Bio
Nancy Odendaal currently holds the University of Basel–University of Cape Town Professorship in Urban Studies, based at the African Centre for Cities. She is an urban planner with a keen interest in contemporary cities, focusing primarily on the relationship between urban infrastructure, spatial transformation, and livelihoods. Her recent research has focused on smart urbanism and how that manifests in African cities. Her recent book, ‘Disrupted Urbanism: Situated Smart Initiatives in African Cities’, explores the interface between digital platforms and spatial change.
She is a former chair of the Global Planning Education Association Network, and the Association of African Planning Schools, a peer-to-peer network of over 50 planning schools on the continent and served on the International Advisory Board of the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre. Before joining the ACC for the professorship in August 2024, Prof Odendaal was the Director of the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics (APG) at UCT.
She holds a PhD (University of the Witwatersrand – 2010), a Master of Town and Regional Planning (University of Natal – 1999), Bachelor of Arts (UNISA – 1995) and a National Diploma: Town Planning (M.L. Sultan Technikon – 1991).
Learn more about Nancy, her academic journey and research interests here.
Selected Publications
- Odendaal, N. 2024. Thinking about Cyborg Activism. In J. Glückler, R. Panitz (eds.), Knowledge and Digital Technology, Knowledge and Space 19. pp. 153–168
- Odendaal, N. (2024). Beyond informality: Expanding the scope of Southern smart urbanism. Dialogues in Human Geography, 14(3), 407-410
- Tiamiyu B and Odendaal N. 2023. Conceptual Framework of Adaptive Social Planning for Sustainable Urban Transformation. Sustainable Regional Planning. IntechOpen.
- Odendaal, N., 2023. Understanding cities on their own terms: The remarkable legacy of Vanessa Watson (1950–1921). Progress in Planning, 169, p.100693.
- Odendaal, N. (2023). Disrupted Urbanism, Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press. available from:
- Corbett, David Ian Bedford, Foth, Marcus, Odendaal, Nancy, & Rittenbruch, Markus. 2023. Re-conceptualising the relationship between informalities, livelihoods and governance towards urban resilience. In Priya Rajendran, Lakshmi, Odeleye, Nezhapi-Delle, & Can, Aysegul (Eds.) Learning Resilience from the Global South: Re-conceptualising informalities as an urban planning and design paradigm. Routledge.
- Odendaal, N. (2022) ‘Splintering by Proxy: A Reflection on the Spatial Impacts and Distributed Agency of Platform Urbanism’, Journal of Urban Technology, 29(1), pp. 21–27. doi: 10.1080/10630732.2021.2007204.
- Ola Söderström, Evan Blake, Nancy Odendaal. 2021. More-than-local, more-than-mobile: The smart city effect in South Africa, Geoforum, (122). pp. 103-117
- Lockhart A, While A, Marvin S, Kovacic M, Odendaal N, Alexander C. Making space for drones: The contested reregulation of airspace in Tanzania and Rwanda. Trans Inst Br Geogr. 2021; 46: 850–865.
- Odendaal, N. (2021). Recombining Place: COVID-19 and Community Action Networks in South Africa. International Journal of E-Planning Research (IJEPR), 10(2), 124-131
- Odendaal, N. (2020). Constructing an “infrastructure of care” – understanding the institutional remnants and socio-technical practices that constitute South Africa’s Covid-19 response. Urban Geography, 42(3), 391–398.
