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, 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, 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, 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