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Towards an Intersectional Approach to Men, Masculinities and (Un)sustainable Mobility: The Case of Cycling and Modal Conflicts: From One to Many Tracks
Abstract
This chapter discusses cycling promotion and modal conflicts in public space with a particular focus on men, masculinities and transport planning. It draws on three interrelated examples: interviews with cyclists about cycling, media reports on cycling and cyclists’ online discussions on vulnerability. The first two examples illustrate how men and masculinities can be framed as both solutions and obstacles to achieving more sustainable mobilities through more cycling. The third example demonstrates how cycling implies a particularly vulnerable and conflicting position in the traffic hierarchy with implications for men and masculinities. The conflicts over urban space exemplified here illustrate how traditional transport planning has prioritized automobility and, by doing so, reproduced male norms in the transport sector. It is argued that using an intersectional analytical lens can be a fruitful way to challenge existing norms.
... They insist on forcing a rethinking of the status quo by highlighting the unfairness and problems perpetuated by current arrangements. One example is that of gender violence (Balkmar 2019). The current levels of insecurity in Mexico City have led several public transport services to segregate areas as being only for women and children. ...
Cycling in Mexico City is dangerous. But over the last two decades it has become less so. New cycleways, a large public bicycle-sharing scheme, various government cycling promotion projects and an abundance of official signalling demanding respect for cyclists have made bicycles visible as worthy vehicles on city streets. For cycloactivists, however, such improvements are not enough. Cyclists are frequently harassed, attacked or run over by motorists. Cycloactivists thus demand more and better cycleways as well as increased measures to address injustices in mobility issues across the city. They do so through protests, information campaigns, public performances and academic debates, and crucially, by cycling through city streets. This means that they use their bodies as symbols, to highlight their vulnerability. Along the way, they often break existing traffic rules to highlight how unfair they are and to draw attention to other demands. I refer to their efforts as experiential cycloactivism, which highlights cyclists making themselves vulnerable as a means of denouncing illegitimate rules and policies that need to be changed. I conclude the analysis by suggesting that their style of rule-breaking is a type of ritual with which they seek to improve the city, not burn it down.
... This also falls within the range 0 to 1. There was driven by a substantive body of work surrounding the role of cultural norms in mobility choices and policy formulation [40,41]. Informed by this work, we developed three hypothetical subcultures. ...
Interventions to increase active commuting have been recommended as a method to increase population physical activity, but evidence is mixed. Social norms related to travel behaviour may influence the uptake of active commuting interventions but are rarely considered in their design and evaluation. In this study we develop an agent-based model that incorporates social norms related to travel behaviour and demonstrate the utility of this through implementing car-free Wednesdays. A synthetic population of Waltham Forest, London, UK was generated using a microsimulation approach with data from the UK Census 2011 and UK HLS datasets. An agent-based model was created using this synthetic population which modelled how the actions of peers and neighbours, subculture, habit, weather, bicycle ownership, car ownership, environmental supportiveness, and congestion (all configurable parameters) affect the decision to travel between four modes: walking, cycling, driving, and public transport. The developed model (MOTIVATE) is a configurable agent-based model where social norms related to travel behaviour are used to provide a more realistic representation of the socio-ecological systems in which active commuting interventions may be deployed. The utility of this model is demonstrated using car-free days as a hypothetical intervention. In the control scenario, the odds of active travel were plausible at 0.091 (89% HPDI: [0.091, 0.091]). Compared to the control scenario, the odds of active travel were increased by 70.3% (89% HPDI: [70.3%, 70.3%]), in the intervention scenario, on non-car-free days; the effect is sustained to non-car-free days. While these results demonstrate the utility of our agent-based model, rather than aim to make accurate predictions, they do suggest that by there being a ‘nudge’ of car-free days, there may be a sustained change in active commuting behaviour. The model is a useful tool for investigating the effect of how social networks and social norms influence the effectiveness of various interventions. If configured using real-world built environment data, it may be useful for investigating how social norms interact with the built environment to cause the emergence of commuting conventions
... This also falls within the range 0 to 1. There is a substantive body of work surrounding the role of cultural norms in mobility choices and policy formulation (Balkmar, 2019;Falcous, 2017). Consequently, the first subculture, A, in which modes are ordered cycling, driving, walking, and public transport. ...
