For this Father’s Day – my recommendation has
an extra layer of bikey, grassroots, humanity, community, sustainability,
travel and creative inspiration folded into it.
My hot tip is to get the documentary film One Man’s Tour.
This is a charity documentary about New Zealand’s inaugural Tour Aotearoa. This brevete event was first run in 2016. A brevet is not a race. It is a ride following a set course, via 30 photo checkpoints, which you must complete between 10 and 30 days – no more and no less. It traverses across incredible scenery and landscapes – and you can well imagine the trials, tribulations and magic moments that occur.
The film follows the 260 brave riders who took on this first epic self-supported 3000km mountain bike ride across New Zealand, which goes from goes from Cape Reinga to Bluff.
The movie is inspiring and shows a range of
challenges the riders face. It also shows the inevitable ups and downs that
come with taking on endurance non-assisted bike rides – and this event is no
different. The scenery is breathtaking and makes you want to grab your bike and
book a flight.
Aside from being a great film to watch, you decide on how much to pay for this movie!
All funds raised by One Man’s Tour go to World Bicycle Relief (WBR). WBR gives bicycles to communities in
Sub-Saharan Africa to help locals better access school, healthcare and
stimulate employment opportunities.
In return for the documentary, you decide how
much money to give. When you pay on the link below, you will automatically
receive an email with a link to stream/download the movie.
The film has already raised $1,279 – with the aim to reach $3,000.
This is a great gift to give – for your dad, a
friend, or for yourself.
What’s not to like about supporting family, people, bikes, community and positive living?!
My abstract for the upcoming Pedagogies in the Wild Conference has been accepted!
This is great news because I already have an abstract accepted for the international 2019 New Materialist Reconfigurations of Higher Education Conference(Dec 2-4th 2019) and this conference follows straight after (4-6th December) and is at the same place – the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa).
I am working towards a research trifecta: 2 conferences and fieldwork in the one trip.
This conference is being affectionately referred to ‘the D & G conference’.
That is because it focuses on integrating the work of two highly influential scholars whose work is transdisciplinary and has had ‘epic consequence’ in many fields – Deleuze and Guattari. Gilles Deleuze is a philosopher and Felix Guattari is a psychoanalyst. Some their most influential works are: Anti-Oedipus, What Is Philosophy? and A Thousand Plateaus. They have written extensively together on an array of topics. In particular for my project, their work has been foundational in extending New Materialists understandings.
The Pedagogies in the Wild Conference 2019 is being run for the third time and is solely focused on unpacking, exploring and apply Deleuze-Guattarian thinking and approaches.
As many regular readers of this blog know, my research is complexified by interrogating various aspects of power relations – such as gender in/justice, post-colonialism, and what/who are academic/research/educational ‘experts’.
The session I will be presenting is based on a publication I currently writing with my amazingly brave PhD Supervisor Dr Sherilyn Lennon.
Title: Cycling-with-through-and-on the edge of the PhD supervisor-candidate relationship: A post-humanist bike ride to a different place.
Abstract: Traditionally, the PhD supervision relationship is predicated on a supervisor as expert – supervisee as learner/novice model of knowledge transmission. Most of the supervisory work is performed either on the university campus or via digital channels that allow the ‘expert’ to direct the conversation and establish the performance expectations for both candidate and supervisor. But what might be possible if the formalities and associated materialities of this power structure were to be disrupted and reframed?
This session presents insights that emerged when a PhD candidate and her Supervisor shared a bayside bicycle ride in Brisbane, Australia, to see what would happen. While the candidate was an expert
bike rider, her Supervisor was far less experienced and somewhat anxious about
her (st)ability. The bicycle ride was viewed as a
way of deliberately disrupting and displacing traditional notions around
academic performances, spaces of learning and who gets to navigate.
What emerged was surprising,
revealing and uncomfortable.
The bicycle ride enabled
encounters with/in the world/self that worked to queer the way in which both
Supervisor and candidate understood their relationship. We contend that the
candidate/supervisor relationship is an iterative and dynamic entanglement of
forces wherein subjectivities, bodily performances, past experiences, fears,
technologies, planned and unplanned encounters are forever and always
entangled.
Influenced by Baradian philosophy,
this session focuses on the material-discursive-affective phenomena that
emerged as the experience of riding-with the candidate/supervisor. In this way “systems of entrapment that manifest power relations in the academy” and “instigate codes of conduct and…exclusionary practices that can limit how academic knowledges…are produced” (Charteris et al., 2019, p. 2) are able to be troubled, re-thought and re-balanced.
