Background

Qualifications

BA (Hons) in Geography with Archaeology, University of Exeter

PhD in Geography, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London

Previous Positions

• Reader in Geography, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, 2005-2011
• Senior Lecturer, School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Newcastle University 2004-05
• Lecturer, School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Newcastle University, 2001-2004
• Research Fellow, Centre for Rural Economy, Newcastle University, 1996-2000
• Research Associate, Dept of Geography, Newcastle University, 1994-1995
• Research Associate, Centre for the Study of Public Order, Leicester University, 1992-1993
• Research Assistant, Dept of Geography, Saint David's University College, University of Wales Lampeter, 1990-1992

Journal editing:

Co-editor of Journal of War and Cultures Studies (https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ywac20/current)

Editorial Boards:

Critical Military Studies

Google Scholar

SCOPUS

Research

Research Interests

Military geographies, including military land use, military landscapes and post-military landscapes, military environmentalism, militarism and space/place, base conversion issues.

Military us of space for ballistic missile early warning and space situational awareness

Gender and identity, including military identities and gender and the armed forces

Military representation in photography and print media, and contemporary military memoirs.

Reserve armed forces, and University Armed Service Units

Current Work

Militarism and popular culture.

Representations of the military. 

The politics of civil-military relationships.

Military and post-military landscapes. 

Space observation and monitoring

Funding

AHRC Turning Fylingdales Inside Out: making practice visible at the UK's ballistic missile early warning and space monitoring station. With Dr Michael Mulvihill, Ms Chloe Barker and Dr K. Neil Jenkings. 2020-23.

Leverhulme Artist in Residence award with Paula Turner, 2017, see https://www.paulaturner.org/leverhulme/

ESRC Keeping enough in Reserve: the employment of hybrid citizen-soldiers and the Future Reserves 2020 programme. With Dr Neil Jenkings (Newcastle), Prof Tim Edmunds, Dr Paul Higate, Dr John Hockey (all University of Bristol). 2014-18

Leverhulme Artist-in Residence award with Michael Mulvihill, 2014-15. http://vane.org.uk/artists/michael-mulvihill

British Academy / Leverhulme Small Grant, Gender and the British Armed Forces: Lessons from Afghanistan.  Dr Claire Duncanson (PI) University of Edinburgh. 2013-15. 

AHRC Caring for post-military futures: alternative development futures for former military sites in the UK. (2013)

Development Studies Association The Military as New Development Actors. With Uma Kothari (PI, Manchester), Matt Baillie Smith (Northumbria), Nina Laurie (Newcastle). See: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/military-research/themes/development.html 

ESRC The value of the university armed service units. With Dr Alison Williams (PI) and Dr Neil Jenkings (2013-15). See: https://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/10.5334/baq/ 

ESRC The social production of the contemporary British military memoir. Project with Dr Neil Jenkings (2009-2011). See: https://www.palgrave.com/br/book/9781137570093

ESRC Negotiating identity and representation in the mediated Armed Forces. With Dr Trish Winter (University of Sunderland) and Dr Neil Jenkings (Newcastle University). See:

ESRC (2001) Gendered bodies, personnel policies and the culture of the British Army. With Dr Trish Winter, University of Sunderland. 

Nuffield Foundation (1998) Rural development and military base conversion.

Teaching

GEO1024 Coasts and Communities (field trips)

