Cycling And Society

How can the social sciences help us to understand the past, present and potential futures of cycling? This timely international and interdisciplinary collection addresses this question, discussing shifts in cycling practices and attitudes, and opening up important critical spaces for thinking about the prospects for cycling. The book brings together, for the first time, analyses of cycling from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, sociology, geography, planning, engineering and technology. The book redresses the past neglect of cycling as a topic for sustained analysis by treating it as a varied and complex practice which matters greatly to contemporary social, cultural and political theory and action. Cycling and Society demonstrates the incredible diversity of contemporary cycling, both within and across cultures. With cycling increasingly promoted as a solution to numerous social problems across a wide range of policy areas in car-dominated societies, this book helps to open up a new field of cycling studies.

How can the social sciences help us to understand the past, present and potential futures of cycling? This timely international and interdisciplinary collection addresses this question, discussing shifts in cycling practices and attitudes, and opening up important critical spaces for thinking about the prospects for cycling. The book brings together, for the first time, analyses of cycling from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including history, sociology, geography, planning, engineering and technology. The book redresses the past neglect of cycling as a topic for sustained analysis by treating it as a varied and complex practice which matters greatly to contemporary social, cultural and political theory and action. Cycling and Society demonstrates the incredible diversity of contemporary cycling, both within and across cultures. With cycling increasingly promoted as a solution to numerous social problems across a wide range of policy areas in car-dominated societies, this book helps to open up a new field of cycling studies.

This book examines emerging debates and questions around cycling to critically analyse and challenge dominant framings and prevalent conventions of ‘good cycling’. Cycling Societies brings to light the plurality of voices and forms of cycling in other societies, revealing the diversity and complexity of cycling across different socio-political regimes, geographies and cultures. It presents case studies from five continents and demonstrates the need of thinking comparatively about cycling and urban environments. The book pivots around the three themes of innovations, inequalities and governance and engages a diversity of voices: world-renowned academics in the field of cycling and urban mobility, cycling activists and transportation consultants. Synthesising academic contributions with policy briefs, this innovative book will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners of sustainable transportation, urban planning and mobility studies.

Cycling: A Sociology of Vélomobility explores cycling as a sociological phenomenon. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, it considers the interaction of materials, competencies and meanings that comprise a variety of cycling practices. What might appear at first to be self-evident actions are shown to be constructed through the interplay of numerous social and political forces. Using a theoretical framework from mobilities studies, its central themes respond to the question of what it is about cycling that provokes so much interest and passion, both positive and negative. Individual chapters consider how cycling has appeared as theme and illustration in social theory, as well as the legacies of these theorizations. The book expands on the image of cycling practices as the product of an assemblage of technology, rider and environment. Riding spaces as material technologies are found to be as important as the machinery of the cycle, and a distinction is made between routes and rides to help interpret aspects of journey-making. Ideas of both affordance and script are used to explore how elements interact in performance to create sensory and experiential scapes. Consideration is also given to the changing identities of cycling practices in historical and geographical perspective. The book adds to existing research by extending the theorization of cycling mobilities. It engages with both current and past debates on the place of cycling in mobility systems and the problems of researching, analyzing and communicating ephemeral mobile experiences.

Technology has long been an essential consideration in public discussions of the environment, with the focus overwhelmingly on creating new tools and techniques. In more recent years, however, activists, researchers, and policymakers have increasingly turned to mobilizing older technologies in their pursuit of sustainability. In fascinating case studies ranging from the Early Modern secondhand trade to utopian visions of human-powered vehicles, the contributions gathered here explore the historical fortunes of two such technologies—bicycling and waste recycling—tracing their development over time and providing valuable context for the policy successes and failures of today.

A unique exploration of the history of the bicycle in cinema, from Hollywood blockbusters and slapstick comedies to documentaries, realist dramas, and experimental films. Cycling and Cinema explores the history of the bicycle in cinema from the late nineteenth century through to the present day. In this new book from Goldsmiths Press, Bruce Bennett examines a wide variety of films from around the world, ranging from Hollywood blockbusters and slapstick comedies to documentaries, realist dramas, and experimental films, to consider the complex, shifting cultural significance of the bicycle. The bicycle is an everyday technology, but in examining the ways in which bicycles are used in films, Bennett reveals the rich social and cultural importance of this apparently unremarkable machine. The cinematic bicycles discussed in this book have various functions. They are the source of absurd comedy in silent films, and the vehicles that allow their owners to work in sports films and social realist cinema. They are a means of independence and escape for children in melodramas and kids' films, and the tools that offer political agency and freedom to women, as depicted in films from around the world. In recounting the cinematic history of the bicycle, Bennett reminds us that this machine is not just a practical means of transport or a child's toy, but the vehicle for a wide range of meanings concerning individual identity, social class, nationhood and belonging, family, gender, and sexuality and pleasure. As this book shows, two hundred years on from its invention, the bicycle is a revolutionary technology that retains the power to transform the world.

Promoting walking and cycling proposes solutions to one of the most pressing problems in contemporary British transport planning. The need to develop more sustainable urban mobility lies at the heart of energy and environmental policies and has major implications for the planning of cities and for the structure of economy and society. However, most people feel either unable or unwilling to incorporate travel on foot or by bike into their everyday journeys. This book uses innovative quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine in depth, and in an international and historical context, why so many people fail to travel in ways that are deemed by most to be desirable. It proposes evidence-based policy solutions that could increase levels of walking and cycling substantially. This book is essential reading for planners and policy makers developing and implementing transport policies at both national and local levels, plus researchers and students in the field of mobility, transport, sustainability and urban planning.

The story of Italian cycling is the story of Italy in the twentieth century.