My PhD Supervisor Dr Sherilyn Lennon and I on our bike ride. Sat. 22nd June, 2019.
What is Pedagogies in the Wild Conference 2019?
Here is more about the conference: The recent #Rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall protests have set South African higher education on a new course towards transformation, focusing on equitable access to higher education, Africanisation and decolonisation.
Similar movements have reverberated across the globe,
addressing issues of neoliberalism, for example in Canada, the UK, the
Netherlands and Chile; racism, as in Ghana and the US; and curfews on women
students in India.
This has raised important questions regarding knowledge
production; continuing structural racism, patriarchy, homophobia and
transphobia; the use and value of western theorists in research and curricula;
and who gains epistemological and physical access to higher education.
On the other hand, we have seen many productive junctures
between pedagogy, education studies and the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari.
In particular, there has been a focus on cartography, schizoanalysis, corporeal
theorising, rhizomatic learning and nomadic thought in socially just
pedagogical praxis.
These junctures and innovative genealogies and
methodologies can both address these issues and be further improved and made
more precise by engagements with what it means to transform and reconfigure
pedagogies and practices in higher education.
Image: Pedagogies in the Wild 2019
My Conference Stream – Topic 2. Spaces, Spatiality and Unschooling
Topic 2. Spaces, Spatiality and Unschooling: Places of/and/un/Learning in Higher Education
How can we challenge assumptions
such as ‘knowledge belongs to experts’ in favour of
materialist/experimental/experiential collaborations in teaching and learning?
Expanded Conference Topic 2
Higher education spaces are usually considered in relation
to how they optimise student learning and, increasingly, how they optimise
marketing potential to attract new students.
In addition, meanings of ‘space’, ‘place’, ‘environment’ and
‘context’ are often elided, and it is taken for granted that learning happens
in classrooms, seminar rooms and lecture halls.
Such discourses take space for granted as a neutral background
on which human endeavour is located.
Unschooling (in a meta sense rather than the narrow sense of
homeschooling) resists this kind of pedagogy in favour of building real
communities and replacing dry, nationalist agendas with different kinds of training
programs, learning opportunities and methodologies, apprenticeships,
internships and mentorships.
Unschooling thus represents a material politics aimed at
genuine social freedom and enjoyable learning. Normative ways of understanding
space and schooling are challenged by Deleuze-Guattarian understandings which,
instead, conceptualise space as an entangled ‘constellation of human–nonhuman
agencies, forces and events’ (Taylor, 2013: 688) within which objects, bodies
and things do surprising and important if often unnoticed and mundane work as
material agents and actants.
Theoretically, such work draws on and takes forward the rich
traditions of feminist and postmodernist understandings of space developed by
Doreen Massey, Henri Lefebvre, and Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy of space and
striation.
This theme therefore wishes to open up debates about higher
education spaces by considering questions such as:
What is the role of architecture, design and infrastructure in higher education?
How might the materialities of higher education spaces and places be conceptualised via inter-, multi- and post-disciplinary frameworks?
How can we take account of the importance of places of informal learning?
How does the iterative materialisation of space-time-matter come to matter in higher education spaces?
How is higher education being spatially reconfigured in relation to global flows of bodies?
Which/ whose bodies matter in higher education spaces?
What new spatial imaginaries are needed for higher education to thrive?
How can feminist new materialisms in its overlaps and divergences with Deleuze-Guattarian philosophy aid us to produce new understandings of space-place-matter entanglements in higher education?
How can we challenge assumptions such as ‘knowledge belongs to experts’ in favour of materialist/experimental/experiential collaborations in teaching and learning?
What kinds of material and affective potential does unschooling offer us for thinking about curriculum development in Higher Education.
There are many organisations around the world
using bicycles to support community development by increasing female access to
essential services like education and health.
Established in 1966, World Vision is a well-known international Christian NGO that has been operating for over 50 years focusing specifically on supporting vulnerable children in need.
Their efforts are streamed towards tackling grassroots poverty, increasing community development, providing relief and advocacy work. They are most famous for their ‘Sponsor a Child’ program which has been running for many years and has been highly successful. World Vision operates in 90 countries, including Australia and has provided short and long term assistance for over 100 million people.
1,300 South Sudanese girls to get bicycles to access education
Last month, I was interested to see World
Vision has expanded their service modalities in progressing child participation,
rights and equity in Yambio County, South Sudan by supply 300 bicycles to local
school girls and young mothers.
