The purpose of this think-piece is to draw researchers’ attention to the vital importance of setting and analysing journeys and journey practices in their wider contexts. Thinking relationally has considerable potential when it comes to contextualizing and understanding transport and mobility practices with greater clarity, by drawing specific attention to how linkages between people, between people and things, between people and places and wider linkages with public policy all contribute to travel practices on the ground. The think-piece could thus help build valuable new entry-points into understanding urban mobility practices in low-income countries, which is highly relevant to VREF’s MAC programme, to the Walking as a Mode of Transport 6 programme, and to the ISM Informal and Shared Mobility in Low- and Middle-Income Countries programme The research activity that a relationality approach would generate could be primarily qualitative or more quantitative/mixed method in approach1 .