Introduction: Active commuting has been recommended as a method to increase population physical activity, but evidence is mixed. Social norms related to travel behaviour may influence the uptake of active commuting interventions but are rarely considered in the design and evaluation of interventions. Methods: We developed an agent-based model that incorporates social norms related to travel behaviour and demonstrate the utility of this through implementing car-free Wednesdays. A synthetic population of Waltham Forest, London, UK was generated using a microsimulation approach with data from the UK Census 2011 and UK HLS datasets. An agent-based model was created using this synthetic population which modelled how the actions of peers and neighbours, subculture, habit, weather, bicycle ownership, car ownership, environmental supportiveness, and congestion affect the decision to travel between four modes: walking, cycling, driving, and taking public transport. Results: In the control scenario, the odds of active travel were plausible at 0.091 (89% HPDI: [0.091, 0.091]). Compared to the control scenario, the odds of active travel were increased by 70.3% (89% HPDI: [70.3%, 70.3%]), in the intervention scenario, on non-car-free days; the effect of the intervention is sustained to non-car-free days. Discussion: While these results demonstrate the utility of our agent-based model, rather than aim to make accurate predictions, they do suggest that by there being a 'nudge' of car-free days, there may be a sustained change in active commuting behaviour. The model is a useful tool for investigating the effect of how social networks and social norms influence the effectiveness of various interventions. If configured using real-world built environment data, it may be useful for investigating how social norms interact with the built environment to cause the emergence of commuting conventions.
... The cyclists do not appear to particularly take into consideration the reduction in safety that may be experienced by pedestrians as a result of them riding on the pavement. This can also be viewed as a reflection of the power struggle within a motorised regime, where conflicts between different groups are reinforced by the material surroundings (Gössling et al. 2016;Koglin 2013;Balkmar 2019). ...
Cycling on the pavement is commonly seen in urban environments despite often being prohibited. This study explores this practice by analysing cycling on pavements in the wider socio-technical context in which it occurs. Using data from two field studies and one questionnaire study, as well as applying a Social Practice Theory (SPT) based analytical approach, the study explores the frequency of cycling on the pavement. The results show that riding on the pavement is common among cyclists. Three main configurations of meaning, material and competence constitutes this practice which is summarised as follows: avoiding the space of the car, increasing smoothness of the ride and unclear infrastructure design. Cycling on the pavement can be regarded as a way of managing safety and risk, seeking more efficient and comfortable paths of travel, as well as the outcome of perceiving the infrastructure as ambiguous. Overall, the study argues that cycling on the pavement is a consequence of skewed power relations between different modes of transport, as well as policies, urban planning and infrastructure not harmonising with demands for safe and smooth travel by cyclists.
... If future cycling politics are to succeed in enabling safe and increased cycling "for all", anecessary next step is to focus beyond access to mobility, safety and personal risk as key challenges, it is also of importance to situate lived experiences of bicycling in the context of social inequalities related to gender, class and race (Golub etal. 2016, 5;Balkmar 2019). In addition, as Batterbury and Vandermeersch (2016) argue, sustainable cycling politics cannot be left with the official "experts" alone; such futures need to be built around different cycling experiences and communities, including those currently "invisible" to planners and policy-makers. ...
The purpose of this article is to analyse the ways in which cycling politics, established bicycle advocates and “new” forms of net-based activism in Sweden imagine and shape future cycling. The study engages with policy analysis, cultural imaginaries, cycling citizenship, power and urban planning in order to analyse expressions of contemporary cycling politics in Sweden, with aparticular focus on the national strategy for increased and safer cycling, launched in 2017. This strategy, including how advocacy responded to the strategy, and topics raised in online blogs, reflects core differences in top-down/bottom-up views on cycling as contested practice: from more pragmatic, policy- and solution-oriented approaches to making everyday cycling experiences political. The analyses address both established and alternative ways of influencing mobility transitions and seek to address the alternative imaginings for everyday cycling that their approaches and strategies suggest. This includes analysing their role in shaping or changing cycling in the future and what these cases may tell us about the sustainability of cycling itself at both local and national levels. It is argued that, while well-established organizations already enjoy aposition of access to planners and policy-makers, it remains important to find ways of including the perspectives of emergent, on-line-based initiatives and blogs, which also formulate critical perspectives on everyday cycling.