As many regular readers know, this kind of
project/context is exactly what my PhD research is looking at* – hence my
interest in this story.
This project is planned to expand to provide
1,300 bikes.
South Sudan is the world’s
newest nation after being formally established in 2011. It is an incredibly culturally
rich and diverse nation that has a very tumultuous, violent and difficult history.
As of 2018, South Sudan ranks third lowest in the latest UN World Happiness
Report, second lowest on the Global Peace Index.
Much of the local
and international efforts in South Sudan are now focused on statebuilding,
capacity development and establishing a
functional and reliable government.
So it is great to hear that bicycles are part of the positive
steps being taken to address some of the central challenges in South Sudan.
Here are more details from World Vision about their South Sudan bicycles-for-girls project:
Josephine Bekita was smiling with
excitement. Her dream to own a bicycle just came true. “Going to school is now
easy for me”, says this future nurse who is committed to study hard and help
her countrymen someday.
Three hundred girls like Josephine and
young mothers received bicycles in Yambio County that will not only make their
movement around town easy but also help create awareness on important issues in
their community. The project aims to provide support to 1,300 girls in Western
Equatoria Zone in South Sudan.
“Thank you, World Vision for remembering us.
We have lost hope and we felt like failures in life because we did not know
what to do next”, says Sinoyosa Agbiamamu, 16. She adds, “We now feel empowered
to move on with our access to education and other services. We shall make
it.”
Another girl, 18-year old Sentina Ngbagida,
was as excited as all the girls waiting at the handover activity. “I want to
become the Minister of Health someday”, she says with a huge smile. She
explained that health is a major issue in South Sudan and she wanted to help
lift up the condition of her fellow South Sudanese.
Talking with World Vision’s Country
Programme Director Mesfin Loha, Sentina was advised to be serious in pursuing
her dreams because that is what the country needs. During the event, Loha
further challenged the girls to work harder, to be active in the communities
and to use the bicycles to better themselves and others.
Gbudue State Minister for Education, Gender
and Social Welfare, Hon. Pia Phillip Michael encouraged the girls to take their
education as a priority and to challenge themselves to be productive members of
their communities, helping in whatever way they can.
“This project provides girls with bicycles
not only ease their movement in the community to access services on time, but
will enable them to do activities to help generate income for their families.
They can also attend vocational training and learn more skills”, adds
Protection Officer Justine Abenaitwe Otim.
According to
Protection Manager Janbo Getu Zewdie said this project works closely with the
Ministry of Education, Gender and Social Welfare and is focused on girls and young
women and aims to form peer-to-peer support groups to motivate them to help
each other and their communities with the help of local authorities.
*I am not working with World Vision in my PhD
research, or any other faith-based aid organisation. All images and part of this
text courtesy of World Vision.
I don’t often directly repost stories on this blog. As a luddite, I am also very wary of social media. But amongst the doom and gloom of news reports, husband found this gem of humanity. It is the story of a former refugee, Mevan Babakar, who was given a bike by a refugee camp aid worker. 20 years on, she still remembers the kindness of the man and the joy of riding the bike. Mevan recently used Twitterverse to track the man down. Although this account is more about the power of Twitter and doesn’t have many details about the bike or what happened after she located him, I still love the idea that the simple gift of a biycle to a child can have such a profound and long-last impact.
It is also a reminder to make the effort to say thank you and/or recognise those who help and support us. Some valuable lessons for us all. This story is written by Maani Truu and was published in Australia by SBS online today. Enjoy! NG.
Thousands of people
have come together from across the globe to unite a former refugee and the aid
worker who bought her a bike.
A blurry film photo, a location and a
touching Twitter post launched an international hunt to find a man who gifted a
young refugee child a bike “out of the kindness of his own heart”
more than twenty years ago.
Now, after more than 3,000 retweets and
thousands of messages, London woman Mevan Babakar is set to meet the man who
made her “five-year-old heart explode with joy” in person.
On Monday, the 29-year-old former refugee posted her quest to Twitter hoping someone would recognise the man who worked at a refugee camp in the Netherlands when she was a child living there in the 90s.
“Hi internet, this is a long-shot BUT I
was a refugee for 5 yrs in the 90s and this man, who worked at a refugee camp
near Zwolle in the Netherlands, out of the kindness of his own heart bought me
a bike,” she wrote.
“My five-year-old heart exploded with
joy. I just want to know his name. Help?”
