I formerly taught on the Sociology and the Politics programmes at Chester, with particular responsibility in the areas of Social Change and Social Movements and the Politics of Sustainability. My research is primarily in the area of sustainable mobility, with particular reference to the sociology of cycling. Phone: +44 7443 525889 Address: Department of Social and Political Science University of Chester Parkgate Road Chester UK CH1 4BJ
At the end of the nineteenth century, the autonomous mobility provided by bicycles and tricycles ... more At the end of the nineteenth century, the autonomous mobility provided by bicycles and tricycles created for a mobile imaginary that paved the way for automobility. Through the course of the twentieth century, growth and decline of cycling mobilities was inseparably entangled with the rise of a range of motor-mobilities (two and four wheeled). Yet cycling persists and is championed widely as a contender for future mobility post-growth societies. However, the hegemonic position reached by automobility as a dominant system has led to closure of political non-car mobility imaginaries.
This paper explores the possibilities and problems inherent in formulating vélomobility as a system, not merely as a vehicular substitution within continued patterns of spatial and economic inequality perpetuated by existing automobilities. It pays special attention to how a mobility system might be aligned with the need for degrowth as a way to think and act beyond the unsustainable carbon economy.
Cycling: A Sociology of Vélomobility explores cycling as a sociological phenomenon. Drawing on ex... more Cycling: A Sociology of Vélomobility explores cycling as a sociological phenomenon. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, it considers the interaction of materials, competencies and meanings that comprise a variety of cycling practices. What might appear at first to be self-evident actions are shown to be constructed through the interplay of numerous social and political forces. The book adds to existing research by extending the theorisation of cycling mobilities. It engages with both current and past debates on the place of cycling in mobility systems and the problems of researching, analysing and communicating ephemeral mobile experiences.
An international edited collection crossing boundaries between academia, professional engagement ... more An international edited collection crossing boundaries between academia, professional engagement and activism, published by the University of Chester Press 2015
From the Introduction
"Transport is rapidly becoming one of the most problematic areas for sus... more From the Introduction
"Transport is rapidly becoming one of the most problematic areas for sustainability. The current trends for personal mobility are shaped by the dominant practices of the industrialised nations: the private car as both symbol and tool of the freedom of the modern world. Indeed, in Fordism, part of the very process of twentieth century industrialisation is defined by the rise of the motor industry, its practices and achievements.
However, the demands of sustainability in relation to people’s everyday transport require a radical restructuring of our practices of mobility. The current dominance of automobility as the default mode of transport cannot be sustained in either environmental or social terms. The costs are destructive. Climate change, the destabilising effects of global geopolitics skewed by the demands of oil extraction, localised air pollution, congestion, noise, the severance of communities, the anti-sociality inherent in automobility are simply fragments of the complex and systematic problems of over-reliance on the private car.
‘Transport differs from other problems because it gets worse rather than better with economic development’ (Peñalosa 2005). The words of the former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, provide both the rationale for this book and the starting points for its arguments.
Examining how people move around on an everyday, mundane basis it is clear that there are immense problems wherever we look. Whilst large numbers of people suffer from an inability to access basic services, lacking adequate or affordable transport to reach health care, markets, and access to similar opportunities, equally vast numbers who do have access to means of transport spend their travel time stationary, sitting in congested cities, while around them the air quality is degraded, streets become unsafe, and the transport sector provides an ever-increasing share of emissions contributing to human-induced climate change. These problems do not relate to the degree of development or wealth of cities; they are to be found in different forms across the globe.
How can the social sciences help us to understand the past, present and potential futures of cycl... more How can the social sciences help us to understand the past, present and potential futures of cycling? This timely international and interdisciplinary collection addresses this question, discussing shifts in cycling practices and attitudes, and opening up important critical spaces for thinking about the prospects for cycling.
The book brings together, for the first time, analyses of cycling from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, sociology, geography, planning, engineering and technology. The book redresses the past neglect of cycling as a topic for sustained analysis by treating it as a varied and complex practice which matters greatly to contemporary social, cultural and political theory and action.
Cycling and Society demonstrates the incredible diversity of contemporary cycling, both within and across cultures. With cycling increasingly promoted as a solution to numerous social problems across a wide range of policy areas in car-dominated societies, this book helps to open up a new field of cycling studies.
Contents: Introduction: cycling and society, Dave Horton, Peter Cox and Paul Rosen; Cycling the city: non-place and the sensory construction of meaning in a mobile practice, Justin Spinney; Capitalising on curiosity: women's professional cycle racing in the late 19th century, Clare Simpson; Barriers to cycling: an exploration of quantitative analyses, John Parkin, Tim Ryley and Tim Jones; Hell is other cyclists: rethinking transport and identity, David Skinner and Paul Rosen; The Flaneur on wheels?, Nicholas Oddy; Bicycles don't evolve: velomobiles and the modelling of transport technologies, Peter Cox with Frederick Van De Walle; Fear of cycling, Dave Horton; Men, women and the bicycle: gender and social geography of cycling in the late 19th century, Philip Gordon Mackintosh and Glenn Norcliffe; Bicycle messengers: image, identity and community, Ben Fincham; Index.