Cet article s’appuie sur l’ethnographie d’un cercle d’affaires bruxellois dont les membres sont issus des élites économiques belges. Il traite de la voiture en tant qu’objet personnel et produit commercial, de ses usages et de ses significations pour les membres du Club. La voiture illustre à la fois la place occupée par les membres – majoritairement des hommes blancs dirigeant des moyennes et grosses entreprises –, les privilèges de genre et de classe dont ils jouissent et les discours et les pratiques qu’ils produisent et partagent en réponse à la crise climatique. Après avoir situé le cadre de l’analyse à l’intersection des études des masculinités et de l’anthropologie du capitalisme, la première partie s’attarde sur les voitures de collection, qui incarnent la voiture comme objet masculin et illustrent le privilège environnemental dont les membres jouissent. La deuxième partie traite plus spécifiquement de l’automobilité comme outil de liberté, surtout masculine, et des obstacles que celle-ci rencontre, amenant à penser les altermobilités non pas comme un modèle alternatif, mais comme des prolongations de leurs privilèges spatiaux liés à la voiture. Enfin, la dernière partie, à travers les discours produits sur la voiture électrique, illustre à la fois une vision écomoderne du progrès capitaliste et l’objectif des membres : la survie de leurs entreprises par l’adaptation. Chaque partie analyse par une entrée différente les moyens déployés par les membres pour conserver leur place dominante, en termes de genre, de classe et de race.
In French cities like Grenoble, cycling is an increasingly popular form of urban mobility. Yet a lack of disaggregated modal data makes it unclear who does and who does not have access to biking. An intersectional analysis of 19 narrative and semi-structured interviews with policymakers, residents with different identities, and bike service providers demonstrate that some people perceive unique barriers to biking, related to their identities. For example, this study finds that racism, financial precarity, a lack of accessible information about services, and spatial inequalities may prevent some people from biking despite Grenoble's advanced cycling infrastructure and services and that these barriers may compound for certain people, reinforcing the preliminary body of research on intersectional barriers to urban biking. The study further finds that the lack of disaggregated demographic data on urban mobility in France might be preventing inclusive bike policy. The paper concludes by arguing that local policymakers would benefit from applying an intersectional analysis in understanding who is and is not biking, to promote everyday biking in a more inclusive way.
This article focuses on violence(s) in traffic space as a gendered problem. It draws upon qualitative online studies and interviews with cyclists about their experiences of motorists’ violent practices, including cyclists’ negotiations of anti-cyclist discourses and their coping strategies. It is argued that automobility makes it possible for certain men to perform their ‘right to the road,’ including gender-identity-shaping practices, and that this has the negative effect of violating cyclists’ bodily integrity. It follows that a shift from cars to more sustainable mobilities also demands related shifts in masculinities and men’s practices in the context of transport and traffic.
Detta working paper jämför cykelplaneringen i fyra svenska städer: Malmö, Mölndal, Norrköping och Örebro. För att öka cykelns status i transporthierarkin behöver planeringsfrågor kopplade till cykel finnas med på strategisk nivå. Om cykelandelen ska höjas behöver den kommunala transportplaneringen ta höjd för den bredd av cyklister som ska samsas på den idag befintliga cykelinfrastrukturen, utrymme behöver överföras från den motoriserade trafiken till cykeln och resurser fördelas mer lika i planeringen av olika transportslag. Det har städer som Örebro och Malmö tagit fasta på men mer behöver göras.
This article explores whether women can become the change agents for a sustainable transport sector and how such a change can be accomplished through transport policy. Based on the Swedish case, women still on average have transportation behaviour with lower environmental impact than men have; women also tend to have stronger preferences for improving sustainability in the sector. The results imply that there are interesting behaviour and attitude characteristics expressed by women that ought to be recognised and applied e.g. through contesting prevailing norms and methods, in order to achieve sustainability goals for the sector. Altogether this suggests that women, beyond democracy reasons, should become more active as change agents to challenge the dominant male norms. Policy implications of these findings include measures to improve gender equal participation would e.g. make it possible to take advantage of these differences. Putting more emphasis on the relationships between travel patterns, sustainability and gendering on all levels in transportation planning as a measure for improved sustainability. Implementing new ways of framing the problems to be solved, challenging existing norms working against gender equity and raising consciousness of sustainability issues. Using gender mainstreaming to monitor policy impacts on different groups of men and women. However, today there is a lack of incentives to apply these tools. Since there is a tremendous complexity in the relationships on all levels, more research is needed together with improved dissemination of knowledge for the competence to increase within the transport sector.