In under 24 hours, the post garnered
thousands of responses from around the world and on Tuesday evening,
Ms Babakar shared the exciting news.
“Guys, I knew the internet was great but this is something
else,” she said.
“We found him!”
Ms Babakar, who was born in Baghdad,
Iraq, to Kurdish parents, also said she was not the only refugee to be helped
by the unidentified man, known only as “Ab”.
“I’ve also had other refugees reach out
to me and tell me that he and his wife helped them too! Their kindness has
touched so many lives,” she wrote.
“One woman said ‘they weren’t friends
to me, they were family’.”
According to BBC News, Ms Babakar and her
parents fled Iraq during the first Gulf war, passing through refugee camps in
Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Russia before spending a year at the one near
Zwolle between 1994 and 1995.
Ms Babakar is now a tech expert, who currently lives in the UK and she has travelled back to Zwolle to research her family’s past.
Well, it might look a bit whacky and you might feel a bit self-conscious at first, but there is definitely something to the Conference Bike idea.
The Conference Bike (CoBi-7) is a circular, 7-seated bike.
The design and engineering of the frame itself is awesome
and there is certainly something kooky-attractive-oddly alluring about riding
backwards or sideways.
The Conference bike is primarily pitched for ..um…well… conferences…and group initiatives, community and youth shindigs, team-building activities, festivals and other such events – which makes sense because you need (ideally) 7 people to ‘ride’ it.
I like the CoBi approach – they don’t try to hide, explain or defend the bike.
Conversely, they embrace the absurdness of it…as each CoBi has a license plate that says, ‘Hire us for a laugh!’
It is safe to say, I will never go to another conference without thinking of this bike!
Regardless of what you might think initially of the bike – it kind of grows on you.
At first glance, you may dismiss it as tokenistic…but then if you think about it…HELLS YEAH!, it might be fun!!
After all – this blog is all about getting more people on bikes and having more fun!
And you can’t argue with the engineering and quality of the end product – it is schmick!
So, if you want to give it a go – f@rking go for it!
The producers of CoBi-7 have done a great job of extending
and promoting this bike.
There are three free
e-books, some pretty hilarious stories on their a blog, heaps of videos showcasing the bike in
use, details on CoBi Clubs,
info on how to order the bike and other resources and paraphernalia.
The history
of how American artist Eric Staller created these bikes is pretty interesting –
what vision (and balls!)
If you think these bikes are just a gimmick – keep in mind
that many people, companies and organizations are already using CoBis. For example, The Association
of Dairy Farmers of Canada have 2 CoBi-7s that they tour around Canada as a
means to promote healthy living! GOLD!
There are a few
different models of the CoBi. Not all have 7 seats – there is also a Quintette
(5) and a Love Bike (2) in a heart shaped frame.
It’s no joke: the Conference Bike is a revolutionary way to bring people together. The CoBi-7 is pedaled by 7 riders sitting in a circle. One person steers while the other 6 pedal (or not) as the bike moves effortlessly along.
More than 300 CoBies are now being enjoyed by a wide variety of groups in 18 countries. It is a tour bike in Berlin, Baltimore and San Francisco; a tool for corporate team-building in Copenhagen and San Diego, a way for blind people to bike in Dublin and Florida.
They have been
used for fund-raising events and by biking advocacy groups worldwide. CoBies
are being used to transport employees on the Google campus in California; and
as ice-breakers at Vincennes, Stony Brook and Alfred Universities. Every group
you can think of can use a ‘CoBi’ as a tool and a symbol for bringing people
together.
Originally
conceived as an artwork by internationally recognized artist/inventor Eric
Staller, the CoBi makes every owner/operator feel like an artist; behind the
wheel of this bike you see the joy that you are bringing to people.
Increasingly, more people are turning to alternative ways of eating, living and consuming that are more sustainable and enriching.
Cycling has always been part of the green revolution, but one pair of farmers are taking this approach to the next level.
Cycle Farm is an organic farm run by Patricia Jenkins and Jeremy Smith located in Spearfish South Dakota, USA.
As their name suggests – as well as being a functional organic farm, Cycle Farm is particularly interested in using bicycles to facilitate workload and productivity.
They are a working farm, selling their produce to a variety of outlets and farmers markets, as well as being a kind of open/farm visitation/awareness-raising platform for more sustainable farming/consumption practices.
Bicycles are central to Cycle Farm’s philosophy and daily operations.