GEO2125 UK Fieldwork Research Project

GEO2235 Bosnia field course

POL8026 Security: Politics, Society & Space

Publications

• Articles

  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN, Mulvihill M. Damage, recovery, and the geographies of military–civil entanglements. Space and Polity 2023, 27(2), 153-168.
  • Higate P, Dawes A, Edmunds T, Jenkings KN, Woodward R. Militarization, stigma, and resistance: negotiating military reservist identity in the civilian workplace. Critical Military Studies 2021, 7(2), 173-191.
  • Woodward R, Dawes A, Edmunds T, Higate P, Jenkings KN. The possibilities and limits of impact and engagement in research on military institutions. Area 2020, 52(3), 505-513.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN, Williams A. Militarisation, universities and the university armed service units. Political Geography 2017, 60, 203-212.
  • Merriman P, Peters K, Adey P, Cresswell T, Forsyth I, Woodward R. Interventions on military mobilities. Political Geography 2017, 56, 44-52.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN, Williams AJ. The UK armed forces and the value of the university armed service units. RUSI Journal 2016, 161(1), 32-39.
  • Edmunds T, Dawes A, Higate P, Jenkings KN, Woodward R. Reserve forces and the transformation of British military organisation: soldiers, citizens and society. Defence Studies 2016, 16(2), 118-136.
  • Duncanson CP, Woodward R. Regendering the military: theorizing women's military participation. Security Dialogue 2016, 47(1), 3-21.
  • Woodward R, Duncanson C. Gendered divisions of military labour in the British armed forces. Defence Studies 2016, 16(3), 205-228.
  • Siebold GL, Crabb T, Woodward R, King AC. Combat, Cohesion, and Controversy: Disputatio Sine Fine. Armed Forces and Society 2016, 42(2), 449-462.
  • Kleinreesink LHE, Jenkings KN, Woodward R. How (Not) to Sell a Military Memoir in Britain. Journal of Political and Military Sociology 2015, 43, 1-26.
  • Rech MF, Bos D, Jenkings KN, Williams A, Woodward R. Geography, military geography and critical military studies. Critical Military Studies 2015, 1(1), 47-60.
  • Jenkings KN, Woodward R. Practices of authorial collaboration: the collaborative production of the contemporary military memoir. Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies 2014, 14(4), 338-350.
  • Woodward R. Military landscapes: Agendas and approaches for future research. Progress in Human Geography 2014, 38(1), 40-61.
  • Jenkings KN, Woodward R. Communicating War through the Contemporary British Military Memoir: the Censorships of Genre, State, and Self. Journal of War & Culture Studies 2014, 7(1), 5-17.
  • Jenkings KN, Megoran N, Woodward R, Bos D. Wootton Bassett and the political spaces of remembrance and mourning. Area 2012, 44(3), 356-363.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. 'This place isn't worth the left boot of one of our boys': Geopolitics, militarism and memoirs of the Afghanistan war. Political Geography 2012, 31(8), 495-508.
  • Scully JL, Woodward R. Naming the unknown of Fromelles: DNA profiling, ethics and the identification of First World War bodies. Journal of War and Culture Studies 2012, 5(1), 59-72.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. Military memoirs, their covers, and the reproduction of public narratives of war. Journal of War and Culture Studies 2012, 5(3), 349-369.
  • Jenkings KN, Woodward R, Williams AJ, Rech M, Murphy A, Bos D. Military Occupations: Methodological approaches and the Military-Academy research nexus. Sociology Compass 2011, 5(1), 37-51.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. Military Identities in the Situated Accounts of British Military Personnel. Sociology 2011, 45(2), 252-268.
  • Woodward R, Winter T, Jenkings KN. Heroic anxieties: the figure of the British soldier in contemporary print media. Journal of War and Culture Studies 2009, 2(2), 211-223.
  • Jenkings KN, Woodward R, Winter T. The Emergent Production of Analysis in Photo Elicitation: Pictures of Military Identity. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung 2008, 9(3), Article 30.
  • Woodward R. Narratives of destruction and survival: writing and reading about life in urban war zones. Theory & Event 2007, 10(2).
  • Woodward R, Winter P. Gender and the limits to diversity in the contemporary British Army. Gender, Work & Organization 2006, 13(1), 45-67.
  • Woodward R. From Military Geography to militarism's geographies: disciplinary engagements with the geographies of militarism and military activities. Progress in Human Geography 2005, 29(6), 718-740.
  • Woodward R, Winter P. Discourses of gender in the contemporary British Army. Armed Forces & Society 2004, 30(2), 279-301.
  • Woodward R. Khaki conservation: an examination of military environmentalist discourses in the British Army. Journal of Rural Studies 2001, 17(2), 201-217.
  • Woodward R. In trust and on trust: the strategy for the UK defence estate. Land Use Policy 2001, 18(2), 93-97.
  • Woodward R. Warrior heroes and little green men: soldiers, military training, and the construction of rural masculinities. Rural Sociology 2000, 65(4), 640-657.
  • Woodward R. Gunning for rural England: the politics of the promotion of military land use in the Northumberland National Park. Journal of Rural Studies 1999, 15(1), 17-33.
  • Woodward R. 'It's a man's life!': soldiers, masculinity and the countryside. Gender, Place and Culture 1998, 5(3), 277-300.
  • Woodward R. 'Deprivation' and 'the rural': an investigation into contradictory discourses. Journal of Rural Studies 1996, 12(1), 55-67.

