Beyond utilitarian mobilities: cycling senses and the subversion of the car system

Popan, Cosmin (2020) Beyond utilitarian mobilities: cycling senses and the subversion of the car system. Applied Mobilities, 5 (3). pp. 289-305. ISSN 2380-0127

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Abstract

Increasing concerns regarding congestion, pollution and health have warranted a renewed interest in cycling as alternative mobility. Yet, in revising the role of the bicycle as legitimate transportation, policy documents and academic literature have paid less attention to how cycling is different from the sensory engagement through the car, public transport, or walking. This article uses sensuous and video ethnographies of cycling in London and Lancaster (UK) to present cycling as a distinctly embodied practice. By investigating the cycling senses and how its technologies and materialities shape the mobile experience, the article contributes to the critiques of urban movement narrowly understood as utilitarian and instrumental. At a time when transition to low-carbon transport systems is critical and when automated driving futures appear imminent, this article argues for the pervasive centrality of the body in everyday urban mobilities.