Most impressive is how Patricia and Jeremy have custom-altered a range of bicycles and integrated their use into all areas of farm operations, like the bike-powered roller-crimper – very inspiring!
Cycle Farm has a blog and website showcasing some great photos and info on what they are up to and seasonal activities.
Here at Cycle Farm, we are very enthusiastic about bicycles as efficient
farm tools. We’re using bicycles to help minimize our off-farm inputs.
Employing bicycle- and human-power and minimizing our off-farm inputs is
important to us for the following reasons.
Conventional agriculture has a huge environmental impact, from the use of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, distributing produce to distant markets, use of heavy machinery, water use and pollution, etc. For us, reducing our inputs forces us to look at our overall ecological impact. For example, we are a human-powered, bicycle-driven operation. We take our vegetables to market each week by bicycle and encourage CSA members to ride their bike to the farm for pick-up.
We are producing local food. Our goal is not to grow food for a large wholesale market, but to serve the community in which we live, Spearfish Valley. Additionally, we are not using a tractor, but instead all farm work is done by hand. This means we don’t have to use gasoline, which saves us money as well as reduces our carbon emissions.
A second reason is
economic; the more we can reduce the amount of things we have to purchase
to run this farm, the more likely we can make a living wage off these three
acres. A tractor, even a small one, is a considerable expense. If we can
do the same work with our hands and with a bicycle, we can save ourselves and
our market that additional cost.
Beyond reducing gas use and our carbon emissions, we are working
toward building soil carbon in our fields with small scale, no-till vegetable
farming. Organic no-till methods are
becoming more and more widespread in larger operations for a variety of reasons
(soil conservation, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, etc.). However,
this has not yet translated into small scale vegetable production, that we’ve
found. We are experimenting with and developing methods applicable for a
smaller scale (0-15 acre) organic, no-till operation (i.e.
bike-powered roller-crimper).
And of
course, bicycles make everything more fun. By moving at a more
human pace, we are getting to know our community better. We can stop and talk
with friends and neighbors in passing. Hopping on a bike allows us to stay
loose and flexible after long days in the field. And there is something
so satisfying about hitting a pocket of cool air on a ride past Spearfish Creek
on a warm summer evening.
However, doing this alone ultimately may not accomplish much
towards addressing pressing global crises. We are enthusiastic about helping to
motivate our community and participating in an exchange of ideas on a broader scale.
Interested in human-powered, sustainable agriculture – then you can come visit
the farm and talk to us.
Lastly, when the farm slows down in the winter, we plan on gearing up a bicycle workshop in the garage. Building custom cargo and utilitarian bicycles and trailers, as well as doing frame repair.
The theoretical framing I am using for my bicycle-education PhD is feminist New Materialisms (fNM). Actually, it is more than just a philosophical perspective and as a doctoral researcher, I have to understand this ethico-onto-epistemological approach super well in order to apply it to my PhD.
I am lucky that my supervisor Dr Sherilyn Lennon is already immersed in this field and has been an invaluable resource and guide in unpacking FNM complexities.
In a recent meeting, I said to Sherilyn that I wanted/needed more time to process and experiment with fNM approaches. I asked her if there was any academic Special Interest Groups (SIG) she knew that I could join. She had been part of an informal fNM SIG previously, but it had disbanded due to lack of official support. So, the opportunity and need was there to establish an official fNM reading/discussion group at Griffith Uni.
Success! We now have an official FNM SIG at Griffith!
We plan to start
with a monthly reading and discussion group and then see what organically
happens as opportunities present and requests are made.
Our first meeting was on Thursday 1st August 2019 and we had 12 attendees.
The first meeting
was semi-structured with the discussion focus being: The emergence of feminist
New Materialisms.
The two stimulus resources
were:
Reading: Pierre, E. S. (2014). A brief and personal history of post qualitative research: Toward “post inquiry”. Journal of curriculum theorizing, 30(2).
We started with a welcome and an introduction of attendees: name, connection to Uni and how we plugged into fNM – and an acknowledgment that ‘matter matters’ to set the scene.
We wanted to keep the discussion open to whatever came up, so we had three questions (traffic light ) for people to think about and write their answers down on coloured post-its. Teachers call this a ‘think, pair, share’ activity, which is great because everyone contributes individual ideas to the collective discussion.
Here are our traffic (green = enabling, yellow= interesting, red =constraining) light questions and responses.
Red responses
Orange responses
Green responses
‘Traffic light’ questions
Then we formed smaller groups to share and discuss
our answers – and whatever else bubbled up.
