Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SENCyclo (Gender and Bicycling Aesthetics: the potentiel for the sustainable city of gender construction processes across cycling practices, equipment and infrastructure.)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-01-01 al 2023-12-31
Since its invention, the bicycle has been presented as a disruptive force, threatening the normative framework of gender roles and identities. Yet there is still a gender gap in cycling, which is not taken into account in public policies to promote cycling in Europe. To explain this differential, the literature has highlighted the gendered socialisations to risk and mobility patterns linked to the sharing of domestic tasks within households. However, little attention has been paid to the experience of the body, the materiality and the sensitive dimension of cycling equipment, accessories and infrastructure, around which gender is constructed.
The originality of this research lies in taking seriously the aesthetic experience of cycling, linking corporeal sensitivity and affectivity, and studying its impact on gender construction processes. The aesthetical approaches are indeed essential as the success of sustainable policies requires a transition from convictions to spontaneous, habitual practices. Recent research has shown that the aesthetical experience (dis|pleasure, sensibility to ambient qualities and affective investments in the objects and the practices) has a great importance in the continual transformation processes of cycle practices, equipment and infrastructure.
Four case studies of cities at different levels of deployment of cycling policies - Grenoble, Montreuil, Strasbourg and Lausanne - help confirm the main hypothesis of an impact on the aesthetic dimension of cycling on the current construction of gender at the level of the body and cycling objects, and at the level of infrastructure, and to investigate the role of gender stereotypes in the recognition of cycling as a sustainable practice. This is important as the deconstruction of the unequal political categories of gender constitutes an important step towards the development of more systemically sustainable cities. As the bicycle now becomes an ordinary materiality of sustainability, better understanding of the gendering processes across cycling and their potential for the sustainable mobility transition is even more crucial. It also participates in the effort to overcome the curiously immaterial and disembodied conceptions of sustainability.
The originality of this research lies in taking seriously the aesthetic experience of cycling, linking corporeal sensitivity and affectivity, and studying its impact on gender construction processes. The aesthetical approaches are indeed essential as the success of sustainable policies requires a transition from convictions to spontaneous, habitual practices. Recent research has shown that the aesthetical experience (dis|pleasure, sensibility to ambient qualities and affective investments in the objects and the practices) has a great importance in the continual transformation processes of cycle practices, equipment and infrastructure.
Four case studies of cities at different levels of deployment of cycling policies - Grenoble, Montreuil, Strasbourg and Lausanne - help confirm the main hypothesis of an impact on the aesthetic dimension of cycling on the current construction of gender at the level of the body and cycling objects, and at the level of infrastructure, and to investigate the role of gender stereotypes in the recognition of cycling as a sustainable practice. This is important as the deconstruction of the unequal political categories of gender constitutes an important step towards the development of more systemically sustainable cities. As the bicycle now becomes an ordinary materiality of sustainability, better understanding of the gendering processes across cycling and their potential for the sustainable mobility transition is even more crucial. It also participates in the effort to overcome the curiously immaterial and disembodied conceptions of sustainability.
An analysis of the evolution of equipment and the corporeal relationship to cycling over 25 years was carried out within a corpus of French and Swiss specialised magazines. This enabled us to grasp the different interfaces at which the aesthetic relationship between body and bike is constructed, and to prepare an interview grid for the 27 interviews with the resource person, which helped to nuance these developments at a local level. Mobile video-ethnography was then used to observe the equipment choices and positioning of over 1,300 cyclists, enabling an in-depth ethnographic analysis and the counting of a series of visual indicators for a statistical analysis of these different local scenes in which the players interact and together define local equipment norms.
These equipment choices are linked to specific contexts, but are also the subject of socialisation between peers. Local equipment standards are marked by fashion effects and aesthetic communities, and are adopted differently by individuals depending on their resources and ways within equipment trajectories. These norms are also differentiated by gender. In particular, the results highlight the persistence of binary stereotypes in the equipment choices of cyclists in all case studies. Cycling objects thus become indicators of gender identity, adopted un/consciously in relation to this expression of gender, which reinforces binary stereotypes, but above all have an impact on the sensitive experience of cycling and the transformation of bodies. Disparities can nevertheless be observed between cities: attachment to a piece of equipment in a gendered performance is itself shaped differently by local norms, particularly in relation to the valorisation of sport and leisure practices. The results also highlight how young people's affective attachment to certain types of 'vintage' bike can lead to the production of new equipment norms that break with the dominant gender order. These results were then confirmed by interviews with 13 cyclists in eastern Paris.
An analysis of the transnational evolution over 30 years of the recommendations for the design of cycle infrastructure, as well as interviews with people involved in this evolution, highlighted the gradual taking into account of a diversity of cyclists and practices, but also the changing expectations in terms of safety, sociability, body exposure and aesthetic experience that motivate it.
