Phd Archives - Page 4 of 7

30/08/202001/02/2021

New Materialisms SIG: Janis Hanley – Culture, milieu, and territories

As many readers know, I am using Feminist New Materialisms (FNM) as my framing for my bicycles-for-education PhD project. FNM is a wonderfully rich and challenging approach to be working with. To help deepen my understandings of NM, this year I have been working as the co-convenor (alongside the amazing Dr Sherilyn Lennon) of Griffith’s Uni New Materialisms Special Interest Group (SIG). Each month, we meet to discuss NM approaches, readings ad applications. We do writing and process activities to help activate and stretch our NM understandings and have an invited guest present to broaden our ideas for working with NMs. Click here to see our other New Materialisms sessions.

This post shares some highlights from this month’s NM meeting where we had Janis Hanley (Social Science PhD candidate) presenting on Milieu, Territory, Atmosphere, Agency & Culture.

See more incredible work by Janis at her Local Yarns blog.

New Materialisms SIG: Janis Hanley - Culture, milieu, and territories. Bicycles Create Change.com 30th August 2020. — Image: Digital Rhetoric Collaborative

Janis Hanley – Milieu, Territory, Atmosphere, Agency & Culture.

Abstract: For some time now I’ve been exploring ways to conceptualise organisational culture, and safety culture in relation to organisations as assemblages – both for my PhD project and assisting in WHS research. The ideas I’m currently playing with are milieu and affective atmospheres. This work is for a journal paper presenting a case study of safety at a regional coal fired powerplant (scheduled to be phased out), based on ethnographic interviews conducted by Dr Tristan Casey and myself, about a year ago.

Tristan, a workplace, health and safety expert at Griffith, led the project, and is the co-author. The ideas around this paper are being presented here to test it out as a work in progress, and as a practical application. I hope it will help stimulate discussion around these concepts, and be practical for you in terms of considering your own research. Do these concepts resonate with your research? What new things might they reveal?

The Readings

Wise (2010) Home, Territory and Identity Download

Bennett (2005) The Agency of Assemblages and the North American Blackout Download

What we did: the SIG meeting

This meeting was really great. In a meeting prior to the session, Janis and I discussed the abstract and how best to organise the session. We ended up pivoting from the original abstract and instead, Janis ran us though some of her milleu work from her current PhD project.

This was a really interesting session (aren’t they all!?!). Janis took us on a creative and analytical exploration of milieu, territory, atmosphere, agency & culture. Using some written and visual excerpts from her current PhD research-in-progress on the historical Queensland textile industry, Janis provoked us to consider how milieu, chi, concepts of ‘home’ and atmosphere resonated with us and in our research.

Stand out aspects of this discussion were divergent responses to a piano, political graffiti in a factory and participant appreciation of Janis’s diagrams that showed the ‘bite of elliptical surfboards’.

We also did a number of individual and collaborative activities that helped activate and draw out some points for discussion. I found these to very revealing and generative. You never know what to example or what might emerge – but it is always something unusual and interesting. I took a lot away from this session and it gave me much to think about in regard to how atmosphere, milieu and conceptions of ‘home’ feature in my own work and life. Very provocative.

We also did a writing activity. This is one of my favourite things to do I n the SIG as it really helps me try and apply and explain NM considerations in writing, which is a critical skill I need for writing up my dissertation – so any help, practice and feedback I can get with this is very welcomed.

The writing activity we did was for us to write for 10 mins and then share and discuss interesting aspects that emerged. Below was our stimulus for this task.

Writing Activity:
Think about the layer of milieu or territory in your research.
Write a 100 word or so autoethnographic piece inspired by your musings.

Below are some snapshots of our discussions and a draft of this session’s writing activity.

30/07/202027/08/2020

New Materialisms SIG: PlayTank Collective

For this session, we were delighted to have incredible minds behind the Melbourne-based PlayTank Collective – Alicia Flynn, Sarah Healy and Allie Edwards present a session entitled: Lessons from the Play Tank: Adventures in playful scholarship.

New Materialism SIG: The PlayTank Collective. Bicycles Create Change.com 30th July 2020.