The paper investigates the occurrence of non-injury incidents among cyclists in the UK, seeking to (i) generate a rate that can be compared with injury rates, (ii) analyse factors affecting incident rates, and (iii) analyse factors affecting the impact of incidents on cyclists.We collected data on non-injury cycling 'incidents' (near misses and other frightening and/or annoying incidents) from 1692 online diaries of cycle trip stages. 11A cycle trip stage being a part of a trip made by cycle for example, cycling to the train station. and incidents, participants having signed up in advance for a specific day. Following data cleaning and coding, a dataset was created covering 1532 diary days and 3994 records of incidents occurring within the UK. Incident rates were calculated and compared to injury risks for cyclists. Cross-tabulation and regression were used to identify factors affecting incident rates and the effect an incident has on the cyclist.Frightening or annoying non-injury incidents, unlike slight injuries, are an everyday experience for most people cycling in the UK. For regular cyclists 'very scary' incidents (rated as 3 on a 0-3 scale) are on average a weekly experience, with deliberate aggression experienced monthly. Per mile, non-injury incidents were more frequent for people making shorter and slower trips. People aged over 55 were at lower risk, as were those cycling at the weekend and outside the morning peak. Incidents that involved motor vehicles, especially those involving larger vehicles, were more frightening than those that did not.Near miss and other non-injury incidents are widespread in the UK and may have a substantial impact on cycling experience and uptake. Policy and research should initially target the most frightening types of incident, such as very close passes and incidents involving large vehicles. Further attention needs to be paid to the experiences of groups under-represented among cyclists, such as women making shorter trips.
In Swedish regional policy, regional enlargement, i.e. geographically extended labour markets and associated longer commuting distances, is an explicit goal. This is in order to stimulate economic growth and better match labour supply to the qualifications of the population. However, this policy seldom takes gender into account, overlooking the implications of long commuting for individuals and households in their daily living and practice.
The overriding aim of the thesis is to update and deepen existing knowledge about commuting among women and men. A related ambition is also to derive knowledge that could serve an urban and regional policy and planning that advances transport systems and infrastructures better suited for women and their access to the labour market, as well as more equal living conditions for women and men.
The thesis is based on two empirical studies, one quantitative and one qualitative. The statistical study uses Swedish national travel survey data covering the periods 1994-95 and 2005-06 and focuses on changes over time in women’s and men’s commuting. The qualitative study is based on twenty in depth interviews with parents with small children living in the Gothenburg urban region, being highly skilled with specialized labour markets, and recently having moved to a new residential location. This study investigates the crucial role of work trips in households’ daily life and asks what women and men perceive as important when decisions affecting travel distance, travel time and mode of transport (travel speed) are taken. The theoretical approach of the thesis is based on time geography and theories of mobility, accessibility and gender.
Results from the statistical study show that gender gaps in work trips, as regards distance and speed of travel, have converged slightly over the period. However, women still commute much shorter distances than men do, thus having less spatial reach and access to the labour market. Women and men have equivalent commuting times, implying that men in general use faster means of transport than women. The overall (national) pattern of
convergence hides regional variation. A distinct pattern of convergence between the sexes occurs in the Malmö
region, while divergence occurs in the Gothenburg region. Regression analyses show that several aspects related to the individual, and to her environment, affect the work trip distance and time in different ways for women and men. For example, having small children associates with reduced trip time for women, and increased trip distance and time among men, other important factors held constant.
Results from the qualitative study show how important aspects shaping the work trip are clearly gendered. For
example, the wish to have a work place near to the children is more pronounced among women. However, decisions related to the use of a car often give men priority. Also, fairly non-gendered factors shape the work trip, for example housing (location) preferences and the perception of trip time as being useful or not. Work trips made by public transport are experienced as a relief by those who can use the time on board for purposeful activities (e.g., work or rest), but as a burden by those who have no such opportunity. The consequences of long work trips for the household members, as regards household work and caring as well as individual’s free-time activities, depend on type of gender contract of the household as well as possibilities to use certain space-time strategies in everyday life.
In conclusion, the study shows that Swedes are moving towards more gender equal commuting, but at a very slow pace. At the household level, development depends on the how gender contracts are negotiated, and how societal structures (regarding work locations and supply of public transportation, for example) constrain any decision shaping work related mobility.
The purpose of this doctoral study is to bring a spatial dimension into the research on urban mobilities and connect the spatial dimension to the marginalisation of cyclists in urban space. This is been done by exploring the role of urban bicycling and transport planning. The theoretical frame of space, mobilities and power is used for analysing that role through case studies in two Scandinavian cities, Copenhagen and Stockholm. Urban bicycling is a good example of showing the relation between space and mobilities, since cyclists often suffer from marginalised space in cities around the world. The philosophical foundation of the thesis is in critical realism and critical theory. For background data, observations and document studies have been conducted in Stockholm and Copenhagen. The main data collection for
this thesis was done both qualitatively, in the form of interviews with planners and politicians, and quantitatively, in the form of survey studies among the citizens of Copenhagen and Stockholm. The data is analysed with the help of the theoretical framework that builds on mobility studies, spatial theory by Lefebvre, and Harvey and power theories deriving mainly from Lukes’ three dimensions of power. The materialisation of power relations is analysed with the example of modern planning in Sweden and Denmark. Overall this thesis manages to show how cycling as a mode of transport is marginalised in urban space, and that urban space wars between cyclists and car drivers and among cyclists are fought in Copenhagen as well as in Stockholm. The conclusion is that different factors, such as the economic situations in Denmark and Sweden, have affected urban and transport planning and thus have created two very different transport systems, where cycling plays a large role (Copenhagen) and a smaller role (Stockholm). Nevertheless, this thesis shows that even in cities that are very good for cycling, like Copenhagen, the motorised modes of transport create many problems and are still dominating urban space.