This work argues that the re-assessment of elements derived from Gandhian thought exhibited by po... more This work argues that the re-assessment of elements derived from Gandhian thought exhibited by post-development theory and practice, provides a basis for a poly-vocal and pluralist vision of emancipation. This understanding of emancipation is significant in moving beyond the rationalist legacy of modernist constructions of emancipation to encompass a broader understanding of reason. It incorporates experience and knowledge conventionally described under the rubric of 'spirituality' as viable and emancipatory forms of rationality. The re-enchanted emancipatory vision thus created opens new possibilities for locating non-material contributions to liberatory theory and practice.
Drawing on activist practices and arguments, it locates these within the convergence of a number of academic disciplines and demonstrates how interdisciplinary analysis is essential for understanding the complexity of contemporary social movement activism.
These papers raise searching questions about the nature and implications of globalisation, explor... more These papers raise searching questions about the nature and implications of globalisation, exploring some key features in terms of their impacts on nations and people. Three broad themes are highlighted: key players and processes; consequences and impacts; and response and resistance
This is the author's accepted version of an article published in Viewpoints and included with... more This is the author's accepted version of an article published in Viewpoints and included with kind permission of the British Society for the History of Science. Illustrations courtesy of Deutsches Museum, Munich
In recent years we have become accustomed to speaking of cycling cultures, but frequently without... more In recent years we have become accustomed to speaking of cycling cultures, but frequently without really examining what we really mean by ‘culture’ in this context. This lecture explores what insights into cycling practices can be gained from the work of social scientists who have concentrated on the topic of culture in their work. On closer examination, we can see how issues of power, legitimacy, inclusion and conflict have been central to the study of popular cultures and the presentation is designed to show how these themes can help us better to understand, and therefore respond to, the problems of advocacy. In particular, the lecture addresses how shared practices and common cultures relate to the process of social change and the formation of social movements. Herbert Blumer (1939) classically defined social movements as “collective enterprises to establish a new order of life. They have their inception in the condition of unrest, and derive their motive power on one hand from d...
The author would like to express appreciation for the support of a Leverhulme International Acade... more The author would like to express appreciation for the support of a Leverhulme International Academic Fellowship (IAF-2014-016) entitled “Developing cross-disciplinary research into bicycling and the environment”, undertaken at the Rachel Carson Center for Society and Environment in Munich, 2014/5 and of the sponsors of the Velo-City conference.
Writing began partly in response to Joanna Zylinska’s chapter in minimal ethics and conversations... more Writing began partly in response to Joanna Zylinska’s chapter in minimal ethics and conversations conducted across spaces between strangers. Two starting points, Bauman divorce between power and politics, against the background of his earlier work on the holocaust and modernity, coupled with Ferguson’s critique of neoliberal governmentality as an anti-politics machine. We suggest that it is not simply neoliberal, but all modernist politics that carries antipolitical as its shadow, so that to move forward we need to re-evaluate the terrain of the political and frequently unconsidered normative assumptions about a progressive politics, especially against the backdrop of postcolonial critique.
Chapter published in Spinney, J., Reimer, S. & Pinch, P., (eds) Mobilising Design. Routle... more Chapter published in Spinney, J., Reimer, S. & Pinch, P., (eds) Mobilising Design. Routledge 2017
At the end of the nineteenth century, the autonomous mobility provided by bicycles and tricycles ... more At the end of the nineteenth century, the autonomous mobility provided by bicycles and tricycles created for a mobile imaginary that paved the way for automobility. Through the course of the twentieth century, growth and decline of cycling mobilities was inseparably entangled with the rise of a range of motor-mobilities (two and four wheeled). Yet cycling persists and is championed widely as a contender for future mobility post-growth societies. However, the hegemonic position reached by automobility as a dominant system has led to closure of political non-car mobility imaginaries.
This paper explores the possibilities and problems inherent in formulating vélomobility as a system, not merely as a vehicular substitution within continued patterns of spatial and economic inequality perpetuated by existing automobilities. It pays special attention to how a mobility system might be aligned with the need for degrowth as a way to think and act beyond the unsustainable carbon economy.
Cycling: A Sociology of Vélomobility explores cycling as a sociological phenomenon. Drawing on ex... more Cycling: A Sociology of Vélomobility explores cycling as a sociological phenomenon. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, it considers the interaction of materials, competencies and meanings that comprise a variety of cycling practices. What might appear at first to be self-evident actions are shown to be constructed through the interplay of numerous social and political forces. The book adds to existing research by extending the theorisation of cycling mobilities. It engages with both current and past debates on the place of cycling in mobility systems and the problems of researching, analysing and communicating ephemeral mobile experiences.
