June 2021 - Bicycles Create Change

30/06/202126/08/2021

New Materialisms SIG: Attuning to/in School Data (Wall) Events

New Materialisms is the ‘theoretical framing’ I’m using for my bicycle-centered PhD. Being the co-convenor of Griffith’s New Materialisms (NM) Special Interest Group (SIG) has helped me get a better handle on this tricky and exciting work and think more deeply about how it relates to different educational contexts.

For this month’s NM SIG we are very excited to have Catherine Thiele and Dr. Stephen Heimans as our guest presenters.

Attuning to/in School Data (Wall) Events

In this session, we discuss the process of coming to do research about the use of data walls in schools. We detail the critical qualitative/ post qualitative shifts towards being-with teachers in the affective intensities of data wall research encounters. We detail the theory-methods enacted in attuning to/ in the ‘data-affect-events’ that problematise school-data and research-data practices. This immanently evolving research inquiry destabilises both the critique and valorisation of teachers’ data (wall) practices. In the emerging affective intensities, relational knots and vibrant mattering of data-affect-events, a fielding of attention ‘par le milieu’ of generative (re)emergence arises. Amidst school and scholarly datascapes, the (un)certain affective capacities of data-affect-events are minor (re)beginnings to the flow of thought and being. In these a ‘more-than-metricised’ emerges, thought entangles the ‘nexts’ in the intensities of post critique and post (qualitative) inquiry.

Presenters

Catherine Thiele is an educator, lecturer, researcher and the Professional Experience Coordinator for the School of Education. Since beginning her career over 20 years ago, Catherine has taught in primary schools and tertiary institutions. Through her various academic roles and research interests, Catherine contributes to deeper understandings about the affective experiences of standardized data interactions, preservice teacher preparation (particularly for rural and remote education) and mathematics education. Catherine is currently undertaking her PhD “The affects of effects: S(h)ifting conversations around standardized data”.

Stephen Heimans is a Senior Lecturer in The School of Education at The University of Queensland. He writes and teaches about education policy/ leadership enactment, education research methodology and schooling in underserved communities. He is interested in the post-critical possibilities of Jacques Rancière’s thinking and the philosophy of science of Isabelle Stengers – especially experimental constructivism.

As part of this meeting, we will be discussing: How can we better attune to affect and relationality as educator-researchers?

Session overview

This project puts to work affect theories in practice – in classrooms and schools. I really like these kinds of sessions because they are working at the pointy end of applying theory and ideas into the ‘real world’. There is much to learn from what is enacted, applied and implemented – and what is more conceptual. As a teacher, I was particularly keen for this session as it directly speaks to my professional experiences.

It turned out our presenters were double booked, so we appreciated that they still made time to come to the session and present key ideas (while in the next room another meeting waited for them!).

The discussion that followed the presentation was also enlightening. It was great to hear the non-teaching SIG members talk about what popped out for them and how they might make links to their own research projects that are often so vastly different from high school contexts. Super interesting!

Here’s a 100-word worlding I wrote as a session summary:

Attuning in/to data walls.

I invite two researchers whose conference session I attended to present at our SIG. The topic is ‘attuning in/to data wall events’. Its a small group, but discussion is robust. We unpack the differences (and challenges) between ontological anchors and ontological signposts. Tenticular conversations bloom. The ‘ideological push’ and the in(cap)ability of school (re)research(ers). Datascapes and translator guides. The ethics of making school-our-other data and research public. Destructive emotions and flattening intensities. The role of time, colour and ‘them’ – and how the data always/never lies. Problematising youth, power and publicness is messy and confusing.

Session Reading: For something different, we have The ICQI 2021 Program (see attached) as our stimulus. Have a look through to see what catches your eye and what session you would like to find out more about!

ICQI 2021 Program Download

27/06/202128/08/2021

Visible & Valued: (In)Citing Feminist Scholarship

As well as the erasure of other-than-European contributions within research, I am concerned about the (in)visibility and (de)valuing of female scholarship.

My current research into how bicycles feature in West African girls’ access to education has a strong gender theme – and I read a lot.

Who is writing about West African female experiences is revealing. It is difficult to find literature on this topic written by African scholars – and even less so, work by female African scholars and knowledge holders.

Overwhelmingly, work in this area is by white, European males.

But this dynamic is not exclusive to my field of interest.

Female authorship has always been under-represented – in all fields.

There is historical and current systematic bias in scientific information production and recognition for male scholar-authors, (Mathew Effect), while in comparison, female scholarship is still often ignored, denied credit or goes largely unrecognised (Matilda Effect).

The fact that female scholarly impact is under-appreciated is not new.