Abstract

In this session, we will discuss a workshop that was created to enact NM theories and provide a playful and collaborative space to re-think, re-imagine, re-( ) research for participants at the AARE 2019 conference. Working between the disciplines of art education and design, we embraced the opportunity to create this workshop in a way that attended to the joys and curiosities that we experienced while working/playing together in a material way. This collaboration was intentionally responsive and response-able, allowing us to experience a different way of being academics together, and enabling us to create a workshop that offered the same opportunity for those joining us in our session.

We will share some of the insights from our process of creating the workshop, some highlights and images from the workshop, and pose the question we now have:

What does this workshop make possible, both for us as researchers and for the people who participated in it?

Is this a method that allows people to practice more affirmative and ethical ways of working/playing/being together?

Twitter: @PlayTankCo

Alicia Flynn @LeishFly

Sarah Healy- @eduTH1NK

Alli Edwards – @allinote

Session highlights

Sarah and Alli (and Alicia) not only presented, but also took us on an engaging 2-hour journey through their ideas, inspirations, readings, discussions and no less than two 100s (Stewart, 2010) writing activities (see image) and left us with the enticing thought:

What does this experience make possible, both for us as researchers and for the people who participated in it?

Part of the framing for this session was this incredible piece that Alicia read out:

“Imagine a pattern. This pattern is stable, but not fixed. Think of it in as many dimensions as you like – but it has more than three. This pattern has many threads of many colours, and every thread is connected to, and has a relationship with, all the others. The individual threads are every shape of life. Some – like human, kangaroo, paperbark – are known to Western science as “alive”; others, like rock, would be called “non-living”, but rock is there, just the same. Human is there, too, though it is neither the most nor the least important thread – it is one among many, equal with the others. The pattern made the whole is in each thread, and all the threads together make the whole. Stand close to the pattern and you can focus on a single thread ; stand a little further back and you can see how that thread connects to others; stand further back still and you can see it all – and it is only once you see it all that you recognise the pattern of the whole in every individual thread. The whole is more than the sum of its parts, and the whole is in all its parts. This is the pattern that the Ancestors made. It is life, creation, spirit, and it exists in Country” (Kwaymullina, 2005, p. 12).

*Kwaymullina, A. (2005). Seeing the light: Aboriginal law, learning and sustainable living in country. Indigenous Law Bulletin, 6(11), 12-15

For this meeting we had 2 readings:

Braidotti, R. (2009). On putting the active back into activism. New Formations, (68), 42. doi:10.3898/NEWF.68.03.200

Stewart, K. (2010). Worlding refrains. In M. Gregg & G. J. Seigworth (Eds.), The affect theory reader (pp. 337 -353). Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press.

Stewart (2010) Worlding refrains Download

Minor Design Activism(un highlighted)Download

Session note: A great question from last meeting that emerged out of the readings was: What is ‘the second corporeal turn in social theory’ referred to in Taylor and Ivinson (2013, p 666)? This question stemmed from this quote here: “Such moves reinforce earlier feminist theories (Butler 1990; Grosz 1994), and speak back to the second corporeal turn in social theory (e.g. Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992; Foucault 1979; Merleau-Ponty 1962, 1968; Shilling 2008) and within education (Evans, Rich, and Davies 2009; James 2000; Prout 2000; Walkerdine 2009). We indend to discuss this further!

25/07/202027/08/2020

Bicycles help the Pascua Yaqui community fight diabetes

I am always looking for stories where bicycles create positive community change. Inclusive bike-focused programs that support First Nations and minority groups is a special interest for this blog.

Previously, I have posted on programs that increase bike use, access and participation for Indigenous Australians such as:

This week, I came across a US community-based project working at the forefront of 3 critical intersecting issues: diabetes, first nations (Native American community) health and using bicycling to mitigate chronic health issues.

This project works with the Pascua Yaqui people in the US. Obesity and diabetes is a major individual and community health issue in many communities – and the Diabetes Community Empowerment Project is using bicycles to help address this issue. What an awesome project!

Who are they?

This initiative is part of Native Exercise Empowerment Project.

Since 2012, the Diabetes Community Empowerment Project has been working with the Native American community helping them move towards better health. This community sees a high incidence of diabetes and obesity and DCEP empower native people to exercise more and be role models for each other.