Addressing unsustainable consumption patterns is an important target for fulfilling the goals set in , among others , Agenda 21 and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( 1993 ). Gender differences in consumption patterns and their environmental impact have so far been poorly investigated . Gender differ ences in traveling patterns in Sweden are explored using data from the National Travel Survey . Such differences are shown to be large , both in terms of distances traveled , modes of transport , and energy consumption and in terms of emissions of CO 2 . The average CO 2 emissions from mens ' mode of transportation was 53 % higher during 1996 compared to the CO 2 emissions from womens' mode of transpor tation during the same year . This is due to the fact that men travel farther , but also because men travel with more energy - demanding vehicles than women . It is argued that those differences cannot be explained by differences in employment rate , but possibly by differences in sectors of employment , holder of a driving license , income , and car ownership . Gender differences in social and cultural aspects affecting environmental impacts from consumption patterns and lifestyles should not be ignored in further work for a sustainable society .
This article draws on anthropological work among two groups of technical specialists, mechanics in Malaysia and engineers in Sweden. From a cross-cultural perspective, it focuses on and critically examines ways in which masculine bonds are mediated and communicated through interactions with machines, in particular, motorbikes and cars. In these different social settings, technologies can be understood as means of an embodied communication for forming homosocial bonds. These masculine practices continuously exclude women and perpetuate highly genderized societal spheres where men form communities based on passion for machines. Such passion involves an anthropomorphization of the man-machine relationship in which the machines are transformed into subjects in what might be termed a heterosexual, masculine, technical sociability and subjectivity.
Despite its promise of freedom and autonomy, the ubiquity of the automobile has influenced unforeseen ecological, social, and political change. In Against Automobility, a panel of distinguished scholars take a critical look at the contradiction of the automobile.
- A critical account of the impact of the car on society, which is both liberated by and reliant upon motor vehicles.
- Written by a panel of distinguished scholars from varying disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.
- Examines automobility's effect on environmental, social, and political issues.
- Will be of interest to those whose research focuses on geography, politics, consumption and cultural studies, critical theory, and the sociology of objects and everyday life.
This paper analyses 41 qualitative interviews with utilitarian cyclists in Charleston South Carolina to explore their understanding of cycling-related risks. The utilitarian cyclists list a number of risks related to motorist behaviour, such as cars passing too closely, which make them feel unsafe. Thirty-nine out of 41 of the respondents reveal the sentiment that often the risky behaviour of motorists is part of an anti-bicycle culture. This paper concludes that cyclists, in their attempt to make sense of these risks, perceive that the anti- bicycle culture is based on a system of exclusion in which drivers are insiders who belong on the road and treat cyclists as outsiders who do not belong.
To examine the impact of traffic on levels of walking and bicycling. Method: Review of the literature of medical, public health, city planning, public administration and traffic engineering.
The real and perceived danger and discomfort imposed by traffic discourage walking and bicycling. Accurately or not, pedestrians and bicyclists judge injury risk and respond accordingly. Although it can be difficult to measure these effects, observed behaviour provides good evidence for these effects, with the strongest association being an inverse correlation between volumes and speeds of traffic and levels of walking and cycling.
Interventions to reduce traffic speed and volume are likely to promote walking and bicycling and thus result in public health gains.
Cycling is currently the focus of considerable political and public attention in many urban areas. As more and more cyclists claim space on the roads, new forms of political engagement in cycling issues beyond traditional bicycle advocacy have also emerged. Beyond focusing on cyclists’ perspectives and rights, these expressions of bicycle activism show the ways in which bicycles – as potential vehicles for sociopolitical change – are contested political and cultural symbols. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the ways in which bicycle activists and advocates in Sweden construct their politics and practices. Empirically the paper addresses three expressions of contemporary bicycling activism and advocacy: the well-established Swedish national cycling advocacy organization Cykelfrämjandet (Cycling Sweden), the ad-hoc Ghost Bike Sweden, and the online-based Bike Maffia-initiative. The empirical material of the paper consists of qualitative interviews with the leading representatives from each organization or initiative, as well as written and video materials. As arenas for cultural politics, the organizations or initiatives are diverse, exemplifying highly different views concerning conflicts in urban space, strategies for addressing these conflicts, and views of cyclists as subjects of bicycle politics. The paper addresses these issues in a specific Swedish context, also exploring the implications for understanding how political activism is shaped more generally. It is argued that bicycle activism can be viewed as a way of practising cycling citizenship, a perspective that provides a conceptual linkage between new social movement theory and activism more generally.