And this dynamic impacts men as well as women. Feminist scholars have been writing about this issue for decades. There are many reasons for why this is, including some lesser known implications – such as the fact that male academic authors self-cite 70% more than female authors and that when some women researchers adopt birth name AS middle name or birth name-married name variations professionally, this practice has been shown to have a detrimental impact on the dissemination, publication and citation of their work.

And this is not only an academic issue. There are many international movements working to redress the erasure of women’s current and historical contributions – take Women’s History Month or the WikProject Women as examples.

I was recently invited to join a feminist Reading with Reciprocity project.

The Reading with Reciprocity invite was the perfect opportunity to put into action more publicly, some In(Citing) experiments I’ve been working-with exploring how I might better support, promote and recognise female scholarship in my work.

Two approaches to (In)Citing Feminist Scholarship

In my book response (forthcoming – I will link here when made public), I used two approaches to make academic female contributions more visible.

1. **Including first and surnames for in-text citations**

First, I included the first and surname for all female (and other) scholars cited.

Historically, the academic writing-citing convention is to only cite surnames. It looks like this:

Dunne (2018) ………

..………….(Dunne, 2018).

However this is problematic from a feminist POV given that surnames are patrilineal – bestowed either at birth (automatically deferring to the father’s surname) or through marriage (assuming the husband’s surname).

With no first name to distinguish otherwise, absolute supremacy of male linage and masculine privilege is reinscribed and unchallenged. So, I include the first name of female authors to destablise this conventional and draw attention to, identify and validate – female author within the male (sur)name convention.

This works best for author-prominent citations.

So my citations then looked more like this:

Glenda Dunne (2018) …..

……… (Glenda Dunne, 2018).

2. Include the academic position of female author-scholars

I also included the current academic position of the female scholars cited, not just the honorific “Dr.” as is convention.

Female scholars are far less likely to be called ‘Dr’ or have ‘Dr’ attributed to their name, or they are not taken seriously or even mocked when they do, whereas it is unquestionably applied for males in a similar situation.

“Dr.” is an educational qualification for people conferred with a PhD or doctorate, whereas Assistant Professor or Professor is an academic position grade within the academy – it denotes authority, seniority and status.

Far too often, women are note recognised in attaining the academic standing they have.

So, to counter this, instead of:

In this book, Dunne (2018) explores…

In this book , Dr Dunne (2018) explores..

My work started to integrate something more like this:

In this book, Prof. Dunne (2018) explores..

So now, I try to use more author-prominent in-text citations so I can apply first AND surname (see above) AS WELL AS deliberately insert the academic position of the author.

So now my citations look like this:

In this book, Prof. Glenda Dunne (2018) explores ...

This is definitely an unconventional move.

Academic positions can change if the person assumes a new roles or moves universities. ‘Dr.’ always stay the same (if given at all) no matter where you go, so that is the conventional default honorific.

This meant I had to do a little more research.

I had to look up the scholar and double check each female scholar’s current position for accuracy.

This additional ‘work’ helped keep me accountable to the feminist imperative of going the extra mile to learn more about the women scholars I was investigating and is a good reminder to be accurate and ethical in my representation of them.

I include the author’s academic titles as a deliberate push to draw attention to the advanced positions the female academics cited/referred to have achieved through expertise, knowledge and research. The title of Dr is not adequately meritous for such positions.

This is something I have been doing for a while in my academic work (like publications), but I am usually told to revert back to Dr or remove all honorifics.

(Note: I was asked by the editors of the feminist project I was writing for to add a (foot)note explaining to readers the reasoning for using these approaches as part of my final book response release.)

Else where in my workshops, Teaching and Learning sessions, and on this blog I have progressively been using this approach as my default – see for example: A/P Chelsea Bond BAM! on World Bicycle Day post.

And I will I continue to apply these (In)Citing techniques where ever possible.

My execution of these two approaches maybe a little clunky at times, but that is also because we (are all) so (un)used to a particular type of (In)Citing!

This experiment is also a long-term commitment… and a process – one that will no doubt change, morph, stumble, be updated and tuned up as my feminist engagement, ideas and experience flexes and fades, and expands and contracts.

For me, it is the engaging-experimenting-doing of feminist imperatives differently (such as greater reciprocity and visibility for female scholarship) that is most interesting in this endeavour.

Read well and cite well, friends!

24/06/202113/08/2021

Worlding: Geotracing Data Flavours

It has been a very strange two weeks. I’ve tried to keep quiet and focused: thinking, writing, researching and working. I continue to learn a lot. Every day, I have my mind stretched and pulled in new and provocative ways – here’s a recent example in 100 words.