The programs work in resource poor communities by removing the barriers between people and the healthier, happier versions of themselves.

Starting out

The project began when James Stout (DCEP Executive Director) was training in Tucson Arizona. At the time, he was making a living as a cyclist. Having spent time riding through the reservation and working with nonprofit outside of the US, he noticed the high rate of diabetes among Native American people and wondered if there was anything he could do to help.

As someone who lives with diabetes, James was motivated to share the joy, and health, he found in riding his bike. Taking a clapped out station wagon and as many old bikes and helmets, as it could fit, James took time out from his PhD I began to work on the reservation in order to better understand the barriers between Native people and better diabetes management.

Although access to medication is an issue in many Native American communities, a lack of access to exercise and education is often equally dangerous. Through working with the healthcare team on the reservation, the program engages people with diabetes and encouraged them to try cycling with the goal of completing a El Tour de Tucson event.

3 years after it started, each of the initial riders have returned to serve as a mentor and bought friends and family with them. By 2016 the project has seen over 100 participants finished their goal event, thousands of pounds have been lost and blood glucose management has seen drastic improvement.

DCEP Mission

To research and implement peer mentored, exercise based lifestyle interventions in resource poor diabetes communities. Focusing on goal events, we aim to use community based education and exercise programs to empower people to live healthier and happier lives as well as to be changemakers in their own communities.

Moving forward

The DCEP website has not been updated in a while, so I hope this project is still ongoing! Even if it is not, the project is a great example of an how bicycles can be used to improve indiviviual and community health and well-being.

It also serves as a reminder that we need a broader, more inclusive methods of providing specialist, community-focused responses to support the needs of First Nations communities and minority groups.

All images and some content of this post sourced from DCEP.

10/07/202010/08/2020

Worlding: Coffee Break (Away)

Why is gender a focus for my bike research? As a female-body working, being and living in the world, how could it not be integral to how I experience the world? It is the only point of reference I have – and even when I am okay with it, others are/might not be okay with it. Here a recent example in 100 words.

While studying with coffee and a muffin, a passing, feeble man tells me to watch what I eat If I want to keep my figure. Aged care fragility meets learned compassion rising. Humanity blooms as I tell him to fuck off – in my thoughts – I think – I hope. The weight of intellect is my principal concern: criticism, expectations, conferral. Momentarily, I invest in frustration and fabrication and feel slightly better. Later, on my bike, I ride even faster. Burning the kms. Burning the candle. Burning the books. Burning the calories. Take that thesis. Take that old man. I ride on.

30/06/202025/08/2020

New Materialisms SIG: Workplace harassment and teacher identity

As long-time readers of this blog know, along with Dr Sherilyn Lennon, I co-convene Griffith University’s New Materialism Special Interest Group (SIG). New Materialisms (NM) is an emerging post-qualitative research approach that has a significant take-up in education, queer and gender studies, environmental science and arts-based disciplines in particular, but is gaining traction more widely as well.

In our last session, we discussed 3 papers and one of the most essential questions plaguing NM: What is ‘new’ about New Materialisms? and then had an awesome presentation by Dr Natalie Lazaroo (Griffith Uni, Theatre Studies).

This month, we had a mix of three stimuli for the discussion. This was followed by a very moving presentation about a project exploring school workplace sexual harassment and the impact on teacher identity.

New Materialisms SIG: Workplace harassment and teacher identity. Bicycles Create Change.com 31st — Image by Franz Marc: Fighting Forms

Presentation: Workplace harassment and teacher identity

Our presenter had just submitted her Griffith EPS Master’s thesis two days before this meeting, so we were very grateful for her time.

In this session, she shared some insights, ‘data’ and narrative moments from her latest research project which was an exploration of sexual harassment on teacher identity.

Now that her Masters had been submitted, the researcher was interested in feedback from the group on what resonates and how she might be able to build the project into a PhD using a New Materialisms lens.

As a starting point, X was keen to explore how the sexual harassment complaint has its own agency.

As always, it was a very generative and thought-provoking session.

The presentation blew up away and gave us much to think about.

We applauded the bravery, resilience and strength that underpinned this work.