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.
This article examines Copenhagen cyclists' emotional and “rational” stories about cycling in the city. Copenhagen is branded as a city of cyclists; nevertheless, the car still plays a dominant role in both policy and planning and thus everyday life. This shapes cyclists' stories as well as their praxis. This paper reveals how Copenhagen cyclists contest the role of the car but simultaneously support the automobile system that privileges cars over bikes through their narrations and praxis. This article employs the concept “structural stories” (Freudendal-Pedersen 2009) to reveal how particular rationales are used to explain everyday actions and choices. Structural stories are understood and expressed as universal truths, and as such they create paths for mobilities praxis. The stories also reveal contradictions in the image of Copenhagen and the way that people actually live and move through the city. The article draws on empirical data compiled from several research projects on mobilities in Copenhagen between 2007 and 2013. It suggests ways to further engender cycling in the city.
From the autumn of 2006 and until 2009, climate change was described in Sweden as having apocalyptic dimensions. There was a parliamentary and public consensus that anthropogenic climate change was real and that society needed to take responsibility for lowering greenhouse gas emissions, though a small group of climate sceptics did not agree with the majority of the scientists or the need for drastic changes in the organization of Western societies. This small group, with only one exception, consisted of elderly men with influential positions in academia or large private companies. In this article we discuss how they described themselves as marginalised, banned and oppressed dissidents, forced to speak against a faith-based belief in climate science. They characterised themselves as having strong beliefs in a market society, great mistrust of government regulation and a sturdy belief in engineering and natural science rationality. We contend that climate sceptics in Sweden can be understood as being intertwined with a masculinity of industrial modernity that is on decline. These climate sceptics tried to save an industrial society of which they were a part by defending its values against ecomodern hegemony. This gender analysis of climate scepticism moves beyond the previous research of understanding this discourse as solely an ideologically-based outcry against science and politics, and highlights the recognition of identities, historical structures and emotions.
Every commute practice possesses a different degree and quality of technological mediation. Some mobilities scholars suggest that particular types of modal mediation may either alienate the traveller from, or connect them with, their passing environment. This research draws on forty-six in-depth interviews with drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians commuting in the City of Vancouver, and their commute narratives and GPS logs, to compare the relationships that these participants have with their passing social landscapes. The results both support and productively complicate the theories of modally induced alienation and connection with other concepts such as isolation and marginalization. Intermodal empathy, as formed through multi-mode use, offers hope, at least for mobilities interactions. The article concludes with several policy recommendations.
This book offers a novel approach to thinking about public policy and a new, distinctive methodology for analysing policy. It introduces a set of six questions that probe how 'problems' are represented in policies, followed by an undertaking to apply the questions to one's own policy proposals. This form of analysis, it suggests, is crucial to understanding how policy works, how we are governed, and how the practice of policy-making implicitly constitutes us as subjects.
Although men and women bicycle at relatively equal rates in industrialized countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark, research has consistently found that in the United States men's total bicycle trips surpass women's by a ratio of at least 2 to 1. Current evidence, though limited, suggests that women are affected to greater or lesser degrees than men by certain factors. The purpose of this study is to provide insight on gender differences with the factors that influence the decision to use a bicycle, with the intent of supporting policy development aimed at increasing bicycle ridership, particularly among women. Bicycle use in six small cities in the western United States is examined to determine how gender interacts with individual factors and social and physical environments to influence bicycle behavior. Analysis of data from an online survey using a binary logistic regression approach shows strong interaction of gender with individual factors such as safety perception and household responsibilities and, to a lesser degree, with social and environmental factors to influence bicycle behavior.
This article uses the concept of stigma to explore cycling identities in the UK. Drawing on interview data, it argues that people who cycle are caught between two threats: appearing too competent as a cyclist (a ‘proper cyclist’), and appearing not competent enough (a ‘bad cyclist’). Strategies of identity management are discussed, which can include elements of negotiation, disavowal and challenge. The article aims to show that transport modes can produce disadvantaged and stigmatised social identities: like other forms of stigma these are mediated both by social environments and by other social identities. Implications for policy and advocacy are suggested.