Geotracing Data Flavours

It’s been a busy week. Guarding alpacas and reading mushrooms. Being caught in a self-important fray with Cynosura. Tangling cosmologies with interrupted futurities to form bubbles that pop and fizzle and boil. Embroiled in sometimes clunky-relations that rely on motley sources. Summer’s easy riches buoyed by interludes of precarity and irregularity. Data flavours explode on hungry tongues, then blow down empty academic hallways, alone and unwanted. Visiting human-disturbed environments, ideas and bodies. (R)Evolutions patchy mimicry. Geotracing daunting resources that nurture the most private sensibilities and desires. And all the while, inhabiting moments speckled with capitalism, shamanism, and wild women.

19/06/202124/08/2021

A handmade plateful of bikes and dogs

Dear Quivering Bee,

I am a community bike rider and researcher living in Brisbane Australia. I live with a gorgeous kelpie named Zoe and a bike named Kissime and we have spent many happy years riding bikes together.

I have a blog and we regularly post about dogs and bikes, see for example:

We recently came across your Etsy page and saw your handmade dog-and-bike plates.

And we love them!

You have a good selection of dog breeds including Daschunds, Retrievers, Boston Terriers and Dalmatians. Some of them have hats or scarves and they ride different bikes.

Very savvy to have different sizes and shapes of plates, platters and serving trays, too.

We love your other bike riding animals – especially the elephants, flying pigs and octopus!

Zoe was delighted to hear customers can custom order for a ‘girl dog’ too – but wondered how that might change the illustration.

Congrats on your impressive range of other designs including, nautical and underwater themes, butterflies, farm animals, florals and botanicals, Alice in Wonderland, heaps of land and sea animals, insects, anatomical body parts and metrics, skulls, and of course bees!

We appreciate the effort you take in hand making each plate in your US studio – and that you have created endearing designs that are quirky and whimsical and have that ‘ye olde timey’/vintage style about them.

On your Esty site, it says your bike-and-dog plates are: artful, fabulously glossy, and highly durable range of kitchenware made out of ThermoSaf® Composite Polymer, which is also:

Microwave-safe.
Melamine-free.
BPA-Free.
Dishwasher-safe.
Formaldehyde-free.
Break-resistant.
FDA approved for food contact and oven-safe to 300 degrees (45 min. or less).

We saw you do request orders too: awesome for custom matching for decor, colour, bike and dog breed preference, use and style.

Will kelpies be added to add to the range? Zoe is happy to help if needed!

We know there are many people who love riding bikes and love dogs – thanks for offering such beautiful, original products that celebrate our combined passions!

We wish you all the very best for you and your business.

Keep up the amazing platefuls of bikes and dogs!

Warm regards, tail wags, and muddy trails.

Zoe the dog, Kissime the bike, and Nina the rider.

14/06/202109/08/2021

Leo Rodgers: An inspiration for cycling

Leo Rodgers is a man who loves to ride his bike.

Leo lives with his family in Tampa Bay (USA) and has become a well-known figure in the community bike scene as a hero for diversity and inclusion after having his left leg amputated following a motorbike accident 14 years ago.

After learning to walk again, he started riding a bike to get around. This soon became an integral part of his identity, mobility and independence.

Leo started getting involved in community bike rides (like critical mass and weekly social night events), then single speeds and fixies and this lead to racing track cycling – and then all kinds of riding.

What I love about Leo and his story is his how positive and relatable he is – he just loves riding his bike.

There is much to learn from Leo’s story about overcoming adversity, being open to trying new things, being bold and brave, perseverance, being true to yourself, leading through example, surrounding yourself with good people, and the profound ways bicycles can change people, break down barriers and transform lives.

I’ve been following Leo for a few years now. I dig his genuine passion for riding all types of bikes, being connected with community and how he stoked he gets sharing his passion with others.

It is just an added bonus that he has mad bike handling skills – endurance, skills, balance, speed, epic track standing prowess and the rest!

You can find heaps of online content about Leo – he’s been in news reports, blogs, articles, cycling documentaries and lots of YouTube videos (just type his name into the internet to see!) if you want to find out more about his story and adventures.

For background: His local paper the Tampa Bay Times published an article by Chris O’Donnell that chronicles his childhood and entry into the cycling world with a level of detail I had not see elsewhere.

On the bike: Peter Flax did a great article for Bicycling on Leo in May 2020 in which they go for a ride and talk about Leo’s cycling history, approach to riding (and life), successes and personal style to come through. (It is well worth the read.) Here’s a little of what Peter wrote about Leo’s bike affiliations

Leo isn’t in a bike tribe—he’s in all of them. He likes to go out at night in khaki shorts and smash it with a fixie crew and he likes to do hard paceline training rides with the local spandex roadies and he likes to go out for gravel epics with dudes who consume a lot of CBD chewies. He does alley cats and pub crawls and off-road centuries. He noodles around the waterfront on a tall bike he helped fabricate.