This presentation focused on the impact of sexual harassment on teacher identity and, in so doing, opened up conversations around gendered harassment in institutional settings. The aim is to lift the curtain on the unacknowledged, misunderstood and often overlooked. These discussions offer insights into the ways that identity, power and culture interrelate and operate in institutional settings and how to shed light on the gendered nature of workplace harassment from a position that is often silenced. Here, feelings of powerlessness, critical reflexivity, and scholarly reflection were used to interrogate construction of institutionalised norms and examine how language, subjectivity, and power-relations impact on gender.

This session resonated very strongly with SIG members as it honours the insider’s perspective of the social complexities and challenges many women face in institutional workplaces.

It was certainly very moving – and left us all with much to consider – individually and collectively.

New Materialisms Reading/Discussion

For this meeting we had a mix of 3 stimuli.

First was a Taylor & Ivinson’s (2013) editorial for a journal special which was quoted from in the May meeting and flagged for the SIG to follow up. We also had a reading by Gamble, Hanan & Nail (2019) from the last meeting that helps trace the NM origins, epistemological developments and contested space. Lastly, we used a 30 min YouTube video of Iris van de Turin in which she discusses diffractive reading and asks questions about the spatiotemporality of diffractive reading: where and when does diffraction happen in reading processes?

We used the readings and our own knowledge and experiences to explore our central question of: ‘What lines of flight emerge for you?’

We used this key question to pick at the seams of NM and how we can engage with, and apply, New Materialist methodologies. Here is a sneak peak at some of our machinations.

Session resources

Editorial: Taylor, C. A., & Ivinson, G. (2013). Material feminisms: New directions for education. Gender and education 25(6), 995-670.

Reading: Gamble, C. N., Hanan, J. S., & Nail, T. (2019). What Is New Materialism?. Angelaki, 24(6), 111-134.

Youtube Video: Iris van der Tuin – Reading diffractive reading: were and when does diffraction happen?

27/06/202006/08/2020

Pedalling from Courage

As part of my bike PhD, I get to read lots of great bicycle inspired literature. Some of this awesome research includes Mike Lloyd’s bike research on the non-looks of the mobile world, new developments in no-nose saddle research and international projects like Paulus Maringka’s Greencycle Project in NZ.

Some academic publications are a bore to read, but there are the rare few that are accessible and engaging.

Today, I am sharing one that fits that bill. It is a reflection piece in the most recent issue of the Journal of Narrative Politics. It is by Manu Samnotra.

This article includes 7 vignettes, each of which shows various insights into Manu’s Florida bike-university-international lifeworld. I have chosen one particular vignette, to share here, which is the fourth in the paper (pg 62-63) which is the shortest vignette. It was originally presented as a one-paragraph moment. I chose this piece as it is concise, familiar and accessible (clearly written and articulated and not overly theoretical – thank goodness!).

Although it is an academic publication, it is a personal piece that bike riders can relate too. Elsewhere in the article, Manu explores themes or family, mobility, education, immigration/citizenship, friendship, community and more.

Manu’s writing is not at all cumbersome or heavily referenced (which is a unique feature of the Journal of Narrative Politics). I’d recommend checking out the whole article (see below). I have changed the layout of this section to better suit the blog format. Enjoy! NG.

Samnotra, M. (2020). Pedaling from Courage. Journal of Narrative Politics, 6(2).

Get a full copy of this article here

Pedalling from Courage. Bicycles Create Change.com 27th June 2020.

We were on our bicycles on our way to the university, rolling on a path unmarred by borders and hierarchies. We saw two figures in the distance.

Pedaling.

Perhaps we registered its novelty; in this neighborhood where we rarely saw any children, and where there were no cars parked during the day, it was strange to see pedestrians walking in the middle of the street. Whirring. We were discussing what we might cook that night for dinner.

Pedaling.

We hear voices now, distant voices, and there is shouting. The road is much smoother in this part of the ride. Whirring. We exchange glances. As we get closer, we notice that the figures in the distance, getting nearer to us every moment, are not white. The color of their skin became apparent before anything else.

Pedaling.

We see now that one of them is gesticulating. Sticking arms out sideways, questioning.

Pedaling.

