This is an ongoing initiative that gives an
individual or organisation the opportunity to control the Cycling Brisbane
(@cyclingbrisbane) Instagram account for 7 days.
This is a great way to showcase community
members and local biking groups various interests, perspectives and personalities.
The idea is that participants share their views
of what riding in Brisbane means to them.
This account has guest host takeovers by an impressive range of Brisbane cycling and biking enthusiasts including Colony (BMX), Queensland Police, specific-type-of-bike fanatic/s, school groups, racers, families, local businesses, MTB clubs and more!
Similarly to this blog, my takeover key themes are inclusion, participation and diversity for a range of ages and stages of the community and for all types of cycling.
Ongoing motifs will also be dogs, local personalities, riding for enjoyment, having fun, sustainability/recycling, getting out in nature and showing off my local bayside surrounds.
And of course, lots of photos of Leki my
flowerbike!
To do a @cyclingbrisbane takeover, you can
either contact the organizers (at the link in the IG bio) or you are directly approached
through the local cycling network or because someone knows/recommends you.
From there it straightforward. After you receive the terms and conditions and fill out the consent, then you receive the account login and dates of the takeover
I was contacted directly by the organizers who I
know through various local biking events.
During the takeover, you need to upload between
1- 4 images per day to the @cyclingbrisbane Instagram account.
The idea is that images should be inspiring,
visually appealing and most importantly representative of the great cycling
options around Brisbane.
Content should
align with Cycling Brisbane’s core themes of commuting, connectivity,
discovering Brisbane by bike or active and healthy lifestyles.
You can only upload images and/or videos and
they have to be your own original work.
Uploads need to include the hashtag #cyclingbne
Of course, all content uploaded needs to model responsible
cycling practices. So, you need to obey road rules, wear a helmet and not use a
mobile phone while riding a bike. That’s why there are no selfies of people riding their bikes.
This is a great initiative and one that other organizations might consider doing to increase engagement, exposure and diversity in their social media platforms.
It also makes it much more interesting for those
who follow the account because each week you are getting these insights into the
vastly different people, places and biking lifeworlds that make up our Brisbane
bicycle/cycling community.
Going overseas for a bike tour is a great way to get around, see local sites and keep fit and active.
Increasingly, cyclists are either taking their bikes away with them or are signing up for a localised one or multi-day biking adventure such as ‘bike and cook‘ trips or ‘winery bike tours‘.
If you are planning to book a bike tour overseas, a key consideration should be to check whether the bike tour is officially registered as an Eco-tourism provider.
There is a massive social, economic and environmetal impact difference between bike tours that are Eco-tourist registered, and those who are not.
For Storyteller, Eco-tourism is about uniting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel. This means that those who implement and participate in ecotourism activities should adhere to ecotourism principles.
Ecotourism Principles
• Minimise impact. • Build environmental and cultural awareness and respect. • Provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts. • Provide direct financial benefits for conservation. • Provide financial benefits and empowerment for local people. • Raise sensitivity to host countries’ political, environmental, and social climate.
Image: Storytellers Eco-Bike Tours Cook Island
Cook Islands: Storytellers Eco-bike Tours
Storytellers stand by the principles of Ecotourism. They are the only Cook Islands Eco Tour on mountain bikes.
Storytellers give 10% of profits back to the community for development projects.
Their local storytellers (staff) are passionate and knowledgeable about the local culture, history and environment and love sharing stories of their heritage with guests.
So next time you look at a bike tour overseas, check to see if they are registered as a Eco-tourism operator – this will boost your enjoyment of the tour and help support local communities.
It is my favourite month of the year for many reasons.
It is the best time of the year where I live in Brisbane, the weather is terrific and my garden is flourishing. It is early spring, so it means long warm days perfect for getting out being out riding!
Another great reason is that it is Inktober time again!
Every October, artists all over the world take on the Inktober challenge to produce a piece of work each day for the entire month.
Inktober was first created by artist Jake Parker in 2009. He set it as a challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits. It has since caught on and other creatives now use Inktober as a stimulus to get inspired and get productive: drawers, painters, visual artists, designers, writers, poets, illustrators and more. It has grown into a worldwide event that has thousands of artists taking the challenge every year.
Each year, Jake sets a one-word prompt for each day in the month. This is used to produce a piece of work for each day for 31 days. Many people upload their work online using the official #Inktober or some similiar hashtag/reference to Inktober. Check it out if you’d like to see the range of the work that gets produced.
Of course, being bicycle-obsessed, I am always most interested in the artwork that features bicycles. I love how many artist work bikes into their designs.
So, to get us off to a great start this month, here’s a look at some of the 2019 bicycle-inspired Inktober productions.
First of all, it was Father’s Day in Australia and the weather in Brisbane this time of year is absolutely stunning.
This meant everyone was out and about.
There were two annual kick-ass Brisbane bike events to get this month off to a brilliant start: The Big Push and The Kurilpa Derby.