• Authored Books

  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. Bringing War to Book: Writing and Producing the Military Memoir. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN, Williams AJ. The Value of the University Armed Service Units. London, UK: Ubiquity Press, 2015.
  • Woodward R, Winter T. Sexing the soldier: the politics of gender and the contemporary British Army. London: Routledge, 2007.
  • Woodward R. Military geographies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

• Book Chapters

  • Barker C, Jenkings KN, Mulvihill M, Wooward R. Turning RAF Fylingdales Inside Out: Using Creative Practice to Understand Ballistic Missile Early Warning and Space Monitoring. In: Cree A, ed. Creative Methods in Military Studies. Rowman & Littlefield, 2023.
  • Woodward R, Dawes A, Edmunds T, Higate P, Jenkings KN. The Use of Military Reservists' Civilian Skills in the UK Armed Forces. In: Ben-Ari E; Connelly V, ed. Contemporary Military Reserves: Between the Civilian and Military Worlds. London: Routledge, 2023, pp.146-164.
  • Woodward R, Dawes A, Edmunds T, Higate P, Jenkings KN. the use of military reservists' civilian skills for armed forces. In: E. Ben-Ari and V. Connolly, ed. Contemporary Military Reserves: Between the Civilian and Military Worlds. Abingdon: Routledge, 2023, pp.146-164. In Preparation.
  • Woodward R, Cree ASJ. Military geographies. In: Lees L; Demeritt D, ed. Concise Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023, pp.240–244.
  • Woodward R, Cree A. Military. In: L. Lees and D. Demerrit, ed. Concise Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2023. In Preparation.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. Military Sociology and Critical Military Studies in the United Kingdom. In: Steinbrecher M; Biehl H; Elbe M, ed. Empirical Social Research in and on the Armed Forces : Comparative and National Perspectives. Potsdam, Germany: ZMSBw, 2022, pp.261-284.
  • Woodward R. Militarisation and the creation of place. In: Tim Edensor, Ares Kalandides, Uma Kothari, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Place. London: Routledge, 2020, pp.377-388.
  • Castro JE. Functionalism. In: Kobayashi, A, ed. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. London: Elsevier, 2020, pp.239-245.
  • Davoudi S. City-Region. In: Kobayashi A, ed. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Elsevier, 2020, pp.255-265.
  • Woodward R. Military Geographies. In: Audrey Kobayashi, ed. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. New York: Elsevier, 2019.
  • Jenkings KN, Dawes A, Edmunds T, Higate P, Woodward R. Reserve Forces and the Privatization of the Military by the Nation State. In: Orie Swed and Thomas Crosbie, ed. The Sociology of Privatized Security. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp.107-136.
  • Jenkings KN, Woodward R. Serving in Troubled Times: British Military Personnel’s memories and accounts of service in Northern Ireland. In: Dawson G; Dover J; Hopkins S, ed. Northern Ireland Troubles in Britain: Impacts, Engagements, Legacies and Memories. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2017, pp.91-107.
  • Woodward R. Military geography. In: The International Encyclopedia of Geography. Oxford: John Wylie & Sons, 2017.
  • Woodward R, Duncanson C, Jenkings KN. Gender and military memoirs. In: Rachel Woodward and Claire Duncanson, ed. The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp.525-542.
  • Woodward R, Duncanson C. An introduction to gender and the military. In: Rachel Woodward and Claire Duncanson, ed. The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp.1-20.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. The Uses of Military Memoirs in Military Research. In: Williams,AJ; Jenkings,KN; Woodward,R.; Rech,MF, ed. The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods. London: Routledge, 2016, pp.71-83.
  • Woodward R. Researching Military Geographies. In: Castro, C; Carreiras, H; Frederic, S, ed. Researching the Military. London, UK: Routledge, 2016.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. Reading between the lines: the normalisation of violence within military memoirs. In: Walklate,S;McGarry,R, ed. The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and War. London: Palgrave, 2016, pp.389-405.