Leo’s Instagram @slimone1000 show the range of events he is involved in and the types of bikes he rides: track cycling, fixi, tandem, urban commute, street/park, mountain-biking, bike packing, cruising with critical mass, his beloved blue and pink repainted singlespeed bombora, bike riding adventures, events, social meet ups, and good times with friends.

His Instagram motto is: ‘overcoming adversity through cycling’.

As Peter writes: ‘Without explicitly trying, Leo makes a powerful statement every time he pedals through his community.’

What an inspiration for his kids, for the biking community, and for us all.

Image: Bob Crosling for Bicycling

All images are stills from Leo Rodgers is Unstoppable by Bicycling unless otherwise attributed.

09/06/202130/09/2021

Utrecht train station: World’s largest bicycle park

A big thanks to long time reader Betty for recommending this story. Much appreciated Betty! Ride On! NG.

Previously, I posted on projects that support mass urban bike riding infrastructure, such as the automated ECOCycle bike storage facilities located at train stations in Japan (which has a retrieval time of 13 seconds!).

Everyone knows the Netherlands are trailblazers when it comes to bike riding.

Utrecht Central Train Station is a model example of how city planning and design can prioritise and integrate urban biking riding, walking and transportation.

This three-story bicycle park can store 12,656 bikes.

If you have not seen this building before – you need to check it out – it is AMAZING!

(*Apologies for the white space below. It is a tech gremlin I can’t debug!*)

Completed in 2019, this train station is now the world’s largest underground bicycle parking garage, overtaking Tokyo’s 9,000 former largest bike storage capacity.

Utrecht is a medieval city and this building is part of a forward-thinking approach to reducing congestion and pollution, promoting bike riding and making the city more sustainable.

A key feature is the ‘flow of bike riders’ – so you can ride your bike into and around the inside of the building. This means you can ride into the building, park your bike and be on a train in 5 mins or less.

Utrecht train station: World's largest bicycle park. Bicycles Create Change.com. 9th June 2021.

Users ride-into and around the actual building from the street for direct access to bike storage.

The building also has a repair service and bicycle hire outlet.

A digital system guides cyclists to parking spots, to the quickest access to the train platforms, the main terminal building and public square. Paths are clearly signed and thoroughfare is managed to maximise ride-ability (‘flow’), ease, and safety for all users.

As well as ‘normal bike’ storage (which make up the bulk), there are special bays for modified bikes like Christianas, bikes with trailers or modifications and large cargo bikes.

The building is a landmark attraction in itself and is beautifully designed by Ector Hoogstad Archeitecten, who won an award for the design. There are lots of glass walls, skylights and staircases which maximise natural light inside the building.

I’m can’t wait to see more bike-centred buildings like these in the future!

All images and parts of this content sourced from De Zeen.com.

04/06/202130/07/2021

New Materialisms and Mountain Bike Trails

Being a posthumanist, embodied researcher means that I think and do things a little differently from mainstream ‘traditional’ researchers. But I am not the only posthumanist researcher.

It is very exciting to see increasing more scholars thinking, doing and writing posthumanism project.

My work comes under Posthumanism and more specifically New Materialisms.

New Materialisms has four main ‘streams’

Speculative Realism
Object Oriented Ontology (known as OOO)
Actor Network Theory (known as ANT)
Feminist New Materialisms

My Feminist New Materialisms project puts to work Quantum Physicist’s Karen Barad’s Agential Realism.

Each of the New Materialisms streams have different approaches, but overall agree on:

A return to matter and an emphasis on performativity as an appropriate way to return
A new (flat) ontology or theory of being
Focus on and redefinition of agency
Critical or subversive orientation
A related interest in the posthuman and non-human

…which means I get to read some pretty weird and wacky stuff!

…and I love it!

I have seen a couple of bicycle-focused New Materialisms project. Its not surprising given the ubiquitous and beloved role bicycles have in the world – and it is an understandable fit for active people who work with more-than-human bodies-matter… in this case bicycles!

Dr. Jim Cherrington: New Materialisms & MTB trails

What is super excited to see – are the new and interesting variations beyond the bike, that bike-obsessed New Materialists are now working on… and a great example of this is Dr Jim Cherrington’s work. Jim is a Senior Lecturer at the Academy of Sport and Physical Activity in the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

Jim’s work applies New Materialisms to look at mountain bike trails differently.

