The major role and relevance of bicycles and cycling to future life seems increasingly unquestionable. On the ground, projects across the world are committed to promoting cycling and/or cycling-oriented subcultures. In both theory and practice, there’s a real energy and vitality to think about cycling differently, to carve out alternative possibilities around the bicycle.
But if cycling is enjoying a renaissance, it is also under fire. Whilst almost everywhere people are pushing for cycling, it also seems that almost everywhere cycling is deeply problematic – contentious, oppressed, discriminated against.
Bicycles, cycling and cyclists seem to invoke love and hate in equal measure …
Bicycle Politics, a two day event hosted by the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster University, UK, aims to explore bicycles and cycling politically. By thinking creatively and critically, its political project is to help push bicycles and cycling further into the hearts of our cities and societies, to improve the possibilities for cycling to re-make our world, to assist cycling’s obvious potential to contribute to alternative, sustainable mobility futures.
To this end, we are calling for critical explorations of the political, social, cultural and economic barriers to current and future cycling, as well as for critical investigations of the ways in which bicycles, cycling and cyclists are currently framed.
We welcome all proposals for papers which fit under the broad heading of Bicycle Politics. Such contributions might examine:
• Cycling and political economies and ideologies
• The politics of cycling ‘promotion’
• Critiques of cycling
• Cycling and discriminations
• Cycling and inequalities
• Cycling, social control, freedom and deviance
• Cycling, space and the politics of space
• Cycling, social movements and social change
• Cycling and identity
• Cycling and the politics of representation
• Feminist perspectives on cycling
• Cycling and the law
The precise structure of the event will be decided later. But we anticipate the first day comprising paper presentations, with the second day given over to deeper explorations of the papers and ideas presented the previous day. Our intention is to produce an edited collection, Bicycle Politics, from the event.
If you wish to present a paper, please send title and abstract, by Wednesday 5th May 2010, to both:
Dave Horton – d.r.horton@lancaster.ac.uk and Aurora Trujillo – a.trujilloperaire@reading.ac.uk
We aim for the symposium and workshop to be free and open to all. However, spaces could be limited. So if you would like to participate, but do not plan to present a paper, please email us to reserve a place.
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