  • Jenkings KN, Murphy A, Woodward R. Photo-Elicitation and Military Research. In: Williams, AJ; Woodward, R; Rech, MF, ed. The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods. London: Routledge, 2016, pp.345-356.
  • Rech MF, Jenkings KN, Williams AJ, Woodward R. An Introduction to Military Research Methods. In: Williams, AJ; Jenkings, KN; Woodward, R; Rech, MF, ed. The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods. London: Routledge, 2016, pp.1-17.
  • MacKinnon D. Resilient City. In: James D. Wright, ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences: Second Edition. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015, pp.561-567.
  • Lord A, Tewdwr-Jones M. Regional Planning. In: James D. Wright, ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences: Second Edition. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015, pp.129-133.
  • Outhwaite RW. Positivism, Sociological. In: International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences: Second Edition. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015, pp.625-629.
  • Hammersley R. Political Thought, History of. In: International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences: Second Edition. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015, pp.486-490.
  • Woodward R. Military geography. In: Wright JD, ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences, Second Edition. Oxford, UK: Elsevier, 2015, pp.501-505.
  • Kleinreesink LHE, Jenkings KN, Woodward R. How (not) to Sell a Military Memoir in Britain. In: Neovi M. Karakatsanis and Jonathan Swarts, ed. Political and Military Sociology: Political Attitudes, Perceptions and Culture: An Annual Review. Transaction Publishers, 2015, pp.1-26.
  • Lin W. Citizen Mapping. In: James D Wright, ed. International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition). Oxford: Elsevier, 2015, pp.619-624.
  • Morgan G. American Revolution, The. In: International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences: Second Edition. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015, pp.609-614.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. Soldiers. In: Adey, P., Bissell, D., Hannam, K., Merriman, P., Sheller, M, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities. London, UK: Routledge, 2014, pp.358-366.
  • Woodward R. Military Pastoral and the Military Sublime in British Army Training Landscapes. In: Ian D. Rotherham and Christine Handley, ed. War and Peat. Sheffield, UK: Wildtrack Publishing, 2014, pp.45-56.
  • Woodward R. Looking at Military Landscapes: Definitions and Approaches. In: Renaud Bellais and Josselin Droff, ed. The Evolving Boundaries of Defence: An Assessment of Recent Shifts in Defence Activities. Emerald Publishing UK, 2014, pp.141-155.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. Soldiers' Photographic Representations of Participation in Armed Conflict. In: Gibson, S., Mollan, S, ed. Representations of Peace and Conflict. Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2012, pp.105-119.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. Soldiers' bodies and the contemporary British military memoir. In: McSorely, K, ed. War and the Body: Militarisation, Practice and Experience. London, UK: Routledge, 2012, pp.152-164.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN. Reconstructing the Colonial Present in British Soldiers' Accounts of the Afghanistan Conflict. In: Kirsch, S., Flint, C, ed. Reconstructing Conflict: Integrating War and Post-War Geographies. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2011, pp.115-131.
  • Woodward R, Winter T, Jenkings KN. Negotiating military identities: memory work and the use of personal photographs by British soldiers. In: Hall, K., Jones, K, ed. Constructions of Conflict: Transmitting Memories of the Past in European Historiography, Culture and Media. Bern: Peter Lang, 2011, pp.53-71.
  • Jenkings KN, Woodward R. Negotiating Identity: Representation and self-representation of the soldier in photographs and memoirs. In: Glumnz, C; Schneider, TF, ed. Wahrheitsmaschinen: Der Einfluss technischer Innovationen auf die Darstellung und das Bild des Krieges in den Medien und Künsten. Gottingen: V&R Press, 2010, pp.159-174.