Each group discussed different aspects and ideas.
We put all the stick notes on the wall to create
a gallery walk so we could pass by and read other people’s thoughts and ideas.
It was a way to see what other groups discussed and it was super interesting to
see what other people were wrestling with.
Sherilyn pulled one idea off the wall for the whole group to discuss in more detail.
Dr Sherilyn Lennon
The time went so quick!
Sherilyn and I wanted the meeting to honour central fNM tenets – like being open to change and what emerges in a moment. I also really like the idea of not just discussing ideas, but also actively and collaboratively producing something original (gallery wall) that did not exist before.
It is very FNM to recognise and (re)produce matter that can only be created in that very particular ‘entangled’ moment made up of the room, ideas, bodies, histories, location, identities, artefacts, concepts and all the other processes and practices that made the meeting what it was.
The meeting was a great start and we got very positive feedback.
It will take a few meetings to get into the
groove, but I like having a semi-structured activity (with an collective production)
that can then opened up and modified as the groups see fit.
We will be having one meeting each month for the rest of 2019 and I am very much looking forward to it!
A massive big thank you to all the participants and to GIER for their support.
Over the past 20 years, New Materialism has become an umbrella term used to represent a range of theoretical perspectives that share the re-turn to a focus on matter. It is an emerging theoretical field that encompasses four main streams: Speculative Realism, Object-oriented ontology (OOO), Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and feminist New Materialisms (fNM).
In the last 15 years in particular, fNM have gained considerable attention as a consequence of a unique approach to considering the agency of all matter. In using such understandings habitual human-centric ways of thinking, doing and being are disrupted as an ethico-onto-epistemological approach emerges. This approach is capable of bringing together multiple disciplines as it redistributes agency through material, discursive and affective forces.
European Universities (in particular Utrecht Uni which has a New Materialism Research Centre) have enthusiastically adopted fNM and are currently the most active researchers in the field. While Australia has a growing pool of fNM scholars, a similar uptake is yet to be seen here. This is surprising considering that the movement has been primarily driven by a number of internationally-celebrated Australian feminist scholars including Rosi Braidotti, Elizabeth Grosz, Claire Colebrook, Vicki Kirby, Bronwyn Davies and Jane Kenway.
As an emerging methodology, fNM is being taken prominently in the field of educational research. Those working in this field are contributing significant insights while laying the foundations for a profound shift in the way we come to understand educational issues, teacher education, and professional and educational practice-based learning.
At Griffith, we have a number of academics working with ANT, but few engaging with fNM. My supervisor, Dr Sherilyn Lennon, is publishing in this space and I am using feminist New Materialist thinking in my PhD. Given the excitement and emerging nature of this way of thinking, a fNM SIG at Griffith University provides an opportunity to directly engage in the discussion and lead a feminist New Materialist Research Group that will brings together PhD Candidates, academics from Griffith and other institutions, scholars and interested parties to more deeply, critically, creatively and actively engage with fNM. The field of FNM is still being chartered. This makes it an emergent and dynamic space in which to be researching.
The aim of this fNM SIG is to:
To build a vibrant and productive community of FNM researchers and professionals who cross-pollinate ideas while growing new research projects
To participate and contribute in this emergent theoretical field
To bring together researchers with trans-disciplinary and cross-institutional knowledge as a means of creating hybrid rigour
To support GU HDR candidates who are using FNM thinking
To grow research, researchers and research practices and networks
Establish Griffith/GIER as active in the FNM space
Leverage and extend Australian feminist scholarship
As the administrator of this blog, I work hard to bring a range of bicycle-inspired news, initiatives, personalities, research and projects where bicycles create more positive social and environmental change. This means I get to read all manner of interesting (and unusual) material from all corners of the world. I love hearing about the various initiatives locally and globally that are working to get more people on bikes. Today, I saw the below article by Anna-Karina Reibold reporting on a recent French mobility law which enshrines cycling as a legal right. AWESOME!! This law signifies a major socio-cultural shift. Among other changes, it will legally require French companies with at least 50 employees to negotiate new measures to improve employee mobility, in particular by subsidising the use of cycling and other ‘green modes of transport’ for commuting. I love the direction the French are going with this! Let’s hope other counties will follow this progressive lead. Read for more details. Enjoy! NG.
Image: ECF
Advocacy Success in France: Cycling Established as a Mode of Transport
Cycling and walking becomes a legal right in France!