So much fun to be had on two wheels!
Image: Brisbane Bicycle Explorers
The Big Push
The Big Push is an annual slow roll around Brisbane CBD. It is hosted by Space4Cycling Brisbane and is held during QLD’s Road Safety Week. The aim was to bring the cycling community together and to call on the Brisbane City Council and the Queensland Government to improve riding conditions. At the top of community riding needs are three things: build more protected bike lanes, connect networks, and slower speeds in suburban streets. This is so riding in Brisbane will be safer, more comfortable and more convenient for people of all ages and abilities.
On the day, Leki and I headed down to Kurilpa Park to join a whole lot of other riders. It was an excellent turnout. I’d love to know how many people actually attended – it felt like a lot.
We did a slow roll around Brisbane on a designated route. Leki was in fine form and everyone was in a good mood. After a safety talk and a few speeches, we were off. As we rode, we chatted amongst ourselves, made new friends and waved to passer-bys.
I was very impressed with how many under 10-year olds rode the whole way with their parents. I also loved the dogs in trailers and baskets – nothing says bike safety like two pugs in a tandem bike trailer!
There were quite a few people around the city and the mass of red shirts on bikes drew a lot of attention. We also had a police escort and were waved through some traffic lights, but had to stop at others.
At specific points along the route, we all stopped so the whole group could re-form. I really liked these stops. It was great fun getting to a point and riding into the ever expanding swirling circle. It was cool watching the vortex grow in mass as more riders filtered into the loop.
Bells were ringing, speakers played happy tunes, people were laughing – a joyous mass of people on bikes!
At Parliament House we all stopped for a group photo.
Another great Big Push!
Then it was time to head over to Kurilpa Derby for the afternoon.
Image: Space4Cycling (BNE)
Image: @Spaces4Cycling BNE
The Kurilpa Derby
The Kurilpa Derby is an annual community celebration of life on wheels and happens once a year in West End (Brisbane, Australia).
The Kurilpa Derby began as an expression of community celebration and inclusivity.
Each year there is a parade (bicycles are central to this) and novelty races run at the heart of Boundary St, West End (Brisbane, Queensland). The whole street is closed off and the locals take over. This event was first run in 2007. So this year is the Derby’s 12th anniversary.
The Derby is a community event owned and organised by the @WestEndCommunityAssociation. WECA is the residents not-for-profit community based, member-led association.
The Kurilpa Derby officially started at 2pm, but locals and visitors were already out in force well before that.
There is so much to do at the Derby. The locals block off the main street and take it over. One of the main events is a massive street parade.
The Kurilpa Derby parade goes down Boundary Street (from the Dornoch Terrace Bridge to the intersection of Boundary Street and Jane Street. The street is lined with hundreds of appreciative visitors cheering the parade on.
It is an incredible showcase of the range of skills, creativity, spirit and dreams of those who enter – it truly is a spectacle to behold!
Image: @West End Community
There were parade bicycles representing lots of different perspectives such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, community and music groups, environmental issues like the ocean, plastic, global warming, representations of animals, birds, reptiles and insects, school groups, and heaps of others!
And the bikes! Tall bikes, penny-farthings, home-made bikes, tandems, trailers, trikes and more!
Bikes are a central feature of the street parade – and the colour, thought and effort put into the floats is phenomenal.
After the main street parade, there are heaps of sports and skill demonstrations, fun games and races – some novelty (like the go-cart and kids running races), some more serious (like the scooter races).
Local shops, bars and cafes are packed to capacity and there is music, dancing, eating and laughing emanating from everywhere.
I love the energy and community of The Kuripla Derby – so many kids, families, friends, locals and visitors coming together to celebrate the diversity and vibrancy of this beautiful local community. What an event!
It was a busy, fun-filled, community-centred, bicycle-related day – Phew!
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.
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.
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”.
In this post, we look at a recent publication by Mike Lloyd, entitled The non-looks of the mobile world: a video-based study of interactional adaptation in cycle-lanes.
Mike Lloyd is
an Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies with Victoria University (Wellington,
NZ). His research interests include ethnomethodology, sociology of everyday
life, cycling and interaction and more recently video methodologies.
I initially contacted Mike after reading his article about
NZ MTB trail rage – which was an absolute delight.
Since then, this blog has previously hosted two of Mike’s
articles:
Mike is coming to Brisbane in November for the International Cycling Safety Conference. So we are hoping to go for a ride together! Woohoo!
Image: Mike Lloyd (2019)
Article: The non-looks of the mobile world
In this particular article, Mike examines how cyclists and pedestrians in cycle-lane
space adapt their interactions with each other, paying particular attention to
the role of looking and non- looking as it unfolds moment-by-moment.
Any bike rider will be able
to read and totally appreciate the happenings in this article.
It is very interesting exploring how differences between pedestrians ‘doing and being oblivious’ impact cyclists in bike lanes.
I also like the analytical focus of dissecting action and the absence of looking – or non-looks. Original, interesting and pertinent to all cyclists!