An international edited collection crossing boundaries between academia, professional engagement ... more An international edited collection crossing boundaries between academia, professional engagement and activism, published by the University of Chester Press 2015
From the Introduction
"Transport is rapidly becoming one of the most problematic areas for sus... more From the Introduction
"Transport is rapidly becoming one of the most problematic areas for sustainability. The current trends for personal mobility are shaped by the dominant practices of the industrialised nations: the private car as both symbol and tool of the freedom of the modern world. Indeed, in Fordism, part of the very process of twentieth century industrialisation is defined by the rise of the motor industry, its practices and achievements.
However, the demands of sustainability in relation to people’s everyday transport require a radical restructuring of our practices of mobility. The current dominance of automobility as the default mode of transport cannot be sustained in either environmental or social terms. The costs are destructive. Climate change, the destabilising effects of global geopolitics skewed by the demands of oil extraction, localised air pollution, congestion, noise, the severance of communities, the anti-sociality inherent in automobility are simply fragments of the complex and systematic problems of over-reliance on the private car.
‘Transport differs from other problems because it gets worse rather than better with economic development’ (Peñalosa 2005). The words of the former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, provide both the rationale for this book and the starting points for its arguments.
Examining how people move around on an everyday, mundane basis it is clear that there are immense problems wherever we look. Whilst large numbers of people suffer from an inability to access basic services, lacking adequate or affordable transport to reach health care, markets, and access to similar opportunities, equally vast numbers who do have access to means of transport spend their travel time stationary, sitting in congested cities, while around them the air quality is degraded, streets become unsafe, and the transport sector provides an ever-increasing share of emissions contributing to human-induced climate change. These problems do not relate to the degree of development or wealth of cities; they are to be found in different forms across the globe.
How can the social sciences help us to understand the past, present and potential futures of cycl... more How can the social sciences help us to understand the past, present and potential futures of cycling? This timely international and interdisciplinary collection addresses this question, discussing shifts in cycling practices and attitudes, and opening up important critical spaces for thinking about the prospects for cycling.
The book brings together, for the first time, analyses of cycling from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, sociology, geography, planning, engineering and technology. The book redresses the past neglect of cycling as a topic for sustained analysis by treating it as a varied and complex practice which matters greatly to contemporary social, cultural and political theory and action.
Cycling and Society demonstrates the incredible diversity of contemporary cycling, both within and across cultures. With cycling increasingly promoted as a solution to numerous social problems across a wide range of policy areas in car-dominated societies, this book helps to open up a new field of cycling studies.
Contents: Introduction: cycling and society, Dave Horton, Peter Cox and Paul Rosen; Cycling the city: non-place and the sensory construction of meaning in a mobile practice, Justin Spinney; Capitalising on curiosity: women's professional cycle racing in the late 19th century, Clare Simpson; Barriers to cycling: an exploration of quantitative analyses, John Parkin, Tim Ryley and Tim Jones; Hell is other cyclists: rethinking transport and identity, David Skinner and Paul Rosen; The Flaneur on wheels?, Nicholas Oddy; Bicycles don't evolve: velomobiles and the modelling of transport technologies, Peter Cox with Frederick Van De Walle; Fear of cycling, Dave Horton; Men, women and the bicycle: gender and social geography of cycling in the late 19th century, Philip Gordon Mackintosh and Glenn Norcliffe; Bicycle messengers: image, identity and community, Ben Fincham; Index.
This work argues that the re-assessment of elements derived from Gandhian thought exhibited by po... more This work argues that the re-assessment of elements derived from Gandhian thought exhibited by post-development theory and practice, provides a basis for a poly-vocal and pluralist vision of emancipation. This understanding of emancipation is significant in moving beyond the rationalist legacy of modernist constructions of emancipation to encompass a broader understanding of reason. It incorporates experience and knowledge conventionally described under the rubric of 'spirituality' as viable and emancipatory forms of rationality. The re-enchanted emancipatory vision thus created opens new possibilities for locating non-material contributions to liberatory theory and practice.
Drawing on activist practices and arguments, it locates these within the convergence of a number of academic disciplines and demonstrates how interdisciplinary analysis is essential for understanding the complexity of contemporary social movement activism.
