In the opposite lane: How Women of Colour experience, negotiate and apply an oppositional gaze to dominant cycling discourses

In a cultural context dominated by the car, cyclists are often marginalized. For Women of Color, this marginalization may be heightened and help to reinforce often already low cycling rates. This paper is the first to pair hooks’ concept of the ‘oppositional gaze’ with Hall’s theories of representation and reception to explore how dominant discourses around cycling, gender and race shape the experience of UK Women of Color who cycle. Using go-along interviews with cycling influencers and advocates who are also Women of Color, it provides space for counternarratives that can challenge dominant discourses about cycling. Borrowing the concept of ‘oppositional gaze,’ the authors examine the agency of those whose cycling experience is simultaneously shaped by both hypervisibility and invisibility on the road as in the broader cultural and policy contexts. The authors find that masculine sporty representations in cycling in the UK have material effects on the experience of cycling for women. Women of Color must constantly negotiate these and other representations that do not fit them easily, sometimes claiming and sometimes challenging aspects of dominant discourses. Despite a small sample size and diverse locations, the insights offered by the research can help policymakers in similar cultural contexts start to build on existing diverse cycling experiences to create more inclusive cycling futures.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2023.100828
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198223000751
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/25901982
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Pedroso, Dulce
  • 0009-0005-5201-2315
  • Aldred, Rachel
• Publication Date: 2023-5

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: 100828
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives
  • Volume: 19
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 2590-1982
  • Serial URL: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/transportation-research-interdisciplinary-perspectives
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycling; Ethnic groups; Females; Mode choice; Social factors
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01882354
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 22 2023 1:28PM