), 2451-2467.
  • Wood A. Utilizing technology-enhanced learning in geography: testing student response systems in large lectures. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 2020, 44(1), 160-170.
  • Wood A. Tracing urbanism: methods of actually doing comparative studies in Johannesburg. Urban Geography 2020, 41(2), 293-311.
  • Wood A. Tracing the absence of bike-share in Johannesburg: A case of policy mobilities and non-adoption. Journal of Transport Geography 2020, 83, 102659.
  • Wood A. Tracing the absence of bike-share in Johannesburg: A case of policy mobilities and non-adoption. Journal of Transport Geography 2020, 83, 1-18. In Preparation.
  • Wood A. Decolonising cities of the global South in the classroom and beyond. Town Planning Review 2020, 91(5), 535-552.
  • Wood A, Keblowski W, Tuvikene T. Decolonial approaches to urban transport geographies: introduction to the special issue. Journal of Transport Geography 2020, 88, 102811.
  • Wood A. Disentangling the nexus of global intermediaries: the case of bus rapid transit. Urban Development Issues 2019. In Preparation.
  • Wood A. Advancing development projects through mega-events: the 2010 football World Cup and bus rapid transit in South Africa. Urban Geography 2019, 40(4), 428-444.
  • Wood A. Circulating planning ideas from the metropole to the colonies: understanding South Africa’s segregated cities through policy mobilities. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 2018, 40(2), 257-271.
  • Wood A. Tracing policy movements: Methods for studying learning and policy circulation. Environment and Planning A 2016, 48(2), 391-406.
  • Zeiderman A, Kaker SA, Silver J, Wood A. Uncertainty and Urban Life. Public Culture 2015, 27(2), 281-304.
  • Wood A. The Politics of Policy Circulation: Unpacking the Relationship Between South African and South American Cities in the Adoption of Bus Rapid Transit. Antipode 2015, 47(4), 1062-1079.
  • Wood A. Multiple Temporalities of Policy Circulation: Gradual, Repetitive and Delayed Processes of BRT Adoption in South African Cities. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 2015, 39(3), 568-580.
  • Wood A. Competing for Knowledge: Leaders and Laggards of Bus Rapid Transit in South Africa. Urban Forum 2015, 26(2), 203-221.
  • Wood A. Moving policy: global and local characters circulating bus rapid transit through South African cities. Urban Geography 2014, 35(8), 1238-1254.
  • Wood A. Learning through Policy Tourism: Circulating Bus Rapid Transit from South America to South Africa. Environment and Planning A 2014, 46(11), 2654-2669.

• Authored Book

  • Wood A. How Cities Learn: Tracing Bus Rapid Transit in South Africa. 2022.

• Book Chapters

  • Wood A. Planning for walkability in Johannesburg. In: Transport and Mobility Futures in Urban Africa. 2022, pp.245-258.
  • Wood A. The tangible and intangible infrastructure of Bus Rapid Transit in African cities. In: Nadine Appelhans, Wolfgang Scholz, Sabine Baumgart, ed. Transport Planning and Mobility in Urban East Africa. London: Routledge, 2021, pp.124-135.
  • Wood A. Policy Mobilities: How Localities Assemble, Mobilise, and Adopt Circulated Forms of Knowledge. In: Companion to Urban and Regional Studies. 2021, pp.329-348. In Preparation.
  • Wood A. The business of global intermediaries in the promotion of bus rapid transit. In: Tom Baker and Christopher Walker, ed. Public Policy Circulation: Arenas, Agents and Actions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019, pp.89-102.
  • Wood A, Baker T, Dussauge-Laguna M, Jolkkonen R, Löblová O, McGuirk P, Montero S, Morais de Sá e Silva M, Rusu A, Soremi T, Spence J, Walker C. Prospects for policy circulation studies: towards engaged pluralism?. In: Tom Baker and Christopher Walker, ed. Public Policy Circulation: Arenas, Agents and Actions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019, pp.196-204.
  • Wood A. Policy mobilities: how localities assemble, mobilize and adopt circulated forms of knowledge. In: Orum A; Ruiz-Tagle J; Vicari S, ed. Companion to Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2019.
  • Wood A. Materiality, immateriality and the replication of bus rapid transit in South Africa. In: Ferbrache, F, ed. Developing Bus Rapid Transit: The Value of BRT in Urban Spaces. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019, pp.249-262.
  • Wood A. Transforming the Postapartheid City through Bus Rapid Transit. In: Haferburg, C; Huchzermeyer, M, ed. Urban Governance in Postapartheid Cities: Modes of Engagement in South Africa’s Metropoles. Berlin, Germany: Schweizer Bart, 2014, pp.79-98.