After months of fierce debate, the French National Assembly approved the Mobility Orientation Law on June 18th, 2019.
The French Cycling Union (Fédération française des usagers de la bicyclette – FUB) was actively involved in the negotiation of the draft mobility bill and successfully advocated for the rights of cyclists. The FUB dedicated eight months to monitoring parliamentary sessions and working on possible amendments.
Agnès Laszczyk, Vice-President of the FUB in charge of lobbying, highlights: “The draft law on mobility is the very first time French MPs and senators have given cycling mobility the importance it deserves. More than 110 amendments tabled¹ in each house, i.e. 10% of all amendments tabled on the draft law, concerned cycling, with nearly all of FUB’s proposals (31 amendments in the Senate and 16 in the National Assembly) taken into account. Even more significant were the hours of heated debate during the sessions in favour of cycling.”
Creating Cultural Change – Making Cycling Safe and Accessible
Whilst this is essentially a symbolic progress, cycling will be enshrined in the Law, which will provide an excellent judicial pillar. Several changes that build on FUB recommendations can already be identified:
– The National Assembly adopted an official Learn to Ride (Savoir Rouler) educational program to “ensure that every child is able to ride a bike autonomously and safely in public spaces by the time he/she enters secondary school”. The FUB hopes that this will lead to a cultural change in daily mobility choices.However, this change will only be effective if measures are applied universally and made compulsory!
– A new sustainable mobility package has replaced the kilometre allowance (IKV) that could not be combined with other modes of transport. Employers are now able to introduce a fixed and combinable annual package. Figures of up to €400 (previously €200) will be tax-free.
– The maintenance and creation of new cycle routes will become compulsory with the renovation of roads. Over the course of seven years, €350 million, along with endowment funds of €100 million per year, will be allocated to cycling infrastructure projects. Additionally, discontinued cycling routes will become illegal!
– Another FUB advocacy accomplishment marks the introduction of mandatory bike marking, “Bicycode“. The resulting national database will come into force for new as well as second-hand bicycles in 2021. The FUB hopes to take this initiative a step further and inspire more European countries to adopt similar policies by introducing a continent-wide database.
Image: ECF
Let’s Talk about the Bicycle
The FUB has been eager to capture the attention of the public eye and engage with citizens, MPs and the French government in debate.
The successes of the FUB in the development of the mobility law were advanced with the help of the “Parlons Vélo” campaign.
The campaign took force after the presidential and legislative elections in 2017, with the aim of engaging citizens and political leaders on cycling issues.
113,000 citizens were mobilised to participate in the French Bicycle Barometer.
French cities were ranked according to cycling-friendliness after inviting cyclists to share their feelings on bicycle use.
Encouraged by this momentum, the FUB is set to launch a second edition of the French Bicycle Barometer this September.
Image: ECF
These results are expected to play a central role in the debates leading to the French municipal elections in March 2020.
The campaign has also inspired citizens to address the French government and MPs by sending them a postcard in support of pro-cycling amendments. This initiative counted over 100, 000 participants. Finally, an online tool, introduced by the FUB, allowed citizens to make their voices heard by giving feedback directly to their local MP, asking them to support or reject certain amendments.
The Revolution is on the move
Overall, the work of the FUB has had far-reaching impacts and sparked political interest, as it has illustrated the strong will of citizens to create favourable conditions for cycling. As Olivier Schneider, President of the FUB, notes:
“With, on the one hand, the quality of our 95-page white book of proposals on ‘”how to enhance the law to get France cycling’” and on the other hand the reach of our social media campaign (over 15 000 emails sent to MPs!), MPs that we came across were quick to tell us that they had “received FUB’s proposals and were looking at them closely”. Given the anonymity with which cycling as transport has been considered throughout the years, this feels like an exciting and promising development!”
For example, Elisabeth Borne, who has recently taken the position of Minister for Ecological and Solidary Transition, is now very much aware of the potential that cycling holds. “Mentalities have changed” says Agnès Laszczyk.
“Many efforts remain necessary to reach the levels of European cycling leaders, but the revolution is on the move”.
Being a PhD candidate means access to some pretty
cool events. Last week, I attended a critical feminist Arts/Research and
Zine making workshop called Affect, Knowledge and
Embodiment (AKE).
The focus of the workshop was to collaboratively experiment
with sociological fiction, participatory visual methods and zine making as a
way to further explore themes of affect, knowledge, and embodiment.
