par Pelgrims, Claire 
Référence Global Mobility Humanities Conference and Annual Conference of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobilities (21: 25-28 October: Konkuk University, Seoul)
Publication Non publié, 2023-10-27
Référence Global Mobility Humanities Conference and Annual Conference of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobilities (21: 25-28 October: Konkuk University, Seoul)
Publication Non publié, 2023-10-27
Communication à un colloque
| Résumé : | This paper is an investigation of the potential of cycling infrastructure design to increase the sentient capacities and the ambient sensibility of mobile actors. Utilitarian cycling practices trigger specific pleasure and displeasure in the interaction between body and bike or more widely with the environment -resulting from reduced stress, excitement of danger, transgression, play, physical performance, movement quality, enchanting experience of nature, …- which have ethical fruitage. Initial observations during ride-along interviews conducted with regular utilitarian cyclists in Paris Region in France will help unveil the renewed aesthetical relationships and affective resonance to cycling infrastructure. This relationship is underlain by a tension between paradoxical values, traditionally associated with social constructions of differentiated gender categories, of (1) modern emancipation (individualist, conquering, ‘masculine’) and (2) environmental consciousness (‘feminine’: care and attention to the vulnerability of others, herself, and animal and vegetal species). Firstly, the paper discusses how cycling transforms our relationship to the world and intensify both the aesthetical experience of movement assimilated with personal freedom, and the sensory experience of the environment and its intrinsic fragility in the context of climate crisis, therefore opening up a third way to resonate with mobility infrastructure. Secondly, it addresses how the velomobility differs from other alternative mobility enacted by a larger group (such as walking) and how it impacts broader use of public space. On the one hand, cycling is one way for marginalised people to make a claim on public space. On the other hand, regular cyclists are a minority group, belonging to (elites) subcultures that appear to be less affected by traditional gender role norms. This paper describes how, through the tension induced by its specific aesthetic experiences with dominant gender norms, cycling infrastructure is also a vehicle for gender equity and sustainable cities at system-level. |