These papers raise searching questions about the nature and implications of globalisation, explor... more These papers raise searching questions about the nature and implications of globalisation, exploring some key features in terms of their impacts on nations and people. Three broad themes are highlighted: key players and processes; consequences and impacts; and response and resistance
This is the author's accepted version of an article published in Viewpoints and included with... more This is the author's accepted version of an article published in Viewpoints and included with kind permission of the British Society for the History of Science. Illustrations courtesy of Deutsches Museum, Munich
In recent years we have become accustomed to speaking of cycling cultures, but frequently without... more In recent years we have become accustomed to speaking of cycling cultures, but frequently without really examining what we really mean by ‘culture’ in this context. This lecture explores what insights into cycling practices can be gained from the work of social scientists who have concentrated on the topic of culture in their work. On closer examination, we can see how issues of power, legitimacy, inclusion and conflict have been central to the study of popular cultures and the presentation is designed to show how these themes can help us better to understand, and therefore respond to, the problems of advocacy. In particular, the lecture addresses how shared practices and common cultures relate to the process of social change and the formation of social movements. Herbert Blumer (1939) classically defined social movements as “collective enterprises to establish a new order of life. They have their inception in the condition of unrest, and derive their motive power on one hand from d...
The author would like to express appreciation for the support of a Leverhulme International Acade... more The author would like to express appreciation for the support of a Leverhulme International Academic Fellowship (IAF-2014-016) entitled “Developing cross-disciplinary research into bicycling and the environment”, undertaken at the Rachel Carson Center for Society and Environment in Munich, 2014/5 and of the sponsors of the Velo-City conference.
Writing began partly in response to Joanna Zylinska’s chapter in minimal ethics and conversations... more Writing began partly in response to Joanna Zylinska’s chapter in minimal ethics and conversations conducted across spaces between strangers. Two starting points, Bauman divorce between power and politics, against the background of his earlier work on the holocaust and modernity, coupled with Ferguson’s critique of neoliberal governmentality as an anti-politics machine. We suggest that it is not simply neoliberal, but all modernist politics that carries antipolitical as its shadow, so that to move forward we need to re-evaluate the terrain of the political and frequently unconsidered normative assumptions about a progressive politics, especially against the backdrop of postcolonial critique.
Chapter published in Spinney, J., Reimer, S. & Pinch, P., (eds) Mobilising Design. Routle... more Chapter published in Spinney, J., Reimer, S. & Pinch, P., (eds) Mobilising Design. Routledge 2017
Kerschensteiner Kolleg, Deutsches Museum, Munich. research made possible by Leverhulme Trust Inte... more Kerschensteiner Kolleg, Deutsches Museum, Munich. research made possible by Leverhulme Trust International Academic Fellowship IAF-2014-016
Recent interest in sensory ethnography has challenged ethnographers to extend their attention bey... more Recent interest in sensory ethnography has challenged ethnographers to extend their attention beyond the visual and into the full sensory world. This paper reports on the experiences of a six-month research project exploring the sensory world of cycle users in and around Munich. It explores two contrasting but complimentary sets of urban journeys, one constrained by streetscapes, and one by greenways and urban parks. The conscious employment of a sensory studies approach assists the researcher to consider how the processes of cycling involve a whole body sensory experience. It also questions the adequacy of the western sensory five-sense construct, which is generally limited to external sensory input and lacks clear articulation of the intra-bodily senses of muscle feel, fatigues and stress. Thus, it begins to unpack the complex of elements subsumed within the general heading of kineaesthetics in recent studies of cycling and walking. Combining visual ethnography - using filmed journeying - with GPS and biometric data, (heart rates and power measurement), more commonly associated with sports training and analysis, provides a different view of the embodied journeying even at a mundane level. These ‘objective’ or ‘hard’ data measurements are also mediated through autoethnographic considerations of the subjective feelings and experiences associated with these ‘hard’ data. A conventional written paper is presented with accompanying film - incorporating data overlay - so that the story of a sample (composite) journey can narrate the findings of the research.
In the interwar period, cyclists, the most numerous road users, came into increasing conflict wit... more In the interwar period, cyclists, the most numerous road users, came into increasing conflict with motorists. The debate around road safety and casualties reveals significant differences between the social and political capital available to different classes of road users, despite their legal equality. Drawing on the coverage of the conflict by the Cyclists' Touring Club (CTC) through their monthly Gazette and on the parliamentary record, this article examines how cyclists understood the problem of increasing accident rates and the solutions proffered in press and parliament to address them. The paper considers cyclists in terms of class, representation, power, and status. It further examines how these factors shaped perceptions of the issues at stake in the safety debate in relation to the governance of road space and the appropriate behaviors and responsibilities of road users.
Recent decades have seen an ever increasing proliferation of cycle designs available to the publi... more Recent decades have seen an ever increasing proliferation of cycle designs available to the public. designs. New materials technologies being applied to cycle construction have enabled the proliferation of designs and the matching of function to new forms through appropriate and innovative use of materials. Changing designs allow new potential uses. This chapter examines this proliferation of design through lenses derives from the sociology of technology to examine some of the implications that this proliferation of choice may have outside and beyond the consumer.