Road safety research has traditionally involved a focus on individuals in which social norms are considered but rarely discussed in detail. Outlining the existing body of research on young drivers in particular, In the Company of Cars shows the contribution that considering road safety from a social and cultural perspective could make to the reduction of death and injury on the roads. It highlights the involvement of driving cultures, as distinct from car cultures, in the social framing of cars and the ways in which they are utilised.
Cultural Critique 61 (2005) 186-214
Cars in the fullness of their materiality and semiotics offer a critical opportunity to analyze the dynamic of social submission. In the human and nonhuman choreography of the road, some people will be passengers, some will die in crashes, some will live with the most unthinkable injuries, and some will tuck in behind another vehicle after the merge sign while another plows ahead. Cars require submission both by consent and by design. Not only the steel itself but pollution, noise, and concrete inevitably push aside would-be users of would-be public spaces.
It would be a mistake, however, to leave these observations to policy makers, since submission implies a working out of power relationships. In American culture, submission, with all of its sexual connotations, seems to be understood as "bad." In looking more closely at the popular culture of automobility, we see this at the level of advertising, where we witness a new level of individuated violence. "As a matter of fact, I do own the road," reads the taglineof a recent sport utility vehicle ad, or a recent Lexus ad illustrates a suburban neighborhood with tanks lined up in the driveways. These offer just two examples of new entitlements to and takings of the semi-public-corporate street spaces as they are made evident in both rhetoric about driving and in actual vehicle designs. Of course, we all cannot "own the road" and so negotiations take place—from the small driver who purchases a compensatory high-riding truck, to the luxury car driver who peels out of the intersection, to the Mini Cooper driver who decides to buy a new brand of communal "motoring."
In the essay that follows, I aim to better understand how the need for submission has been worked out in American automobility. I do this through a reading of a recent Internet advertising film for BMW. Briefly, the ad is presented as a six-minute film, "Star," directed by Guy Ritchie, and available only—but freely—on the bmwfilms.com Web site. This film, according to the write-up on the Web site, pits Madonna against the driver of the BMW (Clive Owen) in a battle of wills. It is the way in which these "wills" are set against each other, however, that is of interest here—for another perspective on the film would hold that the driver merely uses the physics of the car to beat his passenger by driving fast and literally tossing her around the backseat.
"Star" is one of a collection of BMW advertising features. Yet, given the supposedly high creative latitude afforded the directors, it is somewhat surprising that the films themselves follow remarkably stodgy and predictable scripts. The dull storylines may tell us more than we want to know about both the monopoly of a certain type of consumer (wealthy males between ages 35 and 45) on what will count as popular culture as well as this demographic's increasing ability to take as their own a higher percentage of national wealth than ever before. But for this very reason, they provide a concentrated analysis point, for "Star" taps into powerful mythographies. If in one way the film represents a seemingly timeless masculinist, misogynist fantasy stereotype, in capturing that stereotype so unabashedly, a close reading can tell us a great deal about car culture, gender, and technology. The discursive field on which this film depends for its sensibility is framed through many sources: popular films, engineering studies, popular reporting of engineering studies, corporate lobbying, computer games, car chases, and institutions such as law courts. These sources are recursive: just as Ritchie's film relies on them, they rely on the sorts of fantasies purveyed by his film.
Thus, both the film's legibility and its ironic reversals make it an ideal site for better understanding the car as a highly ambiguous gendered space. Its implied simplicity (two people make a journey) belies a deeply gendered heteronormative narrative that underpins American understandings of technology and consumption, safety and security—and influences the ways that these relations play out in everyday life and practices of representation. Specifically, I examine...
Feminists have long known that gender and mobility are inseparable, influencing each other in profound and often subtle ways. Tackling complex societal problems, such as sustainability, will require improved understandings of the relationships between gender and mobility. In this essay I propose new approaches to the study of mobility and gender that will provide the knowledge base needed to inform policies on sustainable mobility. Early in the essay I survey the large literature on gender and mobility, teasing out what I see as two disparate strands of thinking that have remained badly disconnected from each other. One of these strands has informed understandings of how mobility shapes gender, while the other has examined how gender shapes mobility. Work on how mobility shapes gender has emphasized gender, to the neglect of mobility, whereas research on how gender shapes mobility has dealt with mobility in great detail and paid much less attention to gender. From this overview of the literature, I identify knowledge gaps that must be bridged if feminist research on gender and mobility is to assist in charting paths to sustainable mobility. I argue for the need to shift the research agenda so that future research will synthesize these two strands of thinking along three lines: (1) across ways of thinking about gender and mobility, (2) across quantitative and qualitative approaches, and (3) across places. In the final part of the essay I suggest how to achieve this synthesis by making geographic, social and cultural context central to our analyses.
