Worlding cycling: an anthropological agenda for urban cycling research

Author(s)

Sanderien Verstappen

Abstract

This article carves out a role for anthropologists in cycling research and develops the outlines of a research agenda for urban cycling in the discipline of anthropology. Recently, scholars of urban cycling have questioned the predominant focus on renowned European cycling cities, cautioning against the danger of universalising European experiences in cycling research, and proposing to instead start worlding cycling research. The term worlding is used to describe the aim of theorizing from the global South as an alter-native to the idea that European theories are universal. I respond to this call from the perspective of anthropology; a discipline that has developed frameworks, methods, and findings that challenge Eurocentric universalism and centralise the experiences of the glo-bal South. I suggest that anthropologists can support the project of worlding cycling research and in its turn, that cycling research may be an original pathway for conducting fundamental research in anthropology. To realise this mutual potential, what is needed is a transformation of both cycling research and anthropology: on the one hand the critical rethinking of some of the hierarchies of expertise presumed in cycling research, and on the other hand a transformation of some long-established methodological practices in anthropology.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Journal

Urban, Planning and Transport Research

Volume

11

No. of pages

14

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/21650020.2023.2264360

Publication date

2023

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

504017 Cultural anthropology, 507027 Sustainable urban development, 507025 Transport planning

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Geography, Planning and Development, Transportation, Urban Studies

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/f7b38e71-14f2-4e6c-b8e3-db3c0a484f9a