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 2007
The background to de Geus's book is neatly summarized in his opening quotation from Andrew D... more The background to de Geus's book is neatly summarized in his opening quotation from Andrew Dobson: ' the utopian vision provides the indispensable funda-mentalist well of inspiration from which green activists, even the most reformist and respectable, need continually to ...
German translation for Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt by by Gerd Hintermaier-Erhar... more German translation for Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt by by Gerd Hintermaier-Erhard, 2012. Also published in Bangalore by Books For Change
“Repositioning The Social At The Heart Of The Anthropocene: A Transdisciplinary Dialogue”. School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent 30-10-1/11/2016, 2016
The governing logic of the neoliberal world seeks to impose strict policy outcomes without all th... more The governing logic of the neoliberal world seeks to impose strict policy outcomes without all the trouble of political debate. Neoliberal governmentality is constructed as 'apolitical' or, in James Ferguson's words, an 'anti-politics machine', a function of economic science, conceived by experts (such as independent reserve banks, committees and advisors) whose recommendations determine appropriate social behaviours and methods to encourage their practice. Politicians are judged not on their skill in delivering agreement and compromise, but rather on their skill at delivering balanced budgets and economic growth. This sets up an interesting proposition. When the overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists advocate policy to address the threat of climate change, how does neoliberalism react? Counterintuitively, many neoliberal actors have sought to undermine the authority of climate science. This has caused a rift in the governing logic of neoliberalism, as it selectively abandons the 'antipolitics' positivism it is built on. Therefore, the anthropocene as a mode of understanding could present a discursive challenge to neoliberal hegemony, exposing the paradoxes and contradictions that lie within the anti-politics agenda. We argue, therefore that the nurture of moral political debate is a crucial task of an anthropocene mode of understanding, one already emergent in activist movements. While these movements are frequently characterised as anti-political in themselves, we argue that instead they should be understood as prefigurative of new extensions of democracy. Writing began partly in response to Joanna Zylinska's chapter in minimal ethics and conversations conducted across spaces between strangers. Two starting points, Bauman divorce between power and politics, against the background of his earlier work on the holocaust and modernity, coupled with Ferguson's critique of neoliberal governmentality as an anti-politics machine. We suggest that it is not simply neoliberal, but all modernist politics that carries antipolitical as its shadow, so that to move forward we need to re-evaluate the terrain of the political and frequently unconsidered normative assumptions about a progressive politics, especially against the backdrop of postcolonial critique.
International Degrowth and Ecological Economics conference, online 5th - 8th July 2021, 2021
Deep decarbonisation in the transport sector will require dramatic changes to transport practices... more Deep decarbonisation in the transport sector will require dramatic changes to transport practices in the next two decades. In particular, in European contexts of high mobility this will require not just modal shift or a transition to electric cars, but significant degrowth and transformation of mobility systems: from automobility to vélomobility. Existing thinking on the role of cycling in mobility decarbonisation has largely been framed within a pragmatic approach, focussing on urban cycling. This allows the easy fix of short inner-city journeys substitution to produce dramatic and visible results. However, this focus on cycling cities and urban mobility has unfortunate side effects. Over-concentration on high-density residential spaces with immediate local access to services distracts from more intractable problems in peri-urban and non-urban spaces; suggesting that cycling is not a solution for these conditions. This paper argues that rather than approaches to design and planning for cycling that start from an assumption of high-density urban locations, arguments for future low carbon mobility could make a more profound contribution to deep decarbonisation by adopting rural proofing measures. In other words, by examining how cycling, including e-cycling and advanced cycle design, can provide vital transport in the context of more difficult scenarios and longer journeys. Instead of working out how policies for short-distance urban travel might be adapted for the peri- and non-urban, by starting with cycling policies for the peri- and non-urban location, shorter distance provision is already guaranteed.
A presentation providing an introduction to the struggles to work out what approaches can help sa... more A presentation providing an introduction to the struggles to work out what approaches can help safeguard and support cycling in contrasting contexts.
It considers in particular the interplay between cycling technologies and infrastructure and asks how we ensure that we are planning and building for the future and not the past?
Presentation on general themes in planning for supporting increases in cycle use and its importan... more Presentation on general themes in planning for supporting increases in cycle use and its importance for urban futures
This paper considers the way in which both the bicycle as an object and cycling as an activity ha... more This paper considers the way in which both the bicycle as an object and cycling as an activity have varying meanings for different groups involved in the promotion of cycling and for their respective audiences. By contrasting the perspectives of a selection of user groups, health campaigners, planners and manufacturers, potential conflicts are outlined. It is suggested that just as the cycle has been interpreted in recent work, not as an isolated object, but as a socio-technology, bound up in a complex set of socio-cultural relations, so too, users and potential users must be considered within a similar framework. The various actors outlined exhibit a considerable range of understandings of the meaning of cycling and the cyclist. Actions and campaigns to promote the cycle and cycling to a wider audience must necessarily take account of the often contradictory forces at play in the formation of a social image of cycling and to unravel the web that connects the cycle, cycling and the cyclist. Examples will be used to show how advances can and have been made when differing agendas are harmonised, but the difficulty of achieving this should not be underestimated. Awareness of these issues however, should provide ground for more effective advocacy.
