Cycling Activism: Bike Politics and Social Movements

by Peter Cox

Overview

The first full-length study of cycling activism through the lens of social movement theory, this book demonstrates that, despite tremendous differences, bike activism can be understood as a continuous and connected activity spanning a century and a half and across continents. With examples from street protest to institutional lobbying, it emphasises cycling’s current central importance to zero carbon transport futures, while showing that cycling activism is also not always about the bike or the cyclist, as successive generations of activists have used cycling to articulate different visions of freedom and autonomy. Moving from a consideration of social movement theory as a means to understand cycling activism, the author presents a series of case studies of collective action, organisations, networks and campaigns in order to illustrate and elaborate a theoretical model through which diverse campaigns and approaches to change can be understood. As such, Cycling Activism will appeal to those with interests in mobilisation for social change, mobility and transport studies, and social movement theory, as well as cycling studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000921908
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/28/2023
Series:	The Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest, and Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	302
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Peter Cox is Professor of Sociology at the University of Chester, UK. He is the author of Cycling: A Sociology of Vélomobility and Moving People: Sustainable Transport Development, editor of Cycling Cultures and co-editor of The Politics of Cycling Infrastructure, Cycling and Society, and the Routledge Companion to Cycling.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction

A Genealogy

Aims

Cycling as Politics

A note on language

Section One: Theorising movement activism

1) Cycling activism and social movements

Introduction: Why Cycling activism?

Cycling practices

Understanding collective action

Defining social movements

Context of analysis

Cycling studies

Social movement studies and the politics of knowledge

Configuring a research question

Conclusions

2) Movements, Mobilities and Messy Methods

Introduction

Defining the field of study: cycling is not a "social movement"

Framing activism

Why take action? Achieving goals or simply "being"?

Mobilities and Movement(s)

Social change and agency

Effective action or efficacious activity?

Campaigns and organisations versus lived experience

What is research into social movements for?

Locating the research and outlining method

Ethical reflexivity in cycling studies

Conclusions

3) Models of social change

Introduction: Finding an appropriate interpretative lens

The political subject and practical difficulties of definition

Contentious politics and machismo

Beyond a focus on the state

Outlining an analytical framework

The way of reason and the way of subjectivity

What is the purpose of change?

Change theories in cycling activism

Radar plotting as a tool for analysis and action

Change theories explored

Contagion

Education

Innovation

Institutional change

Disruption

Prefiguration

Application

Separating change theories from tactical repertoires

Further thoughts on prefiguration

Conclusions

4) Ethics, embodiment and experience in social movement research

Introduction

Reflexive research ethics

Activists, academics and knowledge

Decolonising social movements research

Rearguard intellectuals

Practical applications

Co-production

The corpus and the body as epistemological locations

The body and marginality

Emotions and actions

The limits of political analysis

Experiential knowledges

Conclusion: towards an ecology of knowledges

5) Post-hegemonic pluralism, everyday resistance and telling stories

Introduction

Post-hegemonic pluralism in cycling activism

Connecting the elements

Metaphors matter: seeds and bubbles

Bubbles and political alternatives

Infrapolitics and hidden transcripts

Lifestyle movements

Lifestyle activism and bourgeois individualism

Quiet activism

Everyday (quotidian) resistance

Collective action without intentionality

Rhetorical agency

Making Stories

Thinking about the past and using history

Stories and biography in movements

Conclusions

Section Two: Stories of cycle activism

Introducing the case studies

Advocacy is politics

Explaining the case studies

A note on referencing

6) The historic politics of UK cycle activism

Cycles, technology and politics in the latter years of the long nineteenth century

Context: cycling and political activism

The formation of the CTC and its first advocacy

The Road Improvement Association and the Road Board

Industry activism and conservatism

Enclosing the commons of the road

Road deaths in the 1930s

Cycle path controversies

Changing tactics: making protest public

Analysing interwar campaigning by the CTC

Post war campaigns: boom, bust and an uncertain voice

Conclusions

7) Transport Politics, Urbanism, Technology and Counterculture

Changing landscapes of transport policy

The New Left, 1968 and the Right to the City

The emergence of political environmentalism

UK transport politics

Anti-roads campaigning

Bicycle Activism Before the Energy Crisis

The dilemma

Paris 1972 and Richard’s Bicycle Book

Cycling and appropriate technology

After the energy crisis

8) Environmentalism, innovation and entrepreneurship

Introduction

Environmentalism and ecopolitics

Exceptionalism?

Meanwhile, back in the real world…

CTC: constructing environments of cycling

Leisure, pleasure and politics

Building a DIY cycling counterculture

Industry, innovation, design

Spreading the word, shaping the image

Cycle festivals

Wider significance: innovation and change

Conclusions

9) Cycle activism and public space

Critical Mass

Ciclovía

Interpreting mass actions: carnival and heterotopia

The right to the city: rethinking rights-based campaigning

Insurgent public spaces and tactical urbanism

Cycling through the Covid-19 pandemic

Conclusions

10) Activism in political space: institutions and internationalism

Introduction

ECF and international cycle advocacy

Antecedents – International organisation for cycle tourism (and sport)

Formation of the ECF

Changing governance: changing advocacy

From national cycling organisations representation to Brussels

ECF Projects

Cyclelogistics

Cycling and the SDGs

EU cycling economy

The Pan-European Masterplan

Academia and activism in Brazil

Feminist cycling research and activism

Background to Brazil’s upsurge in cycle activism

Challenging problem frameworks

Conclusions

11) Supporting everyday resistance, diversity and inclusion

Introduction

Everyday cycling: just riding

Action on diversity

Connecting varieties of activism

Cycling and autonomy

Bike kitchens and velonomy

Women’s voices in cycle activism

Ghost bikes and emotions

Placing everyday resistance in a larger framework

Conclusions