Harassment from motorists is a major constraint on cycling that has been under-researched. We examined incidence and correlates of harassment of cyclists.
Cyclists in Queensland, Australia were surveyed in 2009 about their experiences of harassment while cycling, from motor vehicle occupants. Respondents also indicated the forms of harassment they experienced. Logistic regression modeling was used to examine gender and other correlates of harassment.
Of 1830 respondents, 76% of men and 72% of women reported harassment in the previous 12 months. The most reported forms of harassment were driving too close (66%), shouting abuse (63%), and making obscene gestures/sexual harassment (45%). Older age, overweight/obesity, less cycling experience (<2 years) and less frequent cycling (<3 days/week) were associated with less likelihood of harassment, while living in highly advantaged areas (SEIFA deciles 8 or 9), cycling for recreation, and cycling for competition were associated with increased likelihood of harassment. Gender was not associated with reports of harassment.
Efforts to decrease harassment should include a closer examination of the circumstances that give rise to harassment, as well as fostering road environments and driver attitudes and behaviors that recognize that cyclists are legitimate road users.
As a form of 'active transport', cycling has been encouraged as a route to improving population health. However, in many high-income countries, despite being widely seen as a 'healthy' choice, few people do cycle for transport. Further, where cycling is rare, it is not a choice made equally across the population. In London, for instance, cycling is disproportionately an activity of affluent, White, men. This paper takes London as a case study to explore why the meanings of cycling might resonate differently across urban, gendered, ethnic and class identities. Drawing on qualitative interview data with 78 individuals, we suggest first that the relative visibility of cycling when few do it means that it is publicly gendered in a way that more normalised modes of transport are not; conversely, the very invisibility of Black and Asian cyclists reduces their opportunities to see cycling as a candidate mode of transport. Second, following Bourdieu, we argue that the affinities different population groups have for cycling may reflect the locally constituted 'accomplishments' contained in cycling. In London, cycling represents the archetypal efficient mode for autonomous individuals to travel in ways that maximise their future-health gain, and minimise wasted time and dependence on others. However, it relies on the cultivation of a particular 'assertive' style to defend against the risks of road danger and aggression. While the identities of some professional (largely White) men and women could be bolstered by cycling, the aesthetic and symbolic goals of cycling were less appealing to those with other class, gendered and ethnic identities.
Feminism som byråkrati: jämställdhetsintegrering som strategi
- K Alnebratt
- M Rönnblom
On men and cars: An ethnographic study of gendered, risky and dangerous relations. Dissertation
- D Balkmar
Transportforum, Mobilitet på lika villkor? Om jämlikhet och makt i transportpolitiken [Mobility on equal terms? On equality and power in transport politics
- D Balkmar
- M Henriksson
Myror är smartare än cyklister
- Al Naher
Analysis of accident circumstances, injuries and suggestions for safety improvements
- C Ekström
- A Linder
Trafikslag på undantag: cykeltrafiken i Stockholm 1930-1980
- M Emanuel
Ojämnt krig om stadsrummet
- D Hallemar
Andra cyklister är det som besvärar Malmös cyklister mest
- K Hartley
Att resa rätt är stort, att resa fritt är större: kommunala planerares föreställningar om hållbara resor [Travelling correctly is great, travelling freely is greater - Municipal planners’ images of sustainable mobility
- M Henriksson
Space and sensibility: Young men’s risk-taking with motor vehicles. Dissertation
- T Joelsson
Body-city-machines: Human infrastructure for bicycling in Los Angeles
- A E Lugo
Cyklister i masskrock efter att ha körts på av smitare [Cyclists in mass crash after being hit by getaway man
- R Stigel
Bilister har dålig förståelse för oss cyklister’ [Car drivers’ lack understanding for us cyclists
- E Ternebom
Så blev män i lycra aggressiva cykelkrigare [This is how men in lycra became aggressive cyclist warriors
- O Andersson
Vuxna cyklisters cykelanvändning efter genomförd cykelkurs, en explorativ undersökning om effekten av utbildning på cykelanvändning
- A Aslam
Om miljöproblemen hänger på mig: individer förhandlar sitt ansvar för miljön
- E Dahl
Det är ett krig, I Tell You, Ett Cykelkrig! [It’s a war, I Tell You
- C Gillinger