Paper prepared for Acting as If: Prefigurative Politics in Theory and Practice, 2021
Cyclovia actions, which involve temporary closure of streets to motor traffic, have been recognis... more Cyclovia actions, which involve temporary closure of streets to motor traffic, have been recognised for a number of years as having significant impact in the planning and delivery of urban changes designed to shift travel away from private motoring. Without wishing to minimise in any way the tragic consequences of Covid-19, the widespread use of lockdowns as a containment tool has similarly cleared many urban streets of the majority of motor traffic. In many cases, vehicle numbers have been temporarily reduced to levels not seen since the 1950s. In any future scenario designed to meet the necessary targets for carbon reduction, significant changes to mobility patterns and practices is required. For scenarios consciously engaged with degrowth in a broader sense these shifts are doubly important. This paper examines how cyclovia (and similar actions) and Covid -19 lockdowns act as experiential prefiguration, transformations of everyday life for a wide population, and their potential as a means of creating insight to possible change and the extent to which they have created momentum for it in a number of European Cities. It expands this to consider the role of such actions in working towards degrowth mobility alternatives as practical possibilities.
Paper prepared for Alternative Futures and Popular Protest, Virtual conference, 7-9 June 2021, 2021
Cycling activism has a long history and today, a global reach. However, the diverse forms of part... more Cycling activism has a long history and today, a global reach. However, the diverse forms of participation used, the organisational (and non-organisational) structures employed, and the variety of forms of engagement with political and extra political processes, appear to represent very different understandings of citizenship and processes of political and social change envisaged by activists. Through a meta-analysis of a wide variety of cycle activisms, this paper considers the actions and selfexpression of activists though their actions, writings and through the networks and organizations they form, in order to understand how these express underlying assumptions (often not formally articulated) that participants hold about the nature and mechanisms of change. It revisits Lofland's work on the American Peace Movement to consider the ways in which diverse activisms with a single uniting feature can be understood as articulations of a range of interlocked and bundled models of change. The paper thus explores the meanings attributed to forms of action by activists themselves and questions simple typological, correlative relationships between organisations, forms, actions and ideology. The paper draws from ongoing extensive empirical study and a history of more 10 years of work with these activist networks in Europe, South Asia, and North and South America. As part of this process of analysis, it also considers the relationship between researcher, activism and activists.
In the last decade and a half cycling has developed a special relation with the field of mobiliti... more In the last decade and a half cycling has developed a special relation with the field of mobilities studies. Following the first edition of Cycling and Society Symposium, organized in 2004 with the assistance of the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University, we have witnessed an increasing multidisciplinary attention to this discipline. In this interview, Cosmin Popan and Katerina Psarikidou invite Peter Cox, one of the initiators of the Cycling and Society Research Group, to reflect on how cycling research has changed and what promises it holds for sustainable futures. Building on Cox's research interests, the interview aims to reflect concern with the turn towards mobility in the social sciences and in particular, the issues of sustainable futures, with the sociology of cycling as key element.
Transport and its place in history: making the connections, 2020
Recent work in sensory ethnography, especially as applied to the study of mobilities, makes exten... more Recent work in sensory ethnography, especially as applied to the study of mobilities, makes extensive use of video recording as a means of making field notes. A body of literature has built up around these mobile methodologies and the practices of interpretation connected with using this data. Drawing on these approaches to mobile methods and visual research the author undertook a six month study to explore the sensory experiences of cycle riders as urban (and peri-urban) travellers. At the same time, investigations were undertaken using conventional analyses of photographic and written archive materials to locate current practices in historical contexts. During the course of this investigation it became clear that there were also film documentary sources that could inform this research. This then raised a question as to whether existing historical film sources could be “read” and interpreted as a form of ‘naturally occurring data’ using the same analytical frameworks deployed for the interpretation of the video field notes captured in the investigation of sensory experiences. This chapter outlines the methodological procedures involved in this analysis and the result of initial attempts to deploy these in relation to historical sources. By connecting approaches developed in the context of digital recording of mobile experience to extant analogue film sources it considers whether such connections can enable a richer understanding of historical mobile subjects. While visual analysis suggests that film-makers’ intentions, especially in framing and editing their subject matter, are always inescapable, interpretative practices applied to digital recordings of public space today suggest there may be value in considering incidental “background” mobilities in historical documentary film and incidentally explains how a critical sociologist comes to be developing historical research tools.
