par Pelgrims, Claire
Référence EASA AnthroMob Workshop "Feeling on the Move: (Im)mobilities, Embodiment and Emotions (11-12 September: The Hague)
Publication Non publié, 2025-09-11
Communication à un colloque
Résumé : Cycling transforms our relationship with the world. The affective and sensory connection to cycling infrastructure and the environment is characterised by a tension between paradoxical values, traditionally associated with socially constructed gender categories: (1) modern emancipation (individualist, conquering) and (2) environmental consciousness (care and attention extending not only to oneself but also to the vulnerability of others, animals and vegetal species) (Pelgrims 2025). Utilitarian cycling practices also evoke specific pleasures and displeasures in the interaction between the cyclist’s body and the bicycle, resulting from play, physical performance, and movement quality for instance. The purpose of this communication is to refine this understanding by focussing on the impact of accompanying children on the pleasures and displeasures associated with daily cycling. Escorting mobilities crystallize risks related to bodily integrity and gender and family roles. Transporting children involves a heightened sense of responsibility. Cyclists mediate feelings of insecurity differently through their choices of equipment (bicycles, accessories, clothing and protective gear), which are central to debates about new forms and norms of “good parenting”. This renewed attention to the environment and these equipment choices specifically impact the pleasures and displeasures of cycling. This communication is based on biographical and ride-along interviews with 13 daily cyclists in the East of Paris, complemented by a mobile video-ethnography of gendered equipment and positioning choices on bicycles of cyclists in various cities in Belgium, France and Switzerland, and in-depth interviews with key informants about gendered equipment choices in those cities.

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