  • Woodward R. Military Landscapes / Militære Landskap: The Military Landscape Photography of Ingrid Book and Carina Hedén. In: Pearson, C., Coates, P., Cole, T, ed. Militarized Landscapes: from Gettysburg to Salisbury Plain. London: Continuum, 2010, pp.21-38.
  • Woodward R, Winter R, Jenkings KN. 'I used to keep a camera in my top left-hand pocket': the photographic practices of British soldiers. In: MacDonald, F., Hughes, R., Dodds, K, ed. Observant States: Geopolitics and Visual Culture. London and New York: IB Tauris, 2010, pp.143-166.
  • Woodward R. Military Geographies. In: Thrift N. and Kitchen R, ed. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. London: Elsevier, 2009, pp.122-127.
  • Davoudi S. City-Region. In: R. Kitchin and N. Thrift, ed. International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Oxford, UK: Elsevier, 2009, pp.125-135.
  • Jenkings KN, Winter T, Woodward R. 'Presentations of Soldierly Identity in Print Media and Soldiers' own Photographic Accounts'. In: Boll J, ed. War: Interdisciplinary Investigations. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2008, pp.95-108.
  • Woodward R. How military landscapes work. In: Ingrid Book and Carina Heden, ed. Military Landscapes. Bergen: Bergen Kunsthalle, 2008, pp.78-101.
  • Woodward R. "Not for Queen and country or any of that shit...": reflections on citizenship and military participation in contemporary British soldier narratives. In: Cowan, D., Gilbert, E, ed. War, Citizenship, Territory. London: Routledge, 2008, pp.363-384.
  • Woodward R, Winter P. Militarised countrysides: representations of war and rurality in British and American film. In: Fish, R, ed. Cinematic Countrysides. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2007, pp.91-108.
  • Woodward R. Warrior heroes and little green men: soldiers, military training and the construction of rural masculinities. In: Bell, M.M., Campbell, H. and Finney, M, ed. Country boys: masculinity and rural life. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006.
  • Woodward R. Discourses on gender and rural restructuring in the United Kingdom. In: Goverde, H., Baylina, M. and de Haan, H, ed. Power and gender in European rural development. London: Ashgate, 2004.
  • Woodward R. Locating military masculinities: space, place and the formation of gender identity and the British Army. In: Higate, P.R, ed. Military masculinities: identity and the state. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2003, pp.43-56.
  • Halfacree K, Woodward R. Influences on leadership and local power in rural Britain. In: Halfacree, K., Kovach, I. and Woodward, R, ed. Leadership and local power in European rural development. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002, pp.59-90.
  • Woodward R. Local interests, regional needs or national imperative? The Otterburn question and the military training in rural areas. In: Tomaney, J. and Ward, N, ed. A region in transition: North East England at the millennium. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001, pp.199-217.
  • Woodward R. Changing gender identities and the restructuring of the British Armed Forces. In: Elam, M, ed. Reconstructing the means of violence: defence restructuring and conversion. Luxembourg: Directorate-General for Science, Research and Development, 2001, pp.73-87.

• Edited Books

  • Woodward R, ed. A Research Agenda for Military Geographies. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019.
  • Woodward R, Duncanson CP, ed. The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military. London: Palgrave, 2017.
  • Williams AJ, Jenkings KN, Woodward R, Rech MF, ed. The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods. London: Routledge, 2016.
  • Halfacree K, Kovách I, Woodward R, ed. Leadership and local power in European rural development. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.

• Editorial

  • Woodward R, Benwell MC, Jenkings KN, Natale E, Parr H. Reflections on Conflict and Culture on the 40th anniversary of the Falklands/Malvinas War. Journal of War & Culture Studies 2022, 15(3), 261-265.

• Review

  • Woodward R. Partnership working in rural regeneration - Review. Journal of Rural Studies 2002, 18(1), 108-109.