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This paper explores the possibilities and problems inherent in formulating vélomobility as a system, not merely as a vehicular substitution within continued patterns of spatial and economic inequality perpetuated by existing automobilities. It pays special attention to how a mobility system might be aligned with the need for degrowth as a way to think and act beyond the unsustainable carbon economy.
materials, competencies and meanings that comprise a variety of cycling practices. What might appear at first to be self-evident actions are shown to be constructed through the interplay of numerous social and political forces. The book adds to existing research by extending the theorisation of cycling mobilities. It engages with both current and past debates on the place of cycling in mobility systems and the problems of researching, analysing and communicating ephemeral mobile experiences.
"Transport is rapidly becoming one of the most problematic areas for sustainability. The current trends for personal mobility are shaped by the dominant practices of the industrialised nations: the private car as both symbol and tool of the freedom of the modern world. Indeed, in Fordism, part of the very process of twentieth century industrialisation is defined by the rise of the motor industry, its practices and achievements.
However, the demands of sustainability in relation to people’s everyday transport require a radical restructuring of our practices of mobility. The current dominance of automobility as the default mode of transport cannot be sustained in either environmental or social terms. The costs are destructive. Climate change, the destabilising effects of global geopolitics skewed by the demands of oil extraction, localised air pollution, congestion, noise, the severance of communities, the anti-sociality inherent in automobility are simply fragments of the complex and systematic problems of over-reliance on the private car.
‘Transport differs from other problems because it gets worse rather than better with economic development’ (Peñalosa 2005). The words of the former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, provide both the rationale for this book and the starting points for its arguments.
Examining how people move around on an everyday, mundane basis it is clear that there are immense problems wherever we look. Whilst large numbers of people suffer from an inability to access basic services, lacking adequate or affordable transport to reach health care, markets, and access to similar opportunities, equally vast numbers who do have access to means of transport spend their travel time stationary, sitting in congested cities, while around them the air quality is degraded, streets become unsafe, and the transport sector provides an ever-increasing share of emissions contributing to human-induced climate change. These problems do not relate to the degree of development or wealth of cities; they are to be found in different forms across the globe.
The book brings together, for the first time, analyses of cycling from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, sociology, geography, planning, engineering and technology. The book redresses the past neglect of cycling as a topic for sustained analysis by treating it as a varied and complex practice which matters greatly to contemporary social, cultural and political theory and action.
Cycling and Society demonstrates the incredible diversity of contemporary cycling, both within and across cultures. With cycling increasingly promoted as a solution to numerous social problems across a wide range of policy areas in car-dominated societies, this book helps to open up a new field of cycling studies.
Contents: Introduction: cycling and society, Dave Horton, Peter Cox and Paul Rosen; Cycling the city: non-place and the sensory construction of meaning in a mobile practice, Justin Spinney; Capitalising on curiosity: women's professional cycle racing in the late 19th century, Clare Simpson; Barriers to cycling: an exploration of quantitative analyses, John Parkin, Tim Ryley and Tim Jones; Hell is other cyclists: rethinking transport and identity, David Skinner and Paul Rosen; The Flaneur on wheels?, Nicholas Oddy; Bicycles don't evolve: velomobiles and the modelling of transport technologies, Peter Cox with Frederick Van De Walle; Fear of cycling, Dave Horton; Men, women and the bicycle: gender and social geography of cycling in the late 19th century, Philip Gordon Mackintosh and Glenn Norcliffe; Bicycle messengers: image, identity and community, Ben Fincham; Index.
Drawing on activist practices and arguments, it locates these within the convergence of a number of academic disciplines and demonstrates how interdisciplinary analysis is essential for understanding the complexity of contemporary social movement activism.
This paper explores the possibilities and problems inherent in formulating vélomobility as a system, not merely as a vehicular substitution within continued patterns of spatial and economic inequality perpetuated by existing automobilities. It pays special attention to how a mobility system might be aligned with the need for degrowth as a way to think and act beyond the unsustainable carbon economy.
materials, competencies and meanings that comprise a variety of cycling practices. What might appear at first to be self-evident actions are shown to be constructed through the interplay of numerous social and political forces. The book adds to existing research by extending the theorisation of cycling mobilities. It engages with both current and past debates on the place of cycling in mobility systems and the problems of researching, analysing and communicating ephemeral mobile experiences.
"Transport is rapidly becoming one of the most problematic areas for sustainability. The current trends for personal mobility are shaped by the dominant practices of the industrialised nations: the private car as both symbol and tool of the freedom of the modern world. Indeed, in Fordism, part of the very process of twentieth century industrialisation is defined by the rise of the motor industry, its practices and achievements.
However, the demands of sustainability in relation to people’s everyday transport require a radical restructuring of our practices of mobility. The current dominance of automobility as the default mode of transport cannot be sustained in either environmental or social terms. The costs are destructive. Climate change, the destabilising effects of global geopolitics skewed by the demands of oil extraction, localised air pollution, congestion, noise, the severance of communities, the anti-sociality inherent in automobility are simply fragments of the complex and systematic problems of over-reliance on the private car.
‘Transport differs from other problems because it gets worse rather than better with economic development’ (Peñalosa 2005). The words of the former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, provide both the rationale for this book and the starting points for its arguments.
Examining how people move around on an everyday, mundane basis it is clear that there are immense problems wherever we look. Whilst large numbers of people suffer from an inability to access basic services, lacking adequate or affordable transport to reach health care, markets, and access to similar opportunities, equally vast numbers who do have access to means of transport spend their travel time stationary, sitting in congested cities, while around them the air quality is degraded, streets become unsafe, and the transport sector provides an ever-increasing share of emissions contributing to human-induced climate change. These problems do not relate to the degree of development or wealth of cities; they are to be found in different forms across the globe.
The book brings together, for the first time, analyses of cycling from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, sociology, geography, planning, engineering and technology. The book redresses the past neglect of cycling as a topic for sustained analysis by treating it as a varied and complex practice which matters greatly to contemporary social, cultural and political theory and action.
Cycling and Society demonstrates the incredible diversity of contemporary cycling, both within and across cultures. With cycling increasingly promoted as a solution to numerous social problems across a wide range of policy areas in car-dominated societies, this book helps to open up a new field of cycling studies.
Contents: Introduction: cycling and society, Dave Horton, Peter Cox and Paul Rosen; Cycling the city: non-place and the sensory construction of meaning in a mobile practice, Justin Spinney; Capitalising on curiosity: women's professional cycle racing in the late 19th century, Clare Simpson; Barriers to cycling: an exploration of quantitative analyses, John Parkin, Tim Ryley and Tim Jones; Hell is other cyclists: rethinking transport and identity, David Skinner and Paul Rosen; The Flaneur on wheels?, Nicholas Oddy; Bicycles don't evolve: velomobiles and the modelling of transport technologies, Peter Cox with Frederick Van De Walle; Fear of cycling, Dave Horton; Men, women and the bicycle: gender and social geography of cycling in the late 19th century, Philip Gordon Mackintosh and Glenn Norcliffe; Bicycle messengers: image, identity and community, Ben Fincham; Index.
Drawing on activist practices and arguments, it locates these within the convergence of a number of academic disciplines and demonstrates how interdisciplinary analysis is essential for understanding the complexity of contemporary social movement activism.
Existing thinking on the role of cycling in mobility decarbonisation has largely been framed within a pragmatic approach, focussing on urban cycling. This allows the easy fix of short inner-city journeys substitution to produce dramatic and visible results. However, this focus on cycling cities and urban mobility has unfortunate side effects. Over-concentration on high-density residential spaces with immediate local access to services distracts from more intractable problems in peri-urban and non-urban spaces; suggesting that cycling is not a solution for these conditions. This paper argues that rather than approaches to design and planning for cycling that start from an assumption of high-density urban locations, arguments for future low carbon mobility could make a more profound contribution to deep decarbonisation by adopting rural proofing measures. In other words, by examining how cycling, including e-cycling and advanced cycle design, can provide vital transport in the context of more difficult scenarios and longer journeys. Instead of working out how policies for short-distance urban travel might be adapted for the peri- and non-urban, by starting with cycling policies for the peri- and non-urban location, shorter distance provision is already guaranteed.
It considers in particular the interplay between cycling technologies and infrastructure and asks how we ensure that we are planning and building for the future and not the past?
(Slides with attached notes)
(Slides in Portugese, notes in English)
This paper examines how cyclovia (and similar actions) and Covid -19 lockdowns act as experiential prefiguration, transformations of everyday life for a wide population, and their potential as a means of creating insight to possible change and the extent to which they have created momentum for it in a number of European Cities. It expands this to consider the role of such actions in working towards degrowth mobility alternatives as practical possibilities.
At the same time, investigations were undertaken using conventional analyses of photographic and written archive materials to locate current practices in historical contexts. During the course of this investigation it became clear that there were also film documentary sources that could inform this research. This then raised a question as to whether existing historical film sources could be “read” and interpreted as a form of ‘naturally occurring data’ using the same analytical frameworks deployed for the interpretation of the video field notes captured in the investigation of sensory experiences.
This chapter outlines the methodological procedures involved in this analysis and the result of initial attempts to deploy these in relation to historical sources. By connecting approaches developed in the context of digital recording of mobile experience to extant analogue film sources it considers whether such connections can enable a richer understanding of historical mobile subjects. While visual analysis suggests that film-makers’ intentions, especially in framing and editing their subject matter, are always inescapable, interpretative practices applied to digital recordings of public space today suggest there may be value in considering incidental “background” mobilities in historical documentary film and incidentally explains how a critical sociologist comes to be developing historical research tools.