We notice now that one of them is a man. We hear his words clearly. He is angry. He is insulting her. Whirring. He is demanding that she stop what she is doing and acknowledge him. A few feet away, and we realize that the woman is walking ahead of the man. Whirring. Her body is stiffened, but not in the way that suggests that they are strangers. Whirring. She is trying to maintain a distance between them. As we are about to cross them, the man stretches forward and punches her. It grazes the back of her head. She stumbles but quickly regains her footing and keeps walking.

Pedaling.

We two cyclists look at each other.

Pedaling.

We are already a block down the path before we realize what we have seen. Whirring. No, that is not right. We know what we saw. Whirring. It just takes us that long to acknowledge what we have seen. She wants to stop pedaling. Our bikes come to skidding halt. She was always braver than me. I tell her not to stop.

Pedaling.

We cover the rest of the distance until we reach the university where we finally consider what we have seen.

Manu Samnotra teaches political theory at the University of South Florida. He can be reached at msamnotra@usf.edu

08/06/202001/06/2021

New Materialisms SIG: Vulcana Circus – Stronghold

New Materialism SIG: Vulcana Women’s Circus - Stronghold. Bicycles Create Change.com 8th June 2020. — Image: Vulcana Circus

Along with Dr Sherilyn Lennon, I co-convene Griffith University’s New Materialism Special Interest Group (SIG). New Materialisms (NM) is an emerging post-qualitative research approach that has a significant take up in education, queer and gender studies, environmental science and arts-based disciplines in particular, but is gaining traction more widely as well.

The aim of this SIG is to provide a supportive space for GIER students, ECRs, mid-career and more senior Academics to explore, discuss, experiment and share complex and emerging post-qualitative ideas, methods and approaches.

Our SIG meets once a month and we have over 30 members Australia-wide. For the first 2020 session, I presented some of my African bicycle fieldwork. But then COVID-19 lockdown happened, so we had a month break. This is our first session back – and we were all delighted to be back in action again!

For this session, we discussed 3 papers and one of the most essential questions plaguing NM What is ‘new’ about New Materialisms? and then had a presentation by Dr Natalie Lazaroo (Griffith Uni, Theatre Studies).

The Readings

The first two papers (Monforte, 2018; Banerjee & Blaise, 2013) are advocating for NM as a new way of thinking about research and the other one is pushing back saying it’s all been done before and there is nothing new to see here (Petersen, 2018).

For this SIG we had 3 readings

Monforte, J. (2018). What is new in new materialism for a newcomer? Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 10(3), 378-390.
Banerjee, B., & Blaise, M. (2013). There’s something in the air: Becoming-with research practices. Cultural Studies – Critical Methodologies, 13(4), 240-245. doi:10.1177/1532708613487867
Petersen, E. B. (2018). ‘Data found us’: A critique of some new materialist tropes in educational research. Research in Education, 101(1), 5-16. doi:10.1177/0034523718792161

In the session, we provide a spectrum: on one end ‘nothing new’ and on the other end ‘everything is new’

We invited participants to take a position on this spectrum and be ready to justify your answer/position. People could positions themselves into a any camp. And once people had contributed their ideas to the spectrum, we talked about the positions and the reasons why we had taken that stance. We used the readings to inform our opinions, ideas from elsewhere/other scholars, experience and other ideas to help explain why we chose that point and to better understand where other people were currently positioned.

The aim of this discussion was to plumb what’s new about NM and see what makes sense to the group.

Following this discussion, we had a presentation from Dr Natalie Lazaroo.

Dr Natalie Lazaroo – Vulcana Circus: Stronghold

In this session, Dr Lazaroo returned to her PhD work (two years ago) to untangle the mess to make new discoveries. She reflected on her early methodology and locates a poem titles ‘Expressions of longing’ which she wrote in response to NM SIG provocations.

This return poem captures the essence of articulations that emerged during her artistic collaboration over a 4-month period of fieldwork with Vulcana Women’s Circus to create a community performance called Stronghold, which involved people with disabilities.

Natalie’s presentation was a real highlight – hearing about her work and research highlighted many NM tensions and opportunities. The group was blown away when she shared her poem which was evocative, agential and very moving. The conversation that followed was interesting, insightful and unexpected.

We all left this session deep in thought about these NM approaches might relate to our own work and in awe of the amazing work Natalie and Vulcana does.

I can’t wait to see more from both!