I know this kind of work is not for everyone…and you can call me an academic geek… but… I think this is awesome! Why? well..because it ….

Embraces the five tenets of NM
Further cements bikes (and all things biking) as a serious focus of empirical study
Is not urban or ‘cycling’ focused as most other NM+bike projects are (not me and not Jim!)
Expands biking scholarship – ie another bike-obsessed NM researcher.
Working on a topic most others overlook
Bringing attention and interest to MTB
Has a regular co-writer/partner and as a team they are prolific
Applies different NM approaches/theories and explains how they feature in different bike riding encounters

….to name a few!

So interesting and so timely

This week I have been working on my data analysis and thinking-writing about the agency of the dirt on rural African school trails – so Jim’s work is a welcome and opportune find.

Below I’ve included three of Jim’s NM mountain biking articles (the last two are written with coauthor John Black).

Warning: Can be a little dense for the uninitiated – theory and jargon heavy in places.

For quick reference, I’ve posted the abstract below or download the full article.

Enjoy!

The Ontopolitics of Mountain Bike Trail Building: Addressing Issues of Access and Conflict in the More-than-Human English Countryside.

In recent years there have been calls for scholars working within sport and physical culture to recognise the (increasing) confluence of nature and culture. Situated within an emerging body of new materialist research, such accounts have shown how various activities are polluted by, fused to, and assembled with nonhuman entities. However, more work is needed on the political possibilities afforded by nonhuman agency, and by extension, the stakes that such flat ontological arrangements might raise the management and governance of physical culture.

Building on research conducted with mountain bike trail builders, this paper seeks to explore what it means to know, to be and to govern a human subject in the Anthropocene. Specifically, I draw on Ash’s (2019) post-phenomenological theory of space and Chandler’s (2018) notion of onto-political hacking to show how the playful, contingent and transformative practices of the mountain bike assemblage confront the linear and calculated governance of the English countryside. In doing so, mountain bike trails are positioned as objects of hope that allows for a collective re-imagining of political democracy in a more-than-human landscape.

Cherrington (2020) Ontopolitics of Mountain Bike Trails Download

Cherrington, J. (2021). The Ontopolitics of Mountain Bike Trail Building: Addressing Issues of Access and Conflict in the More-than-Human English Countryside. Somatechnics.

Mountain bike trail building, “dirty” work, and a new terrestrial politics.

Dirt is evoked to signify many important facets of mountain bike culture, including its emergence, history, and everyday forms of practice and affect. These significations are also drawn on to frame the sport’s (sub)cultural and counterideological affiliations. In this article we examine how both the practice of mountain biking and, specifically, mountain bike trail building, raises questions over the object and latent function of dirt, hinting at the way that abjection can, under certain circumstances, be a source of intrigue and pleasure. In doing so, we suggest a resymbolization of our relationship with dirt via a consideration of the terrestrial.

Cherrington & Black (2019) Mountain Bike Trail Building Dirty Work and a New Terrestrial Politics Download

Cherrington, J., & Black, J. (2020). Mountain bike trail building, “dirty” work, and a new terrestrial politics. World Futures, 76(1), 39-61. https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2019.1698234

Spectres of Nature in the Trail Building Assemblage.

Through research that was conducted with mountain bike trail builders, this article explores the processes by which socio-natures or ‘emergent ecologies’ are formed through the assemblage of trail building, mountain bike riding and matter. In moving conversations about ‘Nature’ beyond essentialist readings and dualistic thinking, we consider how ecological sensibilities are reflected in the complex, lived realities of the trail building community.

Specifically, we draw on Morton’s (2017) notion of the ‘symbiotic real’ to examine how participants connect with a range of objects and non-humans, revealing a ‘spectral’ existence in which they take pleasure in building material features that are only partially of their creation. Such ‘tuning’ to the symbiotic real was manifest in the ongoing battle that the trail builders maintained with water. This battle not only emphasized the fragility of their trail construction but also the temporal significance of the environments that these creations were rendered in/with.

In conclusion, we argue that these findings present an ecological awareness that views nature as neither static, inert or fixed, but instead, as a temporal ‘nowness’, formed from the ambiguity of being in and with nature. Ecologically, this provides a unique form of orientation that re-establishes the ambiguity between humans and nature, without privileging the former. It is set against this ecological (un)awareness that we believe a re-orientation can be made to our understandings of leisure, the Anthropocene and the nature-culture dyad.

Cherrington & Black (2020) Spectres of Nature in the Trail Build Download

Cherrington, J., & Black, J. (2020). Spectres of nature in the trail building assemblage. International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure, 3(1), 71-93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41978-019-00048-w