Other key concepts from
this article that stand out are: the gaze to shift another pedestrian, direction
of views, standing in bike lanes, people getting out of cars, pedestrians and
mobile phones, ‘observer’s maxim’ moving for public transport and my favourite:
glance, action, apology.
Creatively, Mike uses video still data from a bicycle Go-Pro to explain key theoretical concepts and outcomes.
His writing is well researched, interesting and entertaining.
This article is valuable contribution
to extend discussions of how bicycles and cycle-lane use feature within
mobility, space/infrastructure and situational interactions discourse.
This
empirical study uses video data to examine interactional adaptation between
cyclists and pedestrians in a relatively new cycle-lane. Existing research on
intersections shows order is achieved through the frequent use of a
look-recognition-acknowledgement sequence. Whereas this is found in the
cycle-lane interactions, there is also an important divergent technique which
on the surface seems less cooperative.
Others are
made to cede space based on ‘doing and being oblivious’, in short, forms of
non-looking force others to take evasive action and subtly alter their line of
travel. Here the dynamic nature of this obliviousness is shown through empirical
examples.
Even though it is not always easy to
distinguish between the two forms of non-looking, it is concluded that ‘doing
oblivious’, whilst possibly annoying for others, is most probably harmless, but
there are good reasons to be more concerned about ‘being oblivious’, for it may
lead to collisions between pedestrians and cyclists.
Aspects of
non-looking provide an important addition to knowledge of the mobile world,
suggesting we renew attention to specific sites where people concert their
movements in minutely detailed ways.
I got an email yesterday saying that my abstract submission for the 10th Annual New Materialisms Conference of Reconfiguring Higher Education has been accepted!
Woohoo!
This conference will be held at University of the Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa) from 2-4 December 2019.
This is great news!
I have been working furiously on my Ethics Submission. Ethics continues to be an epic mission because of the international fieldwork aspect where I will be bike riding with locals (the Ethics board want Risk Assessments, Ethics for me, the project and the locals). This means an added level of evaluation, justification and paperwork, more so than if I just had local Brisbane participants. But I am up for the challenge!
So for this event, aside from the opportunity to participate in an international theory/practice conference, I am also engineering this trip to work in with my fieldwork.
I am very excited! There are a few big NM names also presenting, including:
Conference Streams
There are 6 conference streams this year. They are:
New materialities, decolonialities, indigenous knowledges
Slow scholarship
Arts-based pedagogies/research in HE
Neurotypicality, the undercommons and HE
New materialist reconfigurings of methodology in HE
Political ethics of care, the politics of affect, and socially just pedagogies
Image: Macro Morocco
My Abstract
Title: An athlete-teacher-researcher mountain bike race (re)turned: entangled becoming-riding-with
In this paper, I share how engaging with new materialist approaches have enabled me to think deeply and disruptively about my unfolding athlete-teacher-researcher performativities and methodology. Using as a starting point a ‘moment of rupture’ (Lennon, 2017) during a popular female-only mountain bike race, I problematize how representation, subjectivity and embodiment matters in my research with respect to my own athlete-teacher-researcher-becoming entanglements. In doing this, I draw on Wanda Pillow’s (2003) concept of ‘reflexivities of discomfort’ and Karen Barad’s (2014) diffractive ‘cut together-apart’ to reframe critical becoming-riding-with moments in alternative ways. In doing so, I delve into some messy and destabilizing ways of becoming-to-know and knowing as I continue to experiment with foregrounding the agential force of bicycles within my research unfolding.
Image: Pxhere
Conference Info.
Taken from the official conference website: Annual New Materialisms Conferences have been organised since 2009 by an international group of scholars who received the EU’s H2020 funding from 2014–18.
The conferences are meant to develop, discuss and communicate new materialisms’ conceptual and methodological innovations, and to stimulate discussion among new materialist scholars and students about themes and phenomena that are dear to the hosting local research community as well as interdisciplinary new materialist scholarship.
After having visited many cities across Europe, as well as Melbourne (Australia), the conference will come to Cape Town (South Africa) in 2019 in order to discuss the dynamic higher education landscape that we find ourselves in today. The recent #Rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall protests have, in particular, set South African higher education on a new course towards transformation, focusing on equitable access to higher education, Africanisation and decolonisation.
This has raised important questions regarding knowledge production beyond the South African context, particularly in relation to the use and value of western theorists in local research and curricula, as well as who gains epistemological and physical access to higher education.
On the other hand, we have seen many productive junctures between pedagogy and the new materialisms, including the use of Deleuze and Guattari in education studies. 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 as well as be further improved and made more precise by engagements with transformation toward accessible, Africanised and decolonised curricula, and research agendas and practices.
It seems fitting, then, that the 3rd South African Deleuze and Guattari Studies Conferencewill be held directly after the 10th Annual New Materialisms Conference as we grapple, together, towards new ways of being and seeing in relation to higher education.