This AKE workshop is for established social researchers as well as postgraduate students who are interested in a practical introduction to arts/research methods.
In the workshop, we explored ways of practically extending critical and feminist social research– specifically through photos, writing and zine making. These arts practices are valuable for opening up how to critically explore, analyse, collaborate on, and share experiences and understandings of the social world.
The workshop had 3 talks (see abstracts below) – each followed by some activities and discussions: we did three generative writing activities after Ashleigh Watson’s sociological fiction. Then in pairs, we discussed/shared photos we had brought after Dr Laura Rodriguez Castro’s participatory visual methods session. The last session was Samantha Trayhurn’s zine history and culture presentation – and for the rest of the workshop, we worked on creating our own page to contribute to a collective workshop zine.
The idea for the zine was to produce a A4 page that synthesised the pre-workshop lecture by Sarah Ahmed ‘On Complaint‘ (which is incredible!) with materials presented in the workshop – alongside whatever else we wanted to include.
To produce the zine page, no perfection or prior artistic skill required, just a willingness to experiment, explore and express an idea – awesome!
It was great to see what people did for their individual pages – and then to see the final collated product was even more impressive. See link below.
I had a great time at this workshop. It was great to meet new researchers from different fields and different universities. I only knew two other people when I first arrived, but make a point of chatting to those I didn’t know.
It was also great to have a mental and creative break from the usual solitary read-and-write research work that most of us do. And so awesome to collaboratively produce an official publication by the end of the session!
A massive big thank you to Ashleigh, Laura and Samatha for putting on such an interesting and productive session. And to all the participants who contributed ideas, energy, points for discussion and their pages to the zine – it was a delight to meet you all! Thanks!
This zine is a ‘curated sociology’ of photography, research writing and fiction interventions and was published with Frances St Press. AKE Zine is a collaboratively produced critical feminist arts/research publication (ISSN 2651-8724 [Online]).
For more info about the AKE sessions, contact: ashleigh.watson@unsw.edu.au.
Affect, Knowledge and Embodiment Presentations
A Critical Feminist Arts/Research
Workshop Series
‘Working within entanglement: Considering epistemologies in participatory visual research’ Dr Laura Rodriguez Castro
Participatory
visual research centres epistemic questions about power, ethics and
positionality. Drawing from my experiences collaboratively organising and
curating two photographic exhibitions with Campesina women
in rural Colombia in 2016, and with participatory visual projects embedded in
decolonial feminist epistemologies, I explore the entanglement of emotions,
bodies and worlds in academic, artistic, and community research and engagement.
These entangled experiences reveal political and practical implications about
negotiating power, spatiality and creativity. Thus, I also discuss the
implications of considering epistemologies for doing and curating public and
creative research.
‘Sociological Fiction’ – Dr Ashleigh Watson
Sociological
fiction opens important avenues for creativity in analysis and engagement. In
this talk I chart a background of social scientists who have written fiction,
discuss So Fi Zine and The Sociological Review’s new
fiction series, and outline some stylistic criteria for writing and evaluating
sociological fiction. These criteria include characterisation, voice, poetics,
aesthetics, and verisimilitude. Using these criteria I make practical and
conceptual suggestions for aspiring sociological fiction writers.
‘Body/Text/Form: Analogue Zine Making’ – Sam Trayhurn
When French philosopher Helene Cixous declared that we ‘must write the body’ she called for a literary practice that transcended binary classification and spoke from within a spectrum of bodily forms. Here, I will discuss how my investigation into corporeal writing and corporeal philosophy led me to the practice of zine making as an extension of these ideas. In a fast moving digital age, analogue zine making encourages increased presence, and an increased connection between writing and the body, as the physical act of creation manifests itself as a unified object. I will discuss how analogue zine creation is rooted in a praxis of rebellion that questions and challenges political/social norms, and provides legitimate alternative modes of presentation for literary and academic purposes.
After a very difficult fortnight, I find myself reaching for some feel-good, bike-inspired, warm-and-fuzzies.
Nothing fills this spot for me better than trail dogs.
Regular followers of this blog know of my Instagram project #bikes_CISTA (CISTA = Cycling Inter-Species Teams of Awesomeness). This project requires that I randomly meet a troupe that has at least one dog, one bike and one rider – with whom I stop and have a chat with and ask if I can include their photo in my project. This project is my way of celebrating my local dog/rider/bike combos who are out and about in the community – we need more of them!
Like many others, dogs and bikes are my go to medicine for rough days.