The 12 ride-along interviews with 9 daily cyclists in eastern Paris highlight how important it is to look at the aesthetical relationship to mobility infrastructure and the experienced world and unravel their gendered dimension in terms of values. These relationships are underlain by a tension between paradoxical values of (1) modern emancipation and (2) environmental consciousness. The latter helps build an understanding of the environment in the way it affects the health and quality of life of those within it. Through this tension, a reordering of these values opens a third way to resonate with mobility infrastructure, intensifying the aesthetical experience of movement assimilated with emancipation through the sensorial experience of the environment.
Finally, the interviews with 13 cyclists in eastern Paris did not confirm the positive impact of daily cycling on the use of public space in general. The interviews and focus groups held during the sessions to present the results with the people in charge of cycling policies and local associations highlighted the interest shown by local authorities in these issues, but the limited resources that can be allocated to them in a context where policies to promote cycling are underfunded.
On top of presentation to local stakeholders and cycling organisation at national and local levels, the project results were disseminated in international conference, workshop and seminars, and in local press articles and a podcast. The publication of the research papers will be accompanied by press release.
These equipment choices are linked to specific contexts, but are also the subject of socialisation between peers. Local equipment standards are marked by fashion effects and aesthetic communities, and are adopted differently by individuals depending on their resources and ways within equipment trajectories. These norms are also differentiated by gender. In particular, the results highlight the persistence of binary stereotypes in the equipment choices of cyclists in all case studies. Cycling objects thus become indicators of gender identity, adopted un/consciously in relation to this expression of gender, which reinforces binary stereotypes, but above all have an impact on the sensitive experience of cycling and the transformation of bodies. Disparities can nevertheless be observed between cities: attachment to a piece of equipment in a gendered performance is itself shaped differently by local norms, particularly in relation to the valorisation of sport and leisure practices. The results also highlight how young people's affective attachment to certain types of 'vintage' bike can lead to the production of new equipment norms that break with the dominant gender order. These results were then confirmed by interviews with 13 cyclists in eastern Paris.
An analysis of the transnational evolution over 30 years of the recommendations for the design of cycle infrastructure, as well as interviews with people involved in this evolution, highlighted the gradual taking into account of a diversity of cyclists and practices, but also the changing expectations in terms of safety, sociability, body exposure and aesthetic experience that motivate it.
The 12 ride-along interviews with 9 daily cyclists in eastern Paris highlight how important it is to look at the aesthetical relationship to mobility infrastructure and the experienced world and unravel their gendered dimension in terms of values. These relationships are underlain by a tension between paradoxical values of (1) modern emancipation and (2) environmental consciousness. The latter helps build an understanding of the environment in the way it affects the health and quality of life of those within it. Through this tension, a reordering of these values opens a third way to resonate with mobility infrastructure, intensifying the aesthetical experience of movement assimilated with emancipation through the sensorial experience of the environment.
Finally, the interviews with 13 cyclists in eastern Paris did not confirm the positive impact of daily cycling on the use of public space in general. The interviews and focus groups held during the sessions to present the results with the people in charge of cycling policies and local associations highlighted the interest shown by local authorities in these issues, but the limited resources that can be allocated to them in a context where policies to promote cycling are underfunded.
On top of presentation to local stakeholders and cycling organisation at national and local levels, the project results were disseminated in international conference, workshop and seminars, and in local press articles and a podcast. The publication of the research papers will be accompanied by press release.
The mobility transition offers a unique opportunity to investigate how gender and mobility influence each other in profound and often subtle ways. The research developed an original comparative and multi-scale approach to investigate multiple cycling materialities. The development of scientific expertise on alternative mobility with a focus on the aesthetic dimension of mobility is essential for good governance of transport and mobility policies which are at the core of the transition in urban and rural areas to sustainable and desirable lifestyles.
It will help professionals to pay attention to aesthetical relationships and avoid the pitfalls of neoclassical approach to transport infrastructure or the counter-productive effect of reinforcing gender stereotypes in the promotion of cycling.
In the longer term, this will lead to new expectations for society about the social order and gender inclusivity. The deconstruction of dominant approaches to mobility, which are part of a gendered relationship of domination, will reduce gender inequalities and hence contribute to more systemically sustainable cities.
It will help professionals to pay attention to aesthetical relationships and avoid the pitfalls of neoclassical approach to transport infrastructure or the counter-productive effect of reinforcing gender stereotypes in the promotion of cycling.
In the longer term, this will lead to new expectations for society about the social order and gender inclusivity. The deconstruction of dominant approaches to mobility, which are part of a gendered relationship of domination, will reduce gender inequalities and hence contribute to more systemically sustainable cities.