Stronghold

Stonghold was a project run in conjunction with Horizons Respite and Vulcana Women’s Circus. This partnership 16-week workshop program culminated with a final performance called Stronghold which engaged 10 Access Arts members. During this project, participants had the opportunity to learn skills puppetry, performance, circus and theatre. Stronghold was performed as part of Access Arts 30th Anniversary celebration at Brisbane Powerhouse.

Vulcana

Vulcana is a Brisbane-based circus that was established in 1995 to counter a major discrepancy between women’ and men’s experience of circus, both in training and in the expectation of how and what they perform. Vulcana now welcomes women, trans and non-binary gendered adults, kids and teens of all genders, to its inclusive circus training, performance making projects, and community engagement programs. It is an incubator for new, emerging and professional artists who have developed their passion as practitioners, performers and teachers in this art form that offers everybody a place to explore their uniqueness and their creativity.  Vulcana respects diversity and the feminist principles of equity and inclusion which are central to all our work and the starting point for engagement with students, participants, communities and artists.

04/05/202013/11/2020

Worlding: Research Da(y)ze

People keep asking how my PhD is going. It’s a legitimate and infuriating inquiry. How to explain the research da(y)ze? Here’s one in 100 words.

It was never going to be easy: this spinning hyper-real simulacra imaginarium. Breathe in. Passionate tears during compost therapy. Breathe out. A research assistant job comes through. Vegetarian dumplings. Whispers of theoretical (in)security. Omissions, occlusions, occasions. Frangipani’s first buds. A maelstrom of attunement as I grip my red pen. Personifying landscapes, fast-forwarding childhoods, (re)working images, terraforming heartbreaks. Screaming all the while. Riding wild horses. An unoriginal miscellany. Embolden by Kathleen Stewart and my broadcasting sister’s birthday, I take solace in Manu’s grey bicycle T-shirt. Cheers all round. When all else fails, winter dog walks and melted cheese toasties.

01/04/202023/12/2021

New Materialism SIG: My bicycles-for-education PhD fieldwork presentation

Note: the first 2020 NM SIG gathering was held before COVID-19 social distancing and workplace lockdown came into effect – hence us meeting in person.

As many of you know, I am the co-convenor of a New Materialism Special Interest Group (SIG) at Griffith’s Institute for Educational Research (GIER). Each month a group of HDR candidates, Early Career Researchers and Academics meet to explore, discuss, experiment and share complex and emerging post-qualitative ideas, methods and approaches.

New Materialism is the framing I am using for my African girls’ bicycles-for-education PhD Project. To kick off the first SIG for 2020, I presented my African fieldwork.

I’ve had a few people contact me asking how the trip went. Below is a snapshot of my bicycle PhD project, the context and what I did during my PhD fieldwork in Lunsar, Sierra Leone.

Here’s some highlights of my fieldwork presentation (more details in slides below).

Opening: An Acknowledgement of Country, Diversity and Inclusion and that Matter Matters and thanks to the local Lunsar chiefs and the amazing people who have been instrumental in helping make this project happen.
Researcher positionality: Who am I and how did I come to this project
Research context background : 5 intersections of Girls unfreedoms
Girls Ed Lit Review: Current directions in NGO Literature on the topic
Establish Space: Key Project that opens up my research space – completed in 2010
Confirm & Extend: Follow up – a specific project on girls bicycle projects in Lunsar – completed 2016
Established gap leads into my research questions (no slide for this = top secret!)
My Study Design: Aims, Methodology and theoretical framing (NM)
Fieldwork details: Tech Matters and other research developments/considerations
Country context: Background to Sierra Leone (very general history & context)
Site Location: Background and context about Lunsar (my fieldwork location)
Research partnership case study: Intro to Village Bicycle Project (organization) Stylish (host/research participant/all-round incredible man!)
Fieldwork ‘Data’: list of all the research data/activities achieved (so busy!) and other events, opportunities and visits – so busy!
Present some ‘Data‘: I showed some fieldwork bike ride footage for discussion (no slide – top secret)
The return: Now I have returned, I outlined my next steps and questioned how/what to do to start ‘data analysis’
Q&A: Open discussion and suggestions on entry points for data analysis using NM approaches.

Aside from being able to share my fieldwork experiences with others, it was also great to get stuck into some rigorous academic discussions and come away with a number of productive and tangible ideas to apply for data analysis.

Most satisfying of all though, was seeing how interested people are in Sierra Leone and having the opportunity to promote and celebrate the beautiful people, places and experiences I had there.

11/03/202013/01/2022

Celebrating Isata Sama Mondeh – IWD 2020

Celebrating Isata Sama Mondeh

A central theme for International Women’s Day (IWD) 2020 is celebrating women athletes and increasing their visibility.

For this year’s International Women’s Day, I’d like to introduce you to Isata Sama Mondeh.

I met Isata while in Sierra Leone in February doing PhD Fieldwork.

I was keen to meet Isata because not only is she Sierra Leone’s long-standing National Elite Women’s Champion – but she is also the first-ever female bike mechanic in Sierra Leone AND the first female bike mechanic to run their own bike shop. OMG!

Isata learned bike mechanics and shop management through Village Bicycle Project.

I travelled out to Makeni (Bombali District) where Isata is based to meet her and see the shop. We hit it off and ended up seeing each other a few times after that, including going for a (long!) ride together – which was a real highlight for me.

I was humbled and inspired to hear how she got into bikes and how she is trying to get more females riding bikes.

Isata Sisters Bike Shop

Her business is complementary to her riding. Asa Sierra Leone’s first female mechanic, she is breaking stereotypes and working hard to build up a business that might support her and her family. Just as she was initially helped by Village Bicycle Project to get started, Isata is also paying it forward. She has trained up another female mechanic (who Isata mentored) who also now has her own shop – the second female-owned bike shop, as well.

Isata is 26 and has had her Makeni bike shop business ‘Istata’s Sister Shop’ for three years now. She was able to start the workshop due to a microcredit scheme and in collaboration with Village Bicycle Project.

How did she get into bikes?

When Istata was in school, she would rent other kids bikes to learn how to ride. Despite having no bike of her own, she was talent scouted at a local high school sports carnival when a coach saw her in a bike race. He was impressed by her natural ability and speed – and wanted to see more.

And so she started racing. This was a lonely and unforgiving time, but it did give her valuable experience. In her first race, she was the only female. In her second race, there were three females and she came 2nd. In her third race, she was (again) the only female riding against 18 males – and she finished 10th overall. People started to notice her results and consistency.

She made it onto the National team and has never looked back. She has been the National Elite Female champion since 2006.

Overcoming negative cultural beliefs.

When she rides, Istata is challenging long-held local cultural beliefs that riding a bike is taboo for females. Many still believe that if a female rides a bike, they won’t be able to have a baby. This belief has prevented many girls from taking up riding.

When she first started riding, it was a concern that Isata herself had to face.

Isata loves riding, but was remaindered continuously by others that riding was not for women.

It was a problematic mind-trap to shake.

She found it hard to fully believe it, especially as she already had a ten-year-old son. So she had an inkling that those old views were not correct – but they were so prevalent and so constant!

It was only when a friend showed Isata profiles of some of the UK’s top elite female track and race cyclists who have children. This was all the convincing Isata needed.

Bravely, Isata is a very positive role model to encourage other females to get into cycling. She convincingly uses her experience as evidence when she talks to girls, families and community members and she addresses traditional cultural view head-on. She uses the fact that she has a 10-year-old son and a bike business to challenge limiting local beliefs about girls and bikes.

But for females, riding bikes in Sierra Leone is hard.

The most challenging thing for the female riders is that they don’t have bikes. Isata is the only female rider in Makeni who has a bike. She and the other female riders don’t have sponsors so cannot afford to buy the bikes they need. To this end, Isata continues to work tirelessly.

Isata – we celebrate you!

Isata loves her bike and loves her bike mechanic business. Despite great adversity, she is doing all she can to promote women’s cycling in Sierra Leone.

For these (and many other reasons), I’d like to acknowledge and celebrate Isata this IWB 2020. She is the epitome of all that IWD stands for and a fantastic role model for us all.

We wish you the best of luck – both on and off the bike!

If you would like to contact or support Isata, her bike shop or her riding – please email Nina via the contacts page to be put in touch.