In New York City, numerous food delivery cyclists deliver take-out food to New Yorkers around the... more In New York City, numerous food delivery cyclists deliver take-out food to New Yorkers around the clock. These food delivery cyclists, often Latino and Asian immigrants, are positioned as bad cyclists, who become simultaneously both invisible for bicycle planning and advocacy and highly visible for policing and surveillance. Immigrant food delivery cyclists engage in a performative reenactment of crossing borders as they ride into primarily white, affluent neighborhoods where they deliver food as their bodies become dispossessed and disposable in the process. Our media analysis of food delivery cyclists reveals how the constructions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cyclists are mutually implicated and produced within the interface of bike advocacy, gentrification, transnational capital and displacement, policing borders, and exploitive informal economies. We propose participatory action research and mutual implication as means to create public knowledge by marginalized groups like food delivery cyclists in the pursuit of bike justice.
As an initiative to increase cycling, Bike to Work (BTW) events emphasize a pragmatic approach in... more As an initiative to increase cycling, Bike to Work (BTW) events emphasize a pragmatic approach in which people learn through sensory experience. Pragmatism contends that the lived experience of the commuter within fluid geographies of social and physical conditions informs commuting knowledge and behavior. I researched how bicyclists participate in the 2012 BTW event in Lake Tahoe (USA) and how these experiences facilitate the process of becoming bicycle commuters. My study included participant observations, interviews, video observations, and route mapping. I analyzed this data with thematic and narrative analyses. I find that the BTW event illuminates bicycling, a normally invisible practice in a car world, and creates temporary bicycle-friendly spaces that provide the embodied experience and knowledge of bicycle commuting within context. Through this lived experience, participants can break free from unconscious car-based patterns and become embodied bicycle commuters who engage in active renegotiations of their commuting practices.
Within car-dependent and capitalist societies, the substantial death and injury toll of bicyclist... more Within car-dependent and capitalist societies, the substantial death and injury toll of bicyclists, pedestrians and other road users becomes forgotten by emphasizing personal responsibility for the harm of each car “accident” while erasing collective responsibilities for the cumulative car damage. Since one individual or institution cannot solely account for the aggregated damage, a streetscape of cumulative irresponsibility emerges where the absence of collective responsibilities enables mass harm by cars to become a naturalized burden of everyday life. This chapter explores the production of cumulative irresponsibility in neoliberal streetscapes along with a proposal for reconstructing shared collective responsibility for more complete streets.
In New York City, numerous food delivery cyclists deliver take-out food to New Yorkers around the... more In New York City, numerous food delivery cyclists deliver take-out food to New Yorkers around the clock. These food delivery cyclists, often Latino and Asian immigrants, are positioned as bad cyclists, who become simultaneously both invisible for bicycle planning and advocacy and highly visible for policing and surveillance. Immigrant food delivery cyclists engage in a performative reenactment of crossing borders as they ride into primarily white, affluent neighborhoods where they deliver food as their bodies become dispossessed and disposable in the process. Our media analysis of food delivery cyclists reveals how the constructions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cyclists are mutually implicated and produced within the interface of bike advocacy, gentrification, transnational capital and displacement, policing borders, and exploitive informal economies. We propose participatory action research and mutual implication as means to create public knowledge by marginalized groups like food delivery cyclists in the pursuit of bike justice.
As an initiative to increase cycling, Bike to Work (BTW) events emphasize a pragmatic approach in... more As an initiative to increase cycling, Bike to Work (BTW) events emphasize a pragmatic approach in which people learn through sensory experience. Pragmatism contends that the lived experience of the commuter within fluid geographies of social and physical conditions informs commuting knowledge and behavior. I researched how bicyclists participate in the 2012 BTW event in Lake Tahoe (USA) and how these experiences facilitate the process of becoming bicycle commuters. My study included participant observations, interviews, video observations, and route mapping. I analyzed this data with thematic and narrative analyses. I find that the BTW event illuminates bicycling, a normally invisible practice in a car world, and creates temporary bicycle-friendly spaces that provide the embodied experience and knowledge of bicycle commuting within context. Through this lived experience, participants can break free from unconscious car-based patterns and become embodied bicycle commuters who engage in active renegotiations of their commuting practices.
Within car-dependent and capitalist societies, the substantial death and injury toll of bicyclist... more Within car-dependent and capitalist societies, the substantial death and injury toll of bicyclists, pedestrians and other road users becomes forgotten by emphasizing personal responsibility for the harm of each car “accident” while erasing collective responsibilities for the cumulative car damage. Since one individual or institution cannot solely account for the aggregated damage, a streetscape of cumulative irresponsibility emerges where the absence of collective responsibilities enables mass harm by cars to become a naturalized burden of everyday life. This chapter explores the production of cumulative irresponsibility in neoliberal streetscapes along with a proposal for reconstructing shared collective